Germany is planning to ban most travellers from countries hardest hit by coronavirus variants, the interior minister has said, in a bid to stop the strains from reversing recent progress on lowering infections.

“At the moment within the government, we are coordinating towards the aim of refusing inbound travel from mutation areas,” said Horst Seehofer, according to AFP.

“We are concentrating these travel restrictions on mutation areas, that is at the moment Britain, Portugal, South Africa and Brazil. “