British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has on Friday said the country will close all travel corridors from Monday as part of efforts to curb the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
According to BBC, travel corridors were introduced in the summer to allow people travelling from some countries with low numbers of COVID-19 cases to come to the UK without having to quarantine on arrival.
The closure now means anyone flying into the country from overseas will have to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test before setting off.
UK has been one of the hardest-hit countries by the pandemic, with over 84,000 people already dead.
The prime minister warned that National Health Service was facing “extraordinary pressures“, having had the highest number of hospital admissions on a single day of the pandemic earlier this week.
On Tuesday there were 4,134 new admissions, and the UK currently has more than 37,000 COVID-19 patients in hospitals.
Johnson said that once the most vulnerable have been vaccinated by mid-February “we will think about what steps we could take to lift the restrictions“.
England is currently under a national lockdown, meaning people must stay at home and can go out only for limited reasons such as food shopping, exercise, or work if they cannot do so from home.
The government imposed partial lockdowns on England in November as the government raced to curb spiking infections, while there were also restrictions in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
Meanwhile, restrictions continue to cost the UK economy. The economy slumped 2.6 percent in November on coronavirus restrictions, official data showed Friday, stoking fears that the current virus lockdown could spark a double-dip recession.
