Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has today announced that the Department of Health is preparing options for how non-essential travel from countries with high rates of Covid-19 can be restricted.
Countries such as the US and Brazil may be put on a new “red list”, the Sunday Independent reports.
According to the New York Times database, cases of Covid-19 in the United States reached the 5 million mark this morning, with 5,006,600 confirmed cases being recorded. The database also states that at least 161,900 people have died in the US.
Brazil and India have over 3 million and 2 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 respectively according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
On Twitter this morning the Health Minister said: “Many are asking about travel/tourists coming into Ireland from countries with high Covid rates.
“My Dept is preparing options for Gov on how to restrict non-essential travel from third countries (outside EU/UK) with high rates of Covid. Am concerned about high rates in some places [sic].”
He states that travel-related cases in Ireland are in the minority, and instead expresses concern over the “rapid rise” of Covid-19 cases in other countries.
“These options will be finalised as soon as possible. While travel-related cases here remain small, some countries are seeing a rapid rise in cases so the risk is increasing. Once proposals are finalized they will be presented to Gov for discussion,” Donnelly says.
Currently, only visitors from Northern Ireland or those from the “green list” countries are exempt from restricting their movements for 14 days. All passengers arriving to Ireland from overseas are obliged to complete a mandatory Public Health Passenger Locator Form and to submit it to the relevant authority at their port of entry.
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