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Britons have been warned the UK Government would quickly reimpose foreign travel restrictions should data show an increase of coronavirus cases in certain countries. The warning comes after the UK on Saturday confirmed holidaymakers returning from Spain would have to stay home for 14 days after Madrid reported a spike in COVID-19 cases in some regions. Asked whether new measures could be imposed on other countries Prof Linda Bauld, the Chair of Public Health in The Usher Institute, told Times Radio: “I think it’s pretty inevitable because as I say we are using blunt instruments.

“Just looking at the case numbers from the European Centre for the last seven days, you can see there are countries where there are clearly worrying signs.

“Obviously Belgium is one of them. Luxembourg actually, surprisingly.

“Croatia did incredibly well at the beginning of the pandemic, early lockdown and is now a source of lockdown.

“We’ve also seen other countries like Romania which are not looking good and we’ve seen what’s been happening in France, where there’s some concerns.

“I think we need to prepare ourselves.”

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Germany, which has also experience a resurgence of cases over the past week, on Tuesday advised against all non-essential travel to the regions of Navarra, Catalonia and Aragon. 

German scientists have expressed concerns the country is on track for a new spike of the outbreak, with with Saxony’s Minister President Michael Kretschmer warned the “second coronavirus wave is already here.”

Belgium has also experienced a 91 percent spike in COVID-19 cases, with an increase being reported in all regions of the country bar Walloon Brabant.

Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès earlier this week announced a tightening of security measures, making face coverings mandatory in “any place with a lot of people”.

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And Romania has sparked new concerns after Bucharest confirmed the number of newly-diagnosed COVID cases had againg exceeded 1,000 last week.

Romanian expats in Italy have been warned they will be subjected to a 14-day quarantine if they travel home in the coming weeks.

The restrictions were also extended to Bulgaria, with Greece following in Rome’s footsteps requiring all holidaymakers travelling from the Eastern European nation to provide a negative coronavirus test before being allowed into the country.

Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel hit out at other European Union countries for excluding his country from travel corridors because of the number of new positive cases reported daily.

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But Mr Bettel insisted the incidence of the virus was the result of Luxembourg merely following international advide on testing.

He said: “When I speak of solidarity, I explain to colleagues we’re following the recommendations of the WHO and the CDC to check, check, check.

We cannot penalise those countries that do that because if we do that, it’s normal we find a lot of positive cases.

“Today, Luxembourg is excluded from some countries simply because it’s doing its job.”

Berlin said Luxembourg remained a country at risk of a resurgence of cases despite data from the University of Oxford earlier this month showing Luxembourg’s replication (R) rate at an average 0.7 compared to Berlin’s 0.6.

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