New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday that travellers from the United Kingdom will face home visits from police officers to enforce a quarantine order against Britons.
The left-wing Mayor said that the quarantine was in response to the supposedly new mutations of the Chinese coronavirus found in the UK. Those deemed to be in violation of the order will face $1,000 fines for each day of non-compliance in New York City.
While all travellers to the city will face quarantine orders and be subjected to fines, those coming from the UK will be singled out for police spot checks from sheriff’s deputies.
“We’re going to have sheriff’s deputies go to the home or the hotel of every single traveller coming in from the UK,” de Blasio said per CBS New York.
“We don’t want to, but if you don’t follow quarantine you’re endangering everyone else in the city right as we’re fighting the second wave,” de Blasio said.
Currently, the United States has not issued a blanket travel ban on British travellers, however, after the British government announced the discovery of a mutated version of the coronavirus, around 50 countries have suspended travel from the UK.
On Monday, three airlines, Delta, Virgin Atlantic, and British Airways said that all travellers on flights bound towards New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport will have to present a negative coronavirus test before boarding.
The restrictions came in response to demands from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who called on the Trump Administration to ban all travel from the UK in light of the new strains of the coronavirus.
It is doubtful that the mutated forms of the coronavirus are confined to Great Britain, with a virologist from the Rega Institute for Medical Research in Belgium, Marc Van Ranst saying: “I think we will find in the coming days that a lot of other countries will find it.”
During a press conference on Wednesday, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that from the day after Christmas, millions more Brits will be placed under Tier 4 lockdown restrictions because of the new coronavirus variants. The government has claimed that the new strains can be up to 70 per cent more transmissible than the original form of the virus.
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