Coronavirus: Slovenia and Guadeloupe added to UK's quarantine list - but Thailand and Singapore removed

Travellers arriving in the UK from Slovenia and Guadeloupe after 4am on Saturday will have to isolate for two weeks.

England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are moving in harmony and have added the two countries to each of their quarantine lists.

But anyone returning from Thailand and Singapore will no longer be subject to the restrictions. Wales, which took Singapore off its quarantine list last month, will also remove Gibraltar.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the changes were needed to "to keep everyone safe".

He added: "A reminder that travellers to the UK (from ANY location) MUST complete a passenger locator form by law. This is vital in protecting public health and ensuring those who need to are complying with self-isolation rules."

In Slovenia, the COVID-19 case rate per 100,000 people has risen from 14.4 to 29.1 in the week ending 16 September. Local press agency STA said Tuesday saw the second highest daily rises in cases since the pandemic began.

And in Guadeloupe, there has been a 558% spike in the number of infections per 100,000 people over the past three weeks.

The Department for Transport vowed to "take decisive action if necessary to contain the virus, including removing countries from the travel corridors list rapidly if the public health risk of people returning from a particular country without self-isolating becomes too high".

Ministers say countries where the coronavirus infection rate is higher than 20 per 100,000 people are at risk of being added to the list - but last week the UK tipped over that threshold itself.

Since then, tough restrictions have been imposed on millions of people.

The latest will come into force on Friday in Northumberland, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Gateshead, Sunderland and County Durham.

The government in England has tried to be more flexible by taking the lead of Wales and saying it may treat islands separately from the mainland part of a country being added to the quarantine list.

It followed anger and confusion from holidaymakers when travellers returning from the Balearic and Canary Islands were told to isolate for two weeks along with those coming home from mainland Spain, where a cluster of new cases was largely confined to the northeast.

Last week, it was Portugal and Hungary that were added to England's quarantine list.