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The government have announced that from the 10th July passengers arriving from several countries and territories will no longer be required to self-isolate on arrival into England.
Prof Linda Bauld, Bruce and John Usher Professor of Public Health and CPHS Co-Director Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh, said:
“The UK government’s approach to quarantine has been confusing to say the least, with a late introduction of measures and now a rapidly lifting of quarantine for those arriving into the UK from a large number of countries. It would have been useful if the government had made clear its criteria for the selection of these countries but this is not obvious. For example, some countries with strong testing regimes and low numbers of cases are not on the list. They may border countries with higher incidence and deaths and this may be a reason for exclusion – but this isn’t obvious.
“This list isn’t about ‘air bridges’ it should be emphasised. Some of these countries are either not accepting travellers from the UK or any foreign nationals, or still have mandatory 14 day quarantines in place. So this list does not represent reciprocal arrangements.
“Clearly economic concerns have trumped health concerns in terms of dropping quarantine. Summer holiday season approaches and key parts of the travel industry need to get up and running again. But even if these countries are low risk in terms of the trajectory of the pandemic within their borders at the current time, they are not ‘zero risk’. International travel without quarantine still provides an opportunity for the virus to travel across borders. Only time will tell if this change is wise, or if it will contribute to more Covid-19 cases in the UK in future.”
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-travel-corridors
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