UK Transport Minister Grant Shapps today revealed a new island policy. Due to the physical boundaries around islands, certain islands will now be exempted from blanket country bans. For example, seven Greek Islands will be removed from the UK’s travel corridor list at 4 am on Wednesday. The rest of Greece will remain on the quarantine-free list for the time being.
The UK has been forcing a large majority of passengers to quarantine for 14-days upon arrival in the UK, with the exception of few workers and a limited number of travel corridors. The United Kingdom travel industry has been strongly lobbying for the government to approve COVID-19 testing as an alternative to 14-days of quarantine. Many have been unhappy that countries have been removed with very little warning for overseas travelers.
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The new Islands policy
The new island’s policy introduced by the United Kingdom today is almost a middle ground between the UK’s previous quarantine policy and that of Germany. Previously, the United Kingdom had been implementing quarantine free travel on a national level. That meant that when Spain was removed from the UK’s safe list, the Balearic and Canary Islands were also removed.
Meanwhile, Germany has been implementing regional restrictions since July. The UK has now found a middle ground. It will only count areas separately if there is a geographic border between them. This typically means islands, as they are surrounded by water.
While the policy could mean that islands escape being placed on the quarantine list, it also works the other way around. While Greece is remaining off of the list, from 4am on Wednesday, all arrivals from the following Greek islands will be forced to quarantine. This will no doubt cause a rush for return flights.
- Lesvos
- Tinos
- Serifos
- Mykonos
- Crete
- Santorini
- Zakynthos
No COVID-19 testing for now
Despite the United Kingdom’s aviation industry strongly lobbying for testing of passengers on arrival, Grant Shapps today said that the government would not be approving a testing initiative for arriving passengers. Shapps said that current tests were not able to pick up asymptomatic individuals entering the country.
However, Shapps did mention that the United Kingdom is researching whether testing could reduce the amount of time that passengers were in quarantine for. Shapps mentioned that perhaps after so many days in quarantine, individuals could then take a COVID-19 test and then be released before 14-day are up. However, he refused to outline any details or specific timeline.
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