The UK Government has clarified the rules around what
vaccinations will be accepted in order to take advantage of the changes to the
traffic-light system that come into force in England at 4am on Monday 4 October.
The government has announced that arrivals will be considered
fully vaccinated if they have received a complete course of jabs:
- under an approved vaccination programme in the
UK, Europe, USA or UK vaccine programme overseas
- with a full course of the Oxford/AstraZeneca,
Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna or Janssen vaccines from a relevant public health body
in Australia, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Dominica,
Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore,
South Korea, Taiwan or the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
It
has also clarified that formulations of the four approved vaccines, such as
AstraZeneca Covishield, AstraZeneca Vaxzevria and Moderna Takeda, qualify as
approved vaccines but only from the countries listed.
The Government has also announced that people who have been given two different jabs of the four approved vaccines in any of the approved countries will also be
considered fully vaccinated.
The rules for fully vaccinated people
will also apply for those:
- under 18 and resident in the UK or one of the listed
countries or territories with approved vaccination programmes
- taking part in an approved Covid-19 vaccine trial
in the UK or USA – the Government expects to extend this to other countries "in due course"
Travellers must be able to prove they
have been fully vaccinated with a digital or paper document issued by a
national or state-level public health body that includes, as a minimum:
- forename and surname(s)
- date of birth
- vaccine brand and manufacturer
- date of vaccination for every dose
- country or territory of vaccination and/or
certificate issuer
If the
document does not include all of these, the traveller is considered
unvaccinated and may be denied boarding.
Under the new rules, fully vaccinated
travellers do not need to take a pre-departure test, take a day eight test or quarantine
on arrival. A day two PCR test is still required although the transport secretary says this is expected to change to a lateral flow test later in October.
The
new rules have been condemned by some in countries that do not appear on the
list, including India, the world’s biggest vaccine producer.
Indian
politician Shashi Tharoor pulled out of a debate at Cambridge University because
of the rules. He tweeted: “It is offensive to ask fully vaccinated Indians to
quarantine”.