Anyone traveling from the UK to Luxembourg will have to comply with new health rules until 30 June, the health and foreign affairs ministries said on Friday.

Those who have stayed in the UK in the 14 days preceding their arrival in Luxembourg--regardless of the length of stay in the UK and Luxembourg, and no matter the means of transport--must submit to a covid test, indicating to the laboratory that they have been in the UK. At the airport, the test will be performed, free of charge, at the covid-19 test centre.

Those affected must also be in strict quarantine for seven days, with the obligation to undergo a second test from the sixth day of quarantine. In the event of refusal to submit to the test on arrival or at the end of the quarantine period, isolation will be extended by seven days.

More aggressive variant

These measures are due to the recent progression of the Delta variant, originating in India, in the UK. This "could have an impact in terms of immune escape and a risk of increased transmissibility of the virus," according to the statement from the two ministries.

The Delta variant is said to be transmitted 40% more than the Alpha variant (for the first time identified in the UK), British health minister Matt Hancock said on the BBC on Sunday, 6 June.

According to the latest Revilux report from the LNS, using sequencing to assess the presence of variants from May 17 to 23, the Delta variant, on the rise, represented 7.5% of new cases, compared to 76.5% for the Alpha variant.

This article was originally published in French on Paperjam and has been translated and edited for Delano.