France said Friday that it had ordered a mandatory 10-day quarantine for arrivals from four additional countries in a bid to control the spread of Covid-19.
On Sunday, Colombia, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Bahrein will join 12 countries already on the quarantine list, the prime minister’s office said.
Brazil, India, Argentina, Chile and South Africa, which last month became the first targets of French quarantine obligations, were joined last week by Turkey, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
While the pandemic situation was improving in France, the prime minister’s office said in a statement, the circulation elsewhere of the virus and some dangerous variants, made “stricter arrival controls necessary”.
Police are authorised to carry out random spot checks to ensure that quarantine rules are respected, with non-compliance punished with fines of up to 1,500 euros ($1,800).
In 2019, 77,000 people arrived in Costa Rica from France. The majority entered via Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO) which has direct service from Paris on Air France.
The number of French tourists halved in 2020 to 35,000 as global travel was depressed in context of the pandemic.
