<p>LONDON &mdash; Britain said Thursday that it is removing Portugal from its list of COVID-safe travel destinations, meaning thousands of U.K. residents currently on vacation there face the prospect of 10 days’ quarantine on return.</p>
<p>Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the “difficult decision” was prompted by rising infection rates in Portugal and worries about new strains of the virus that could prove resistant to vaccines. </p>
<p>Shapps said: “There’s a sort of Nepal mutation of the so-called Indian variant which has been detected and we just don’t know the potential for that to be a vaccine-defeating mutation and simply don’t want to take the risk as we come up to June 21” — the date the U.K. government hopes to lift remaining coronavirus restrictions.</p>
<p>The change will take effect at 4 a.m. (0300GMT) on Tuesday. Territories including Iceland, Israel and the Falkland Islands remain on the U.K. green list.</p>
<p>The U.K. has recorded almost 128,000 coronavirus deaths, the highest toll in Europe. A mass vaccination campaign that started in December has brought new infections and deaths down sharply, but case numbers are once again rising as a more transmissible virus variant, named Delta by the World Health Organization and first identified in India, spreads across the U.K.</p>
<p>Portugal is a major destination for sun-seeking Britons, and was the only large tourism destination on the U.K. government’s “green list,” announced last month, of places that can be visited without the need to self-isolate on return. </p>
<p>Tourism, by mainly British visitors, is a mainstay of the southern European country’s economy, accounting for around 15% of annual gross domestic product.</p>
<p>Britain also is adding seven countries, including Sri Lanka and Egypt, to its “red list” of places with severe COVID-19 outbreaks to which all but essential travel is barred. U.K. residents returning from red list countries must spend 10 days in a government-approved quarantine hotel.</p>
<p>Travelers returning from dozens of “amber list” countries, including the United States, must complete a 10-day quarantine at home.</p>
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