Covid-19 vaccine updates

The UK Transport Secretary has warned that people must be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus in order to travel between countries “forever”.

Grant Shapps’ comments suggest that the pandemic will permanently change the way people travel and that airlines and the tourism industry will have to adapt to additional red tape and controls as people cross borders indefinitely.

He said the pandemic created a “new world” and he expected countries to require passengers to be fully vaccinated before traveling.

“I think double vaccination or full vaccination will be a feature forever and most countries, probably all countries, will require full vaccination for entry,” he told BBC Radio on Thursday.

Shapps also urged more young adults to get vaccinated, warning them not to travel without them.

“If you might be in your twenties and feel, ‘oh, this doesn’t really concern me,’ then it will because you can’t leave the country. This is not something the UK government does, it is required of every government around the world, ”he told LBC Radio.

A White House official said this week the US government was up Elaboration plans that all foreign visitors must be vaccinated against Covid-19.

Some parts of the travel industry have responded with alarm, with the World Travel and Tourism Council warning that travel vaccination regulations would “create effective” no-go “areas for much of the world”.

“Right now, many less developed countries just don’t have the resources or infrastructure to quickly vaccinate their populations,” the WTTC said.

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Shapps’ predictions came when the government eased some travel restrictions in an attempt to give the travel industry a serious boost.

Passengers returning to England from France will no longer need quarantine on arrival on Sunday if they are vaccinated. This simplification of the much criticized traffic light system brings France in line with the rules for other “amber” countries.

A handful of countries, including Germany and Austria, have been added to the “green” list, which allows quarantine-free travel for everyone, including those who have not been vaccinated. Meanwhile, the travel centers of India, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have been removed from the “red” list, which means that newcomers no longer need to be quarantined in government-approved hotels.

The travel industry by and large welcomed the news but urged ministers to go further, notably reducing the testing rules that require anyone returning to England from abroad to take two tests, including at least one expensive PCR test .

“The UK’s economic recovery depends on a thriving travel sector and right now we are lagging behind Europe with our stricter testing requirements and a much wider red list than our European competitors,” said Sean Doyle, CEO of British Airways.

Shapps defended the testing regime, saying it was “irresponsible” not to look for new coronavirus variants when people return home from trips. “This is how you protect yourself from the next big variant that none of us have seen before,” he added.

“We want our travel industry to be successful in the ideal world. . . I wish people could just travel freely without those stresses or tests or anything else. We have to live in the reality that different variants of the coronavirus can appear everywhere. ”

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