The Irish Government has added Bermuda to the Republic of Ireland’s mandatory hotel quarantine list.

According to reports, Bermuda is one of 59 ‘high risk’ countries identified and travellers will have to spend 12 nights in quarantine, staying at one of 24 hotels around Ireland at a cost of about $2,200. Failure to comply could result in a one-month prison sentence.

After a meeting on Friday to discuss the Covid-19 variants, Irish Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said: "These variants pose a significant risk to our fight against this disease and our vaccination programme."

There are now 871 active Covid cases in Bermuda which has been hit with an outbreak of the UK variant. Two people died yesterday, bringing the number of Covid-related deaths to 16.

The latest Irish rules apply to any passenger who was in one of the designated "high-risk" countries in the last 14 days, including those getting a connecting flight.

As well as Bermuda, countries added to the high-risk list on Friday are Bangladesh, Belgium, France, Italy, Kenya, Luxembourg, Pakistan, Turkey, the USA, Canada, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Curaçao, Maldives, Ukraine.​