Filenews 22 June 2021
Uncertainty about what lies ahead in the leisure travel landscape of British tourists prevails in the UK.
The country's Health Minister Matt Hancock said again On Tuesday morning that lifting the 10-day quarantine requirement for fully vaccinated travellers from orange list countries is "absolutely something" the Government is considering.
"There hasn't been a clinical recommendation yet, but we're working on it," Mr Hancock told Sky News, referring to the prospect of replacing quarantine with daily diagnostic tests. "It's something I want to see," the British Health Secretary added.
Asked, however, whether the measure would have been implemented by August, Mr Hancock did not give a clear answer. "We'll get to (that decision) when it's safe, we want to get it right," he was limited to saying.
The Minister's statements follow a Times report that the plan to replace quarantine with a daily test for fully vaccinated travellers will be announced the day after Thursday, along with the new evaluation of the green list.
A government source tells the newspaper, however, that July is considered "too early" for the new measure to take effect, with August seen as a more likely time as a sufficient proportion of the population would have made both doses.
One possible obstacle is what will apply to children, who at least for the time being are not included in the British vaccination programme. According to the Times this has raised the possibility of delaying the lifting of quarantine until September so that there is no spread of the virus in schools by students who have returned from holidays abroad.
A government official also tells the newspaper that only "a handful" of countries could be included in a limited extension of the green list, which at the moment contains only 11 countries and territories, of which only Iceland and Gibraltar from Europe.
Arrivals to Britain from green list countries are not required in a 10-day quarantine, unlike arrivals from the orange and red list.
The travel advisory firm PC Agency lists destinations from the orange on the green list as Barbados, Malta, Morocco, Poland, Mexico, the Balearic Islands, Germany, Italy, Croatia and the USA as the most likely destinations to upgrade.
Meanwhile, pressure on the Government to relax travel restrictions continues to intensify. Analysis by the World Travel and Tourism Council warns that if July is lost, the UK travel industry will suffer a £19.8 billion loss.
Airlines UK, which represents British airlines, yesterday wrote to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps calling for the removal of "disproportionate" restrictions, indicating that at least 32 other countries are already exempt from the obligation to quarantine fully vaccinated people.
Source: Eyenews/CYP
