Poland tightens COVID quarantine rules for travellers from Britain

WARSAW (Reuters) -Poland is introducing a mandatory seven-day quarantine for all travellers from Britain in a bid to curb the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

Britain is currently seeing a rise in cases due to the more contagious Delta variant, which was first identified in India.

"The decisions made on quarantine for travelers arriving from Great Britain are intended to reduce the risk of transmission of the Delta coronavirus variant from the endangered area," Health Minister Adam Niedzielski was quoted as saying by state news agency PAP.

"We must take care of our citizens and their security."

Health Ministry spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz said that as of Wednesday, travellers from Britain would be obliged to spend seven days in quarantine even if they had a negative test result before arrival. They would then be required to do a test after seven days.

The quarantine rules will not apply to travellers who have been fully vaccinated, Niedzielski said in a Tweet written in response to a question from a reporter.

The tighter rules had earlier been applied to travellers from Brazil, India and South Africa.

Poland reported 188 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, a fraction of the number recorded at the height of the third wave in spring when as many as 35,251 daily cases were recorded. However, despite the low overall numbers, there has been an increase in Delta variant cases.

Poland, a country of around 38 million people, has reported 2,879,030 cases of the coronavirus and 74,858 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Editing by Angus MacSwan)