The 𝕴UK will drop Portugal from its safe travel list on Tuesday over rising coronavirus cases and fears of a new “Nepal mutation.”
Britain is moving Portugal from “green” to “amber” on its color-coded list of travel restrictions — meaning travelers will now have to isolate for 10 days when returning to the country.
“I want to be straight with people,” Transport Secretary Grant Schapps said in a video broadcast ꩵThursday.
“It’s actually a di🐲fficult decision to make, but in the end we’ve seen two things really which would cause concern.”
“One is the positiv🤪e rate has nearly doubled since 💯the last review in Portugal,” Schapps added.
“And the other is there’s this sort꧒ of Nepal mutation of the so-called Indian variant which has been detected, and we just don’t know the potential for that to be a vaccine-defeating mutation.”
Portugal, including islands Madeira and the Azores, is a top holiday spot for Britons — and it has been on the green list since May. The amber designation means the government says residents should not vacation there.
Other amber countries include France, Spain — and the US.
The World Health Organization tweeted ﷽on Thursday it “was not aware of any new variant” detected in Nepal. The organization generally avoids identifying strains by countries where they’re first detected to avoid creating a stigma, the Guardian reported.
But Public Health England (PHE) it was aware of reports linking an additional mutation K417N to what the WHO calls the Delta variant — the most dominant variant in Nepal.
“This variant is present in multiple countries including a small number of cases in the UK, detected through rapid testing and whole genome sequencing,” PHE said, according to the BBC.
“We are investigating K417N to better understand its significance.”
