Swiss health authorities have added mainland Spain to its list of countries from which people arriving must enter a 10-day quarantine that aims to help curb the spread of the new coronavirus, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Patrick Mathys, head of crisis management for the federal public health office, told a briefing in Bern the measure would take effect from Saturday.

The measure excludes Spain's Balearic and Canary Islands.

“For the first time we did not put an entire country on the list, but rather those areas where we can say the geographical separation and above all the passenger flows — and that is decisive — can really be differentiated,” Mathys said.