Travel

Covid-19 in Europe: Could Greece be next on the quarantine list?

Greece is one country whose Covid-19 figures are likely to be scrutinised closely by the UK Government over the next few days.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps last week said quarantine measures could be introduced for any country recording a seven-day rate of more than 20 cases per 100,000 people.

In Greece, the latest seven-day rate is 13.5 cases per 100,000 people, up from 9.0 one week earlier and 2.5 one month ago.

The rate is clearly increasing, although not as steeply as was evident in Spain and France in recent weeks.

Another popular tourist destination, Italy, has also seen its numbers tick upwards, but the rate is currently at a much lower level than Greece – 5.5, up from 4.1 a week ago.

For now, both Greece and Italy remain on the list of countries from which people do not need to quarantine on arrival in the UK.

Belgium was taken off the list earlier this month, despite its numbers putting it over the 20 cases per 100,000 mark. The latest figures numbers show a week-on-week drop in the seven-day rate, from 37.5 to 28.3.

Spain (60.6) and France (30.8) also continue to be above this threshold.

Germany has seen its weekly rate creep upwards over the past month, but at a slow pace: figures for the last four seven-day periods are 4.6, 5.8, 7.1 and 9.3.

Ireland is currently recording a seven-day rate of 11.1 – roughly the same as in the previous week, but up from 2.7 a month ago.

As for the UK, 11.5 cases per 100,000 people were recorded in the seven days to August 16, up from 9.2 in the previous week. At the start of July the rate was 9.4, while at the beginning of June it was 20.9.

Related: The Swedes haven’t won anything in this crisis- it is high time we stop propagating that belief

Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

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