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All the remaining “travel corridors,” which permit travellers arriving within the UK to keep away from self-isolation, have been scrapped so as to cut back the chance of introducing new variants of coronavirus.
Boris Johnson made the announcement on the No 10 briefing. The prime minister stated it could be a brief transfer, aligned with the delayed “test-before-travel” scheme.
Both measures take impact at 4am on Monday 18 January.
The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, tweeted: “Travel corridors assess public health risk from the original Sars-Cov-2, but it’s impossible for the Joint Biosecurity Centre to provide live scientific updates to predict which countries or regions will now originate new variants.
“Travel corridors are therefore suspended for now.”
Earlier in the day, Mr Shapps revealed that only one in 1,000 of the Covid infections in the UK in December was imported.
The Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: “I’m happy the choice has been made, however many individuals will say why on earth did not this occur earlier than? Many nations have taken this step earlier than we did.
“So, right steps, but slow again.”
Targeted quarantine measures had been deserted by the UK in mid-March 2020.
In June, blanket quarantine was launched from all areas besides Ireland. All arrivals had been obliged to bear two weeks of self-isolation.
One month later, the all-out ban was overturned as “travel corridors” had been established for dozens of in style nations. But these rapidly began to be reversed.
In December, the self-isolation time was reduce to 10 days. A “test-to-release” system was launched in England, permitting travellers to halve quarantine in the event that they examined destructive after 5 days.
Last Monday the important thing aviation hubs within the UAE – Dubai and Abu Dhabi – misplaced their journey hall standing. By Thursday night time, close by Qatar was faraway from the “safe” listing.
Numerous nations in Asia and the Pacific area retain journey hall standing, together with Australia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.
But many of the preparations are largely tutorial as a result of the nations in query ban virtually all British guests – as do Finland, Iceland and Norway.
The essential impact of the most recent change is more likely to be on British travellers on long-stay holidays on the Caribbean islands of Antigua, Barbados, Cuba and St Lucia. They will now must self-isolate for 10 days on their return.
With all 4 UK nations in lockdown, leisure journey is at present banned. The journey business has just about closed down.
Paul Charles, chief govt of the journey consultancy The PC Agency, stated: “The transport secretary confirmed this morning that very few Covid infections were brought into the UK from overseas last month so blanket quarantine only serves to prevent recovery in the travel sector.
“World-class, regular testing is the answer to reducing infections. The government needs to invest further to deliver what it promised many months ago.”
Tim Alderslade, chief executive of Airlines UK, said carriers supported the move “on the belief that we’ll work with authorities – when the time is true – to take away these restrictions when it’s protected to take action.”
Joss Croft, the chief govt of UKInsure, stated: “To save the summer season, it’s imperative that government signals that these new measures are only temporary.”
Government sources point out that extra spot checks shall be carried out to make sure individuals are remaining in self-isolation as required by quarantine guidelines.
The transport secretary revealed earlier that solely round 3 per cent of travellers arriving in England had been subsequently contacted by Public Health England.
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