Boris Johnson says double jabs will be ‘liberator’ for travel
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Travel abroad is subject to restrictions for those hoping to undertake a holiday this summer. international travel remains uncertain given the rise of new and emerging variants which could prove resistant to the coronavirus vaccines given to the British public so far. But now Boris Johnson has marked the potential end of lockdown – will travel restrictions stop on July 19?
Travel restrictions have reigned over the plans of hopeful British holidaymakers since international travel was permitted for leisure reasons once again in May.
Only a select number of countries were placed on the green travel list at that time.
The list of green, amber and red list countries has been subject to extensive change periodically depending on the coronavirus situation in each nation.
The Government use the following criteria to decide which category each country belongs to:
- The percentage of a country’s population that has been vaccinated
- The rate of infection
- The prevalence of variants of concern
- The country’s access to reliable scientific data and genomic sequencing.
On Monday, July 5, two weeks ahead of the planned lifting of the final coronavirus restrictions, Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the nation.
He revealed he expects the final step of easing to proceed as planned on July 19.
The final decision about this step will be confirmed on July 12 after one final review of the latest data.
But if this step goes ahead, face masks will no longer be legally required and social distancing guidelines will be scrapped.
After 16 months of lockdown restrictions, indoor and outdoor legal limits will also be removed and workers will no longer be required to work from home where possible.
Mr Johnson said the lifting of these remaining restrictions was thanks to the success of Britain’s vaccination programme.
He said the vaccine programme in the country had successfully broken the link between cases, hospitalisations and subsequent deaths.
However, he warned the pandemic will not be over as of July 19 – and said it is likely cases could rise to 50,000 a day by that time.
The Prime Minister said: “We must reconcile ourselves, sadly, to more deaths from Covid.”
Mr Johnson added: “We run the risk of either opening up at a very difficult time when the virus has an edge, has an advantage, in the cold months, or again putting everything off to next year.”
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Will travel restrictions end of July 19?
The current travel restrictions are on a different roadmap to the coronavirus lockdown rules.
Therefore these rules will not likely change or simply end on July 19.
Further updates on travel, school bubbles and self-isolation are expected in the coming days according to Mr Johnson.
The next official travel review is due to take place on July 15 – however, this has not been confirmed as yet.
Reports surfaced last week claiming the Government is currently considering opening up summer holidays abroad for fully-vaccinated British citizens.
Officials are said to be drawing up proposals for this initiative which would enable those with two doses of a Covid vaccine to travel without mandatory quarantine upon their return from amber list countries.
Testing is expected to still be required for these travellers, but the quarantine-free period would essentially make amber list countries equivalent to green list destinations.
The proposals are reportedly at an early stage, with one insider telling the Telegraph: “They haven’t definitely got there yet, but that’s the direction of travel.”
Currently, travel across much of Europe remains restricted.
The UK announced visitors from Malta would be allowed to enter Britain, but Malta is refusing to allow anyone who is not fully vaccinated from the UK.
Several other countries including Spain have similar measures in place for UK visitors.
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