Mandatory Quarantine for Austrians Travelling to United Kingdom and Norway

Lifestyle & TravelHealth ♦ Published: August 21, 2020; 13:47 ♦ (Vindobona)

The United Kingdom and Norway introduced a travel warning for Austria which leads to a mandatory quarantine for people coming from Austria. Both countries are thus reacting on the highly increasing numbers of infections in Austria.

Travellers from Austria face now a 14 day quarantine when arriving in UK. / Picture: © Flickr / Guillaume Baviere / [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)]

The British transport minister Grant Shapps posted yesterday, August 20, on twitter that Austrian travellers arriving in the country after Saturday, August 22, 4am have to self-isolate them for 14 days. Also, for Croatia and the Caribbean states Trinidad and Tobago a travel warning was announced.

Minister Shapps also appealed to the British people that they should be aware of the risk that the government can announce travel warnings also for other countries at any time and that returning travellers may have to self-isolate them then.

However, other countries like Portugal were announced to be safe and travellers from there are again allowed to freely travel to the United Kingdom.

It is very important to note that the different states of Great Britain have their own Coronavirus regulations and therefore the list of travel warnings can vary from region to region.

Also, Norway announced yesterday a travel warning for Austria with a mandatory self-isolation of 10 days from this Saturday, August 22, on. They also restricted travellers from Great Britain, Ireland, Greece and from Copenhagen, the Danish capital city.

When a country has more than 20 persons infected in 100,000 habitants, Norway introduces a travel warning. Therefore, also France, Poland, Switzerland and Spain are on the list of restricted countries.

Norway implemented very strict Coronavirus regulations with a major focus on border controls from March on. Nevertheless, in June it started to ease the restrictions but with increasing COVID-19 cases all over Europe it shuts down its border again more.