Sweden and Germany are being removed from the UK’s travel corridor list, as coronavirus cases continue to rise in both countries.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the measure comes into force from 4am on Saturday.

It means anyone returning from either of the countries will have to quarantine at a registered address for 14 days.

The decision was made after the new number of infections shot up by 75% in Germany over the past four weeks and by 34% in Sweden.

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Making the announcement on Twitter this evening, Shapps said no new countries would be added to the travel corridor list of lower risk destinations, allowing arrivals to avoid having to quarantine.

It comes as a second national lockdown came into force in England today in a bid to flatten the nation’s second wave.

At a Downing Street press conference this evening Boris Johnson said the four weeks it is planned to last for will be enough to make a significant impact on the outbreak.

The Prime Minister said the UK was facing a challenging autumn surge along with so many other of its European neighbours.

The seven-day average infection rate per 100,000 people is 140 in Germany and 190 in Sweden, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

In comparison, the average is currently 229.4 in England, 290.7 in Northern Ireland, 146.3 in Scotland and 290 in Wales.

Downing Street is now thought to be using a threshold of 100 cases per 100,000 when deciding to impose travel quarantines, up from 20 in previous months,

Germany recorded nearly 20,000 new cases today, with daily infections catching up with the level seen in Britain.

A total of 597,583 people have tested positive in the country since the pandemic began and another 118 fatalities have brought its death toll to 10,930.

Meanwhile Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven has gone into quarantine after a person he had been in contact with tested positive for Covid-19.

Sweden, whose pandemic strategy of avoiding lockdowns has gained international attention, registered 4,034 new coronavirus cases today – its highest increase since the start of the pandemic.

Its previous record was 3,254 daily cases reported on October 29. Sweden registered 5 new deaths, taking the total to 6,002 fatalities.

The nation’s death rate per capita has been several times higher than Nordic neighbours but lower than some larger European countries, such as Spain and the UK.

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