The U.K. announced an enlargement of its safe list, where tourism is allowed without quarantine
The U.K. government today announced its early July travel policy, when many people were hoping for an expansion to its green list of countries (between which tourists can travel, for non-essential reasons). However, only one country has been added to the green list and one has been removed.
On May 17, the U.K. government announced that non-essential travel would be possible to a small group of 12 countries, without the need for quarantine upon arrival in the U.K.–Portugal was later removed in June. For this revision, only Malta has been added to the list, as a completely safe destination.
The July green list for (quarantine free) U.K. travel
The new green list–plus Malta but minus Israel and Jerusalem–is:
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Singapore
- Brunei
- Iceland
- Faroe Islands
- Gibraltar
- Falkland Islands
- Malta
- South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
- Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
A new green watchlist of countries
Instead of taking the risk of adding new countries to the green list and then having to take them off when they went amber (as was the case for Portugal), the U.K. government has instead decided to create another list called a green ‘watchlist’. Travel to these is possible and quarantine free–with the caveat that they may turn amber at any moment, meaning that travelers may have to quarantine upon arrival into the U.K.
The green watchlist countries are:
- Anguilla
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Balearic Islands
- Barbados
- British Antarctic territory
- British Virgin Islands
- Cayman Islands
- Dominica
- Grenada
- Madeira
- Montserrat
- Pitcairn Islands
- Turks and Caicos
- Israel and Jerusalem (which were on the green list and are now on the green watchlist, due to the spread of the Delta variant).
Travelers arriving into the U.K. from green and green watchlist countries can enter with proof of a negative PCR Covid-19 test, taken not more than 72 hours before departure and another test on day two. There is no quarantine.
The Financial Times reported that whilst the industry was hoping for a very large increase to the amount of green-list countries, U.K. officials were “not expecting a ‘big bang’ expansion of the list.”
Most countries are currently on the U.K.’s amber list, which means that they need a negative PCR test taken before departure, and they must quarantine for 10 days with other tests taken on days 2 and 8. They can ‘test out’ of quarantine on day 5 with a negative PCR test.
The U.S. is still on the amber list, as are most EU countries, such as France, Italy and Spain–usually popular summer holiday destinations for the British.
The CEO of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, had called on the government to include more EU countries, if not all, on this iteration of the green list, saying “the highly successful UK vaccine rollout has already enabled hundreds and thousands of British families to book their flights to Portugal this summer, and we call on Grant Shapps to include all EU countries in the next revision of the UK’s green list.” The Financial Times reported that Ryanair has received hundreds of thousands of bookings from the U.K. to go to EU countries over the summer, which are not on the green list.
It is bad news for the U.S. which hasn’t been included on the U.K.’s safe list this time, particularly after recent reports that a bilateral agreement to restart travel between the U.S. and the U.K. was in the pipeline. The Telegraph reported that according to its analysis of U.S. data it should be in contention to join the new U.K. safe list.
The data seen by The Telegraph showed that just five of 1,652 visitors from the U.S. were positive on days 2 and 8 and none of these with variants of Covid-19. Additionally, the infection rate in the U.S. was at 35 per 100,000 of the population and its fully vaccination rate was at 38.2%–figures which are approximately equal to those in the U.K. As per the Government’s guidelines, there are 25 countries, according to The Telegraph, who should have been put on the green list today.
Tour operators were suggesting that August would be cancelled if the green list can’t be opened up anymore. Michael Edwards, managing director of travel company Explore said that “if the government isn’t able to relax restrictions for double-vaccinated travellers or put more destinations on the green list in the next few weeks, our August trips will need to be cancelled and customers refunded.”
The green list is scheduled to be again updated on July 19, and then on August 9.
