August 5, 2021 8.46 am This story is over 30 months old

Quarantine scrapped for fully-jabbed travellers from France

A welcome boost for Lincolnshire holidaymakers

Changes to the government’s travel list will see fully-vaccinated passengers from France no longer having to isolate.

The new rules, which come in from 4am on Sunday, August 8, will see Austria, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia move to green list on the government’s traffic light system.

Meanwhile, Bahrain, India, Qatar and UAE will move to the amber list from the red list. And Georgia, Mayotte, Mexico and Reunion will move to the red list.

The move aligns France with the rest of the amber list, now that the proportion of beta variant cases has fallen in the country.

Arrivals from popular holiday destination Spain, and all of its islands, don’t need to quarantine either, but are now advised to use a PCR test as their pre-departure test wherever possible.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “We are committed to opening up international travel safely, taking advantage of the gains we’ve made through our successful vaccination programme, helping connect families, friends and businesses around the world.

“While we must continue to be cautious, today’s changes reopen a range of different holiday destinations across the globe, which is good news for both the sector and travelling public.”

The changes mean the total number of green list places will rise from 29 to 36.

Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said: “As we learn to live with this virus, we are continuing to take steps to safely reopen international travel based on the latest data and expert public health advice.

“The vaccines have already prevented around 60,000 deaths and 22 million infections in England and, with over 7 in 10 adults in the UK now double-jabbed, we are building a wall of defence against the disease.

“As well as moving more countries to the green list, today’s announcement also demonstrates the need for continued caution. Further countries have been added to the red list to help protect the success of our vaccine rollout from the threat of new variants.”