UK travel restriction rules review update tomorrow: UK may ease quarantine and testing regulations

By A Staff Reporter

LONDON Oct 6: The Department for Transport (DfT) will continue updating the lists every three weeks, as it did under the traffic light system. Since the traffic light system was introduced there have been reviews every three weeks, with countries changing lists based on government assessments of data.

The last review came on Friday 17 September, due to the cabinet reshuffle. These regular reviews are set to continue, with the next update expected on 7th October or 8th October.

The UK government is expected to ease quarantine and testing regulations in the review to be held tomorrow 7th October or 8th October. Industry figures had previously accused the Government of being too slow to relax and simplify the rules for international travel.

Partially simplified international travel rules took effect on October 4 in the UK, easing quarantine and testing requirements for fully vaccinated travellers from more than 50 countries, and the Conservative government vowed it will seek to regularly expand the rules to more nations. Still, the rules have sparked anger from many nations in the developing world, particularly India, which have been excluded from the list of countries whose vaccination programmes are accepted by the UK authorities.

After the UK’S mandatory 10-day quarantine for Indian nationals upon arrival, India too hit back with a similar rule for UK citizens who are arriving in India. India’s decision regarding these new rules are reciprocal, since the UK has put a mandatory quarantine in place for Indian travellers, irrespective of the vaccination status.

Following the Oct 4 “reciprocal” Covid-19 rules for UK nationals arriving into India came into force on Monday, authorities have sent 162 of 539 people who arrived in three flights from the country to mandatory home quarantine after making them sign affidavits.

According to report in The Hindustan Times, UK nationals are being subjected to mandatory home quarantine. Of the 539 passengers from the UK, 162 were marked for mandatory home quarantine for 10 days. Rest of the passengers, non-UK nationals, were not be put under surveillance

A decision on which countries to remove from England’s red list is expected to be made following a meeting of Government ministers on Thursday. There are currently 54 countries on the red list. The amber and green lists were removed from October 4 and since then countries and territories are categorised as either red or the rest of the world.

The Government may use the travel update to confirm the date when fully vaccinated people arriving in England will be able to use a cheaper lateral flow test rather than a PCR version for their day-two test.

The Department for Transport said on Monday that this policy will be implemented ‘later in October’, adding that the Government ‘aims to have it in place for when people return from half-term breaks’.