Britons will be told they can visit more than 70 overseas destinations from Monday without having to self-isolate for 14 days on their return — as ministers dismantle their quarantine policy.
Boris Johnson’s government is expected to announce by Friday its new “traffic light system”, under which citizens can return from an array of countries without quarantine if they are designated green or amber under the system.
Almost all of Europe will be included, with the possible exception of Portugal and Sweden, along with all 14 British overseas territories and a dozen other countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Korea and Thailand.
Previous plans mentioned for bilateral “air bridges” with other countries have been dropped, with Britain shelving its quarantine requirement for scores of countries without more than a handful of reciprocal agreements.
This means that British passengers could still have to self-isolate on arrival in countries that still have a quarantine policy, such as Canada, Ireland and New Zealand.
Some ministers have become nervous about the optics of lifting the quarantine for multiple countries when the government has shut down the city of Leicester to tackle a Covid-19 outbreak.
Ministers were also thrown by an announcement from Greece that it was imposing a ban on direct flights from the UK until mid-July because of Britain’s high incidence of coronavirus.
The list of countries dubbed safe by the British government was meant to be published on Wednesday but the timetable has slipped — to the consternation of the travel industry.
Grant Shapps, transport secretary, on Thursday appeared to blame the devolved governments for the announcement’s delay after Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, expressed concerns about the policy. “I’m very keen to get the devolved administrations, including the Scottish government, on board so we can get this thing announced,” he said.
At her daily briefing, Ms Sturgeon said the UK government had given little warning of its air bridge plans and had repeatedly changed them. She added that the Scottish government wanted more time to consider them. “I want to open travel as quickly and as comprehensively as possible but I want to make sure that in doing that we just don’t take too high a risk,” she added.
Gregor Smith, Scotland's interim chief medical officer, said that he and counterparts from England, Wales and Northern Ireland had on Thursday “collectively agreed that further work was still necessary” to assess the risk presented by people travelling from other countries to the UK.
But Downing Street confirmed the quarantine announcement would come “this week”, and would set out the full details of the new traffic light scheme that was first outlined last Friday.
The system rates countries according to the prevalence of coronavirus, confidence in the reliability of their data and the trajectory of the disease in the country.
“We will be easing health measures at the border by allowing passengers arriving from specific countries and territories to be exempted from self-isolation requirements,” a spokesman said.
Paul Charles, spokesman for the Quash Quarantine group — representing the travel industry — warned that continued delays would cause considerable damage to operators. But he welcomed the prospect of an end to quarantine for so many countries.
“The plan appears to cover the vast majority of destinations that British people travel to for their summer holidays.”
Visitors from countries designated as “red” — likely to include Brazil, Mexico, Russia and the US — will still have to enter a full 14-day quarantine upon arrival in the UK.
There are questions over how rigorously it will be enforced, however, after it emerged on Thursday that no police force had yet issued a fine for failure to comply with the measures.
The government introduced its quarantine restrictions on all arrivals from June 8 in order to prevent a second wave of coronavirus.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiP2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50L2FlZTc1OWQ0LTg0OTUtNDIwMy04ZGQ3LTgzNTMxYWY2NGYwM9IBP2h0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmZ0LmNvbS9jb250ZW50L2FlZTc1OWQ0LTg0OTUtNDIwMy04ZGQ3LTgzNTMxYWY2NGYwMw?oc=5
2020-07-02 14:30:51Z
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