Travellers arriving in Poland from the United Kingdom will be subject to a mandatory seven-day quarantine, the health ministry has announced. The prime minister is expected to sign an ordinance to that effect today, with the measures going into force from tomorrow.
“The quarantine decisions made for travellers arriving from the UK are expected to reduce the risk of transmission of the Delta variant of coronavirus from the affected area,” health minister Adam Niedzielski told the Polish Press Agency (PAP). “We have to take care of the citizens of our country.”
Arrivals from the UK will only be released from quarantine following a negative coronavirus test, which can be performed no earlier than one week after their arrival, reports TVN24. After no initial indication that fully vaccinated people would be exempted from quarantine, Niedzielski later confirmed in a tweet that they would.
Oczywiście osoby w pełni zaszczepione nie podlegają obowiązkowej kwarantannie
— Adam Niedzielski (@a_niedzielski) June 22, 2021
Earlier on Tuesday, health ministry spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz had announced that the government was considering introducing greater restrictions for UK travellers. He noted that Poland has so far recorded only 90 cases of the Delta variant.
“We currently have this variant under control, but that does not mean it cannot develop,” he warned. The first confirmed cases of the Delta variant in Poland were discovered in April, and are believed to have been spread by a nun returning from India.
After reaching its highest ever level of coronavirus infections at the turn of March and April, Poland has seen cases drop rapidly and continuously since then. That has allowed the government to loosen most of the restrictions that had previously been in place.
Note: this article was updated to confirm that vaccinated travellers would be exempted from quarantine.
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
