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Travelers arriving in England from seven Greek islands will have to isolate themselves for 14 days starting at 04:00 BST on Wednesday, Grant Shapps said.
The affected islands are Lesbos, Tinos, Serifos, Mykonos, Santorini, Crete and Zakynthos (also known as Zante).
Shapps said the “improved data” allowed the UK to identify the risk on the islands, providing flexibility to add or remove them as infection rates change.
Travelers arriving in Wales from six Greek islands must now be quarantined.
The Scottish government has imposed quarantine restrictions across the country of Greece.
Speaking to MPs in the Commons, the Transportation Secretary said: “By using improved data, we will now be able to identify risk on some of the most popular islands, providing greater flexibility to add or remove them, unlike the mainland, as infection rates change.
“This development will help drive the UK travel industry while continuing to maintain the utmost protection for public health while maintaining the safety of the traveling public.”
Shapps said the coronavirus infection rate was still too high in Spain’s Balearic and Canary Islands.
He said the government was “actively working on the practicalities” of using coronavirus testing to reduce the 14-day quarantine period for people arriving in the UK from high-risk countries.
Testing people upon arrival “wouldn’t work,” Shapps said, but the quarantine combined with the testing was “more promising.”
“My officials are now working with health experts with the goal of reducing the quarantine period without increasing the risk of infection or violating our overall NHS testing capacity,” he said.
He added that if someone couldn’t self-quarantine for 14 days after returning to the UK, “it would be better not to travel.”
But Labor’s shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon described the government’s handling of the pandemic as “chaotic.”
“For months, even when the virus was at its peak, millions of passengers came from all over the world without any restrictions,” he said.
“At the time the restrictions were introduced, we were one of the few countries in the world that up to that point had not taken steps to establish restrictions.”
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