England to scrap quarantine for jabbed EU, US visitors

LONDON: England is to allow US and EU travellers who are fully vaccinated against coronavirus to enter without the need to quarantine.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced that the new rules will be in place from 4am on Monday August 2. The Cabinet minister said: “We’re helping reunite people living in the US and European countries with their family and friends in the UK.”

It has not been announced whether the change will apply to people arriving in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Currently, only travellers who have received two doses of a vaccine in the UK are permitted to enter from an amber country — such as the US and most of the EU — without self-isolating for 10 days, except those returning from France.

But ministers have decided to extend the exemption to those vaccinated in the US and the EU. Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency, told the PA news agency: “The significance of this decision can’t be overestimated.

“It will pump vital cash into the travel economy, and help salvage the rest of the summer. “Inbound visitors deliver billions of pounds to the economy and they can be welcomed safely. It’s especially good news for our airlines who need to fill their seats across the Atlantic.”

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister stressed the need for caution despite recent falls in the number of coronavirus cases as he warned that the virus “still presents a significant risk”. But recent data which showed a drop in cases was “encouraging”, the Prime Minister said.

The comments come after a senior minister told the Daily Mail that Covid is “all over bar the shouting”. But Mike Tildesley, who sits on the scientific advisory body Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M), said that it was not yet clear whether the third wave was turning around.

A recent fall in infections could be attributable to people being less willing to “step up” and get tested ahead of their summer holidays, Dr Tildesley, professor of infectious disease modelling at the University of Warwick, said.

Meanwhile testing among school pupils in England will have reduced since the end of term last week, he added. Official figures on Tuesday showed the number of Covid-19 cases newly reported in the UK dropped for the seventh day in a row.

Meanwhile he rejected Cabinet minister Michael Gove’s claim that people who refuse to get a vaccine are “selfish” and said it he would look at it the other way.