England will remove the quarantine for vaccinated travellers from the EU and the USA. EFE
From 2nd August, fully vaccinated citizens of the European Union and the United States will be able to enter England and Scotland without having to quarantine, the UK Government has confirmed. The Covid operations committee took the decision to remove the requirement at a meeting on Wednesday. However, the requirement for travellers to carry out a number of anti-virus tests remains. Wales and Northern Ireland, which have their own powers, are awaiting updates to their travel regulations.
“We are helping to reunite people living in the US and European countries with their families and friends in the UK,” Transport Minister Grant Shapps tweeted. “From 2nd August at 4am people from those countries will be able to come to the UK from amber list countries without having to quarantine if they are fully vaccinated.” Also, for the first time since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, international cruise ships will be able to depart from and return to English ports, when passengers are vaccinated.
A step towards normalisation
Until now, only nationals who had received the full vaccination schedule in the UK were exempt from a compulsory ten-day isolation on return to England from amber list countries. The change means that any fully vaccinated national from an EU or US country will be able to enter the UK without quarantine. The decision, hailed as “a step towards the normalisation of international travel” by the aviation industry, partly reopens the door to tourism, business, visiting relatives or attending sporting events. In recent days, the travel industry, hard hit financially by the pandemic, has lobbied the government to relax its international travel policy in order to partly salvage the summer season.