UK To Relax Quarantine Restrictions For Vaccinated Travellers

The British government has moved to relax quarantine rules on vaccinated travellers as part of its efforts to ease Covid-19 travel restrictions.

The United Kingdom (UK) Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, has said that UK residents, who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, will no longer self-isolate upon their return from another country.

Shapps, who made this known on Thursday, July 8, 2021, said that individuals who have been fully vaccinated through UK’s mass immunisation programme or rollout will no longer have to self-isolate when they return to the country from countries on the UK’s amber list.

According to a report from the News Agency of Nigerian (NAN), over 140 countries are currently on the UK’s amber list, which involves a 10-day quarantine upon arrival in the U.K. with a test before arrival and 2 tests on day two and eight after arrival. People can ‘test out’ after day five with a negative test.

What the UK Transport Secretary is saying

Shapps in his statement said, “I confirm today that from July 19, UK residents, who are fully vaccinated through the vaccine rollout, will no longer have to self-isolate when they return to the country.

“Rules stipulating that travellers must take a second test eight days after they return to the UK will also be scrapped from this date. Travellers would still have to conduct a PCR test three days before they travel back to the UK.

“Individuals will also still be required to take a PCR test in the UK within two days of their arrival.’’

He also said that vaccinated passengers must indicate their vaccination status on their passenger locator form upon arrival.

In case you missed it

It can be recalled that about 2 weeks ago, the UK government had suggested that it will allow fully vaccinated travellers from the US and many other countries in Europe into the country for non-essential travel in the coming weeks without the need to quarantine.

Currently, only a handful of countries are on the U.K.’s green travel list, between which people can travel freely for tourist purposes without the need to quarantine as most countries are on their amber list.