International visitors will be barred from entering Indonesia for a two-week period to try to keep out a new potentially more contagious variant of the coronavirus, Reuters quoted its foreign minister Retno Marsudi as saying on Monday.

The new regulation, effective Jan 1, comes days after Indonesia banned travellers from the Britain and tightened rules for those arriving from Europe and Australia to limit the spread of the new variant.

Indonesia earlier this year banned all foreign tourists from entry but some exemptions have been made for business travellers. The new regulation applies to all foreign visitors, except for high-level government officials or foreigners with residency permits, she said.

The world’s fourth most populous country has struggled to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus since recording its first case in March, now with nearly 720,000 confirmed infections and 21,500 deaths, among the highest in Asia.

It announced 5,854 new infections and 215 deaths on Monday, with the positivity rate above 20 per cent in recent days.