Travellers, including Bermudians, who arrive on the island without proof of vaccination against the coronavirus will be under a requirement to quarantine “until there is no longer a global pandemic”, the Premier said yesterday.

David Burt was speaking on the order for a 14-day supervised quarantine, which comes into effect on June 6.

More details on the quarantine will be included in an announcement on May 6.

Mr Burt told The Royal Gazette that the restrictions, aimed at keeping new variants of the virus out of Bermuda, “should come as no surprise” after weeks of hints that mandatory quarantine for non-immunised travellers would likely be imposed.

He said waiting until June 6 to impose the quarantine requirement was necessary to give adequate notice, while the Government “works with hotel partners and others who will be designated facilities”.

All flights from Brazil, India and South Africa were cancelled on Sunday to protect the island against more contagious and dangerous coronavirus strains that have appeared in those regions.

But the Premier said none of the new variants had been spotted in Bermuda so far.

“We are sure that these other variants have not got here,” Mr Burt said. “We have the ability to track those variants.”

The country’s phased reduction of restrictions means moving to Phase 2 on May 9, and Phase 3 on June 6.

Earlier, Mr Burt said the move was data led, and contingent on “specific criteria such as a lower test positivity rate, a lower local transmission case rate, and a lower real-time reproductive number”.

The Premier said the indicators will “not be anything less stringent than what we have already”. He said further detail would be given on May 9.

Moving to Phase 2 will also require an average of no more than seven non-linked locally transmitted cases per day over a two-week period.