47 countries have been removed from the Government’s ‘Red List’ in what has been described as one of the biggest reopenings of overseas travel since the pandemic began. The Telegraph has the story.
Only seven countries will remain on the list which requires travellers to be quarantined in a hotel on their return to the U.K. at a cost of £2,285 per person.
Ministers also abandoned plans to force holidaymakers to video themselves taking tests after a backlash from the travel industry, which argued that it would be costly and a logistical nightmare for families.
The Government is confident that the more expensive PCR tests will be scrapped in time for October half term, with families allowed to use cheaper lateral flow tests when they return to the U.K.
Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, said: “With half-term and winter sun around the corner, we’re making it easier for families and loved ones to reunite, by significantly cutting the number of destinations on the Red List, thanks in part to the increased vaccination efforts around the globe.”
Winter sun destinations including Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, Seychelles, Cape Verde, Costa Rica, Brazil and Bali in Indonesia will be removed from the Red List at 4am on Monday, as will popular safari resorts in Tanzania, Botswana and Namibia.
The seven countries remaining on the Red List are Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Haiti, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.
Nine of the 47 countries, including Argentina and Uruguay, remain closed to Britons unless they have exceptional reasons to travel to them. There are also growing fears the U.S. will maintain its ban on British holidaymakers until Thanksgiving at the end of November.
Mr. Shapps succeeded in killing off Department of Health proposals for fully jabbed travellers to video themselves taking lateral flow tests while supervised by a health adviser from a private firm.
Holidaymakers will now only be required to send a picture of their test kit result, possibly with ID such as a passport.
Worth reading in full.
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I have had COVID and am therefore no COVID threat to anyone nor is anyone a COVID threat to me.
So any country that requires me to have a vaccine, wear a mask, or do testing before, during or after my visit, or quarantine, will remain on MY red list.
If that means no more travel until I die, so be it.
I have not had covid (as far as I’m aware, but who knows these days, when you can have a deadly infection and not even know about it!) and I am not a covid threat to anyone nor is anyone a covid threat to me. Get a grip, world.
Not that I am for the hotel quarantine scheme, which is absolutely unacceptable, but I can imagine that some hotel chain board members are now looking at their balance sheets with worry. That was a nice little earner for them. They will struggle to fill those rooms with regular travellers. Refugees will not make as much money, and are more work.
how did you think about that? NUDGE NUDGE WINK WINK
for the next month tops!
I see Panama, where we have enjoyed a really nice relaxing holiday for the last 2 weeks is one of the remaining 7 red listed countries. Its current death rate is reported as half that of the UK, and ‘cases/day’ is one third of that of the UK.
I strongly suspect that the reason it stays on the red list is because it placed UK on its red list ( ie quarantine for 10 days) when the Delta peaked in the UK numbers. So its tit for tat politics. I find it impossible to believe that the SAGE gurus have any health evidence to support this decision.
I don’t think Panama will be too fussed , its much more concerned about a pending Biden WH restriction on non-vaxed Panamanians going to US. Plus non-vaxed US being restricted from re-entry to US without quarantine.
As a Brit , from France, its all petty and ridiculous.
Anyway, we have our negative antigens from a very gentle medic in the Clinilab in Panama City so are OK for our final leg to Tampa via Copa Airlines tomorrow morning.
Just inspected the other countries on the red list and they are all in this neck of the woods. So some brainless idiot thinks Panama is the same as Ecuador or Columbia? Perhaps they have never heard of the Darien Gap an impenetrable jungle between Panama and Columbia. If people really carry covid then that forms just about the best natural barrier in the world.
Proof if we needed it that our ‘experts’ and politicians are as thick as two short planks.
That’s an insult to two short planks
I’m following your adventures with great interest. Bon voyage! How on Earth are you going to get into the the US? I thought the airports were all federal?
They are, but we are through and enjoying ‘De Santis freedom land’. No check at the US end on test results, vaccines etc, just the usual process. Copa Airlines from Panama glanced at the negative antigen result in a second and were more bothered we had an electronic version of the US declaration in writing that we didn’t have covid, honest guv. A photo on my phone of a hand written note sufficed, it was ‘electronic’.
After initial rain, today was great. Now to enjoy 8 weeks of glorious freedom, besides a small ( less than 20%) of idiots still wearing masks, everything outside federal buildings is normal. People are smiling, I had begun to forget what it was like.
This seems like a good time to remind people that you can get a negative result on a lateral flow test using fruit juice or coke.
Positive from coke, or papaya or a goat, if you need time off work. Negative from waving it in the air, or leaving it in the box, or throwing them in the bin
Javid has got that covered now with his call to make people take a photo of their tests
Does anyone here know what the legal implications are, if an unvaxxed misses a contact tracers sms, emails and phone calls, because after he returned from green list country last week and tested negative on day 2, he went for a hike in Snowdonia for a few days without his phone? Do they have to get hold of you on the phone or in person within the 10 day period, and if they don’t, the case is just closed?
Do you know such a person?
Please let us know what happens…
“Just 7” It’s still 7. You still have to test. And for those of us who’ve decided against the vaxx, 10 days stuck indoors in your own bloody country. For the flu. No real reason to rejoice. Better headline would be “Government persists with unscientific, illogical removal of basic freedoms for political reasons”.
Totally agree. Bearing in mind that even the UK Government now admits that getting the ‘jab’ doesn’t necessarily stop you being infected or passing the virus on, there is no scientific reason to treat the ‘unjabbed’ any different from the ‘jabbed’. It’s blatant discrimination and coercion.
This insightful video is very pertinent to the requirements of international travel & returns to this country. Well worth a watch.
I WAS ARRESTED FOR REFUSING QUARANTINE BUT I KNEW MY RIGHTS #commonlaw mandatory quarantine – YouTube
Grant Shapps and the rest of this communist government needs to leave us alone. Those of us who have natural immunity, millions of us, should be able to do whatever we want. Those double or triple or multiple jabbed should take out health insurance PDQ.