Europe second wave: Belgium on brink of joining UK’s quarantine list as cases soar

The Netherlands has warned travellers to avoid Antwerp in Belgium which is normally a popular destination for Dutch clubbers. The Belgian infection rate has hit 31.7 per 100,000 people.

Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania have all imposed mandatory “orange” level quarantines on travellers arriving from Belgium.

Norway is also expected to be classing the European country as a “red” no-go zone.

Marc Van Ranst, Belgium’s government virologist, said the country would take the same actions if other countries had similar infection rates.

He said: “We would also colour countries orange that are in the same situation as us.”

The Belgian foreign ministry has said it is currently “not aware of any plans or measures” from the British Government.

This morning the Foreign Office’s travel advice still said Luxembourg is a safe place to travel despite the country have Europe’s highest infection rate.

The Foreign Office said Luxembourg is exempt from the Government’s advice against all non-essential international travel.

Luxembourg’s infection rate is 214.9 cases per 100,000 which is four times higher than Spain’s rate.

READ MORE: Coronavirus isolation period to increase to 10 days 

Mr Véran said: “Clusters are emerging and we have had a few alerts from some hospitals where there has been a tendency towards an increase in the number of admissions.”

He recommended that the French public should wear face masks outside “if there is a concentration of people”.

This is a dramatic change from the French authorities as, although face masks are mandatory in indoor public places, until now they said coverings were unnecessary outside.

France’s daily number of new cases reached 725 on Monday, a large increase from the figure which stood at about 400 a month ago.

In the country a total of 135 clusters are being investigated.

Local residents have blamed French holidaymakers who are gathering at seaside locations.

In Italy, the parliament voted to extend the state of emergency until 15 October.

Italy’s Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, told the chamber of deputies that he did not intend to introduce new restrictive measures.

But he said the country needed to maintain a high level of caution due to what is happening in other parts of the world.

Italy was the first country in Europe to be severely affected by coronavirus.

source: express.co.uk