• July 27, 2021

UK nationals vaccinated overseas and registered with GP in UK may not need to quarantine on arrival

UK nationals vaccinated overseas and registered with GP in UK may not need to quarantine on arrival

LONDON July 27: Some Britons who have been double-vaccinated abroad will soon be able to travel to the UK more easily, as the government prepares to recognise jabs administered overseas, The Guardian newspaper reported.

British citizens arriving from green or amber-list countries who have been vaccinated overseas currently have to isolate for 10 days. Current restrictions mean only those who have been fully inoculated by the NHS are able to take advantage of avoiding quarantine if coming from countries graded green and amber under the traffic light system.

Hundreds of thousands of British citizens who are dual nationals or have been living or working abroad have still been forced to isolate for up to 10 days, but the rules are expected to be changed for some from August.

Those who have had both jabs in other countries but are registered with a GP in the UK will be able to apply to register these with the NHS – but the doses must be Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer/BioNTech or Janssen.

The vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, signalled the move in a little-noticed response to an MP during a Commons debate last week.

He said: “By the end of this month, UK nationals who have been vaccinated overseas will be able to talk to their GP, go through what vaccine they have had, and have it registered with the NHS that they have been vaccinated.”

Zahawi said GPs would vet whether the jabs had been approved for use in the UK, with the more long-term goal of coordinating a commonly agreed vaccine standard with the World Health Organization and medicines’ regulators in the US and European Union.

Ministers are expected to announce the change later this week as part of a review of the wider rules governing international travel due to be held before 31 July. The next update to the red, amber and green lists is not expected to happen until 5 August.

Sources claim the Delta variant prevalent in Britain is spreading faster than the Beta variant in Europe, and would ‘out-compete’ it in the coming weeks, according to The Times.