Confusion in the UK about overseas travel advice

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced on Wednesday to defend his government’s restrictions on international travel in connection with the pandemic, after being accused of causing confusion.

Leader of the workers’ opposition, Keir Starmer, accused the Executive Authority of giving contradictory instructions to citizens when the border reopened, and at the same time advising people not to go on vacation abroad, except for a few destinations.

“We’re trying to stop legislating for everything and building ourselves on recommendations that ask people to do the right thing,” Johnson told Parliament during the weekly question session.

Since Monday, restrictions on international travel have been eased to prevent the import of cases and coronavirus variants.

The government has created a system that classifies countries into three lists (green, amber, and red) according to their health status.

Only a few countries, such as Portugal, are included in the “green list”, which allows vacationers to avoid quarantine and undergo a single test for covid-19 upon their return.

But the most popular holiday destinations in Britain, such as Spain, Italy, France and Greece, are on the amber list, which requires a ten-day quarantine at home and two tests for the emerging coronavirus.

Britons and residents returning from the “Red List” countries, which include all of South America, must spend 11 nights in a quarantine hotel at their expense, at a cost of 1750 pounds ($ 2,500, 2,000 euros).

But when asked in recent days, several ministers expressed differing opinions about whether or not they could travel to the destinations on the Amber List, which led to confusion.

Johnson said on Wednesday that the instructions are “very clear”: “You should not travel to a country on the amber list except in extreme circumstances, such as a serious illness in a family member.”

The United Kingdom, the hardest-hit country in Europe with nearly 128,000 deaths, has seen a marked improvement in its health after a long and strict confinement and vaccination campaign in which 70% of adults have already received the first dose.

This has resulted in the executive maintaining the roadmap of dismantling despite recent outbreaks discovered in the country of the Indian variant of the Coronavirus.

pau-acc / mb