UK to help ease holiday travel ban yet keeps most quarantines
08 May, 2021
The British government on Friday announced a “first tentative step” toward resuming international travel, saying UK citizens can travel to countries including Portugal, Iceland and Israel later this month and never have to quarantine after their return.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the country's current blanket ban on overseas vacations will be replaced on May 17 by a traffic-light system classifying countries as low, medium or high risk.
The “green list” of 12 low-risk territories also includes Gibraltar, the Faroe Islands and the Falkland Islands - however, not major vacation destinations for Britons such as for example France, Spain and Greece. Britons planing a trip to those countries, and many others including the USA and Canada, must self-isolate for 10 days after their return.
Britons hoping for a summer vacation overseas don't have a lot to pick from. Several countries on the green list are closed to British visitors, including Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. Others are little-visited, such as the remote Saint Helena, Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha.
Shapps said the list would be reviewed regularly and would likely be expanded.
"We in this country have were able to construct a fortress against COVID. However the disease continues to be prevalent in other areas of the world, especially right now in India.
“That’s why today’s announcement, removing the ‘stay in the UK’ restrictions from May 17, is necessarily cautious," he said.
All but essential travel from Britain remains barred to “red list” countries with extreme outbreaks, including India and South Africa, and persons returning from their website face 10 days of mandatory quarantine in a supervised hotel. On Friday the federal government added Nepal, the Maldives and Turkey to that list.
Turkey's addition, which takes effect Wednesday, throws into doubt the power of players and fans to go to the Champions League soccer final between two English teams - Manchester City and Chelsea - which is due to be played in Istanbul on May 29.
May 17 is the next date on the British government’s roadmap out of lockdown. Pubs and restaurants in England can reopen indoor areas that same day, and venues including theaters and cinemas can available to limited audiences.
Britain has recorded a lot more than 127,500 coronavirus deaths, the highest toll in Europe. But recent infections and deaths have plummeted thanks to extensive lockdowns and an instant vaccination program. Two-thirds of U.K. adults have received at least vaccine jab and almost a third have had both doses.
The campaign has relied heavily on the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, whose use has been restricted in a few European countries as a result of a potential link to extremely rare blood clots.
In a change of advice about vaccines, British authorities said Friday that people under 40 will not be given the AstraZeneca vaccine if another shot was available.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization said persons aged 30 to 39 without underlying health conditions should receive an alternative solution vaccine, “where available and only when this does not cause substantial delays in being vaccinated.” Last month it gave the same advice for people under 30.
”Any vaccine offered early is preferable to a vaccine offered too late,” said Wei Shen Lim, who chairs the JCVI, a specialist body that advises the federal government.
England’s deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, said the federal government expects to be able to follow the new advice and still meet its target of giving everyone over 18 a vaccine jab by July 31.
“We have to keep up with the pace and scale of the UK vaccination program,” Van-Tam said, adding that the AstraZeneca vaccine is effective and safe and “thousands are alive today” because they received it.
Britain can be using vaccines created by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
British health officials say the risk from COVID-19 far exceeds any risk from the AstraZeneca vaccine for the vast majority of people, however the calculation is “more finely balanced” for younger groups, who usually do not suffer serious disease from coronavirus infections.
Up to April 28, Britain’s medicines regulator had received 242 reports of blood clots accompanied by low platelet count in persons who had received the AstraZeneca vaccine, out of 28.5 million doses given. There have been 49 deaths.
A lot of the cases occurred after the first dose, and health officials said there have been no concerns about persons getting second AstraZeneca shots.
The AstraZeneca vaccine, which is cheaper and simpler to store than numerous others, is crucial to global immunization campaigns and is a pillar of the U.N.-backed program known as COVAX that aims to get vaccines for some of the world’s poorest countries.
Source: japantoday.com