Germany will require people arriving from the UK from Sunday onward to go into quarantine for 14 days. The decision is a response to the spread of a coronavirus variant first detected in India.

Friday's announcement by the Robert Koch Institute, Germany's national disease control centre, that Britain is being classified as a “virus variant area” comes a week after it went back on a list of “risk areas,” which has few consequences under current rules. From Sunday, airlines and others will only be able to transport German citizens and residents from Britain.

Under current German rules, all people arriving from “virus variant areas” -- which also include India itself and Brazil -- must spend 14 days in quarantine at home after their arrival. They cannot cut that period short by testing negative. People arriving from “risk areas” can avoid a 10-day quarantine by showing a negative test result, and fully vaccinated people arriving from those countries don't need either to test or quarantine.

Germany is gradually moving to open up more areas of public life as the latest wave of virus infections subsides and its vaccination campaign gathers pace.