PCR Covid tests for travel will be scrapped from October 22nd, despite previous reports suggesting they could stay in place at least until the back end of the half-term week. The Telegraph has the story.
Fully vaccinated holidaymakers will instead be allowed to book and use cheaper lateral flow tests when they return to Britain from half-term breaks.
This should reduce the costs from an average of around £60 to £70 for a PCR test to between £20 and £35 for a lateral flow test from an approved provider on the Government’s official website.
As previously with PCR tests, double-vaccinated travellers will be expected to book lateral flow tests in advance, register them on their passenger locator forms and then take them on or before day two of their return to the U.K.
The Department of Health and Social Care has accepted that the test can be done by holidaymakers at home, but the result will have to be verified with the test firm by providing a photograph of the kit with its registration number. [Not by providing a video recording of the testing process, as ministers have at one time considered.] …
Only unvaccinated travellers now have to take a pre-departure test and then quarantine for 10 days on their return and pay for PCR tests on days two and eight of their return. The pre-departure test for double jabbed travellers was ditched on October 4th.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Isabel Oakeshott asks why travellers are being forced to pay for lateral flow tests “when we all have boxes of the damn things at home”?
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