Britons in up to 30 countries will have to pay for hotel quarantine if they return to the UK to prevent new Covid variants reaching this country from South Africa and South America.

Home Secretary Priti Patel is widely expected to announce a limited plan for new arrivals in England to quarantine in hotels when she later details to the House of Commons border protections against new coronavirus variants arriving from overseas.

But the concept is not new and Ben McKechnie, a journalist and photographer, recalls his experience of being locked inside a hotel room for 15 days in Taiwan.

“There was this lull, this feeling that I just really wanted to speak to people face-to-face,” he said.

“I started to understand why solitary confinement is used as punishment, as torture, it’s quite difficult. Days 10, 11 and 12 - they were the tough times.”

Read more on quarantine hotels here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-covid-deaths-lockdown-end-quarantine-hotels/

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