Tuesday, May 11, 2021
The government of United Kingdom has named Israel, Portugal and Gibraltar among the twelve countries and territories on its ‘green list’ of destinations for the resumption of non-essential international travel on 17 May.
UK transport secretary Grant Shapps said that they want a summer in which they can travel the place they love.
The categorisation of countries – the framework for which was announced on 9 April – is based on factors including the percentage of the population that has been vaccinated; the rate of COVID-19 infections; the prevalence of variants of concern; and access to scientific data and genomic sequencing.
The two Portuguese islands, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and the Falkland Islands are also on the ‘green’ list.
Many of those destinations will not be an option for outbound travellers from the United Kingdom because they do not accept non-essential travellers at this time.
The vast majority of destinations – including popular outbound tourism destinations from the UK such as France, Spain and Greece – have been placed into the ‘amber’ category, where travellers are still required to quarantine for 10 days on arrival in the UK, with the option for “test to release” on day five.
The USA – a crucial market for carriers such as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic – is also on the United Kingdom ‘amber’ list.
The framework states that even where the lightest restrictions are in place for ‘green’ countries, passengers will be required to pay for at least two Covid-19 tests – one before departing countries and another once they are back in England – before the requirements of the countries being visited are taken into account.
Shapps says that people should not choose to travel to ‘amber’ or ‘red’ countries, describing the framework as “necessarily cautious” amid a desire to protect the relative success of the United Kingdom’s vaccination programme from the importation of Covid-19 cases and new variants.
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