The UK government has removed six destinations from its travel
corridor list, including France and the Netherlands, meaning people returning
from those areas will have to self-isolate for 14 days from 0400 on Saturday, 15
August.
The announcement was made late last night and also impacts
travellers arriving from Monaco, Malta, Turks and Caicos Islands and Aruba.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Office has changed its advice to warn UK citizens and
residents against all but essential travel to these countries.
The government said the Joint Biosecurity Centre and Public
Health England have identified a significant rise in Covid-19 cases in all six
destinations, with France showing a 66 per cent rise in newly reported cases between
7 and 13 August and the Netherlands a 52 per cent increase in the same period.
Malta has seen a 105 per cent increase, while Turks and Caicos Islands saw 273
per cent more cases and Aruba a 1,106 per cent rise.
France has warned it could take “reciprocal measures”
against passengers arriving from the UK, according to a Tweet by French secretary
of state for European affairs Clement Beaune.
Getlink, the company that runs the Eurotunnel, a rail
service connecting France and England that carries road vehicles under the English Channel, has warned it
is nearly fully booked for today, meaning it is unlikely anyone without a valid
ticket will be able to get onto the service before the quarantine goes into
effect.
In a statement, the government said: “The government has
made consistently clear it will take decisive action if necessary to contain
the virus, including removing countries from the travel corridors list rapidly
if the public health risk of people returning from a particular country without
self-isolating becomes too high.”
It continued: “Government keeps travel advice and the
exemptions list under constant review, and the Joint Biosecurity Centre is
closely monitoring increases in reported cases in destinations worldwide. People
planning to travel overseas should be mindful that unfortunately disruption is
possible, in order to protect public health…”
The government is urging employers to be “understanding of
those returning from these destinations who will now need to self-isolate”, but
the Labour party has said the announcement came “far too late” and has called
for more transparency on how people affected by the changes will be supported.
The government said it has invested more than £9 billion to “strengthen the
welfare safety net, helping to ensure access for those in need”.
Last month, Spain was removed from the corridors list with
just six hours’ notice, followed by Luxembourg just days later. Belgium was removed last week.
The news has been seen as another setback to recovery by the
travel industry, which has been lobbying the government to introduce a raft of
new measures to avoid the need to enforce blanket quarantine requirements,
including coronavirus testing for all incoming passengers and regional travel
corridors with areas where the infection risk is much lower than the rest of
the country.
Airlines UK said: “It’s another devastating blow to the
travel industry already reeling from the worst crisis in its history. Having
the political will to remove a sub-national approach to quarantine, in addition
to testing for arriving passengers so that those testing negative can avoid
having to self-isolate – which other countries like Germany have already
implemented – is urgently needed to provide carriers and customers with
additional certainty around the ability to operate this autumn and winter,
avoiding broad-brush, weekly ‘stop and go’ changes to travel corridors at a national
level, which have proven so disruptive to airlines and passengers alike.”
The first episode of the new BTN Europe Week in Review podcast discusses the implication of changes to quarantine measures on business travel.