France restricting travel from 4 countries to curb variants
France is imposing entry restrictions on travelers from four countries - Argentina, Chile, South Africa and Brazil - hoping of keeping out especially contagious corona virus variants, the federal government has announced.
The restrictions include mandatory 10-day quarantines with police checks to make sure persons arriving in France take notice of the requirement. Travelers from all four countries will be limited to French nationals and their own families, EU citizens and others with a permanent home in France. France previously suspended all flights from Brazil. The suspension will be lifted next Saturday, after 10 days, and the new restrictions "progressively" set up by then, the government said.
The flight suspension for Brazil will be lifted followed by "drastic actions" for entering France from all countries, plus the French territory of Guiana, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.
The four countries "will be the most dangerous regarding the number of variants that exist and in the evolution of the pandemic in these countries," Le Drian said Saturday on the France 3 tv station. The list of countries subject to tougher border checks could possibly be extended, he said. Beneath the new restrictions, travelers must definitely provide an address for where they intend to take notice of the 10-day confinement period and police can make visits and fine those people who are within violation, the government said. Together with the mandatory quarantine, France is requiring more stringent testing for the corona virus.
Travelers must show proof a poor PCR test taken significantly less than 36 hours rather than 72 hours before they boarded a flight, or a poor antigen test significantly less than a day France has reported the deaths of 100,00 people in the COVID-19 pandemic.
