BOH

Wasn't there supposed to be an updated travel announcement yesterday by BJ and his cronies? Along the lines of exactly what the criteria is going to be regarding countries nominated Green, Amber and Yellow, what those countries are, when this will come into effect and what the specifics of vaccination / testing on departure / testing on return / return quarantine requirements etc?

Or did I miss something yesterday....or all just delayed?

KARFA

I think postponed for a few days due to the royal death.

The _Banking_Scot

Hi,

It could be potentially delayed due to the 8 day period of mourning for HRH Prince Phillip.


PS- Beaten to it by KARFA!

Regards

TBS

GumshoeW12

IIRC the list of red/amber/green countries is unlikely to be confirmed until the week before May 17th, given that the situation is constantly changing.

Nephoi

maybe thats why JUNE cancellations arent here yet

BAeuro

I thought that it was simply the results of the Global Travel Taskforce’s meeting. In the end, that was published early on 9th April and outlines all the categories and their respective entry conditions. I believe the categorisation of each country will be next (early May).

Tobias-UK

I don’t recall that an announcement was to be made on 12 April but that the Global Travel Taskforce would report to the government by 12 April 2021. You will find a copy of the report here: Report of the Global Travel Taskforce: The Safe Return of International Travel

rockflyertalk

Going on recent weeks I’m sure there would have been a briefing at no.10 last night but as noted above due to an official mourning period it didn’t take place.

Most recent briefings have been held on Mondays, whether it would have included anything travel related who knows but I’m sure Boris would of had talked about having his first post-lockdown pint and some sort of scissor action to the mop!

corporate-wage-slave

There is some discussion in the Coronavirus forum thread on this. There isn't a lot more to say at this point, since the report is published and some details of the testing and self isolation details are now outlined. The two aspects still unclear are
- which countries will be in which colour - expect that around 10 May, probably leaked a day or two before
- the role, if any, of Lateral Flow Devices in the testing system and/or anything to reduce the cost of the day2 testing.

IAMORGAN

I am so glad this has come up as I thought I had lost the plot. I could swear BoJo said April 12. However, on April 9 we had the taskforce report

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...ational-travel

I think he may have actually said the report was due on April 12 and they reported early.

The Government has said:

“It is too early to predict which countries will be on which list over the summer, and the government continues to consider a range of factors to inform the restrictions placed on them. We will set out by early May which countries will fall into which category, as well as confirming whether international travel can resume from 17 May 2021.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/g...ational-travel

So, we might not know until early May, which I suppose makes sense as the rates change. I expect they may be trying to avoid further tension with EU countries who clearly couldn’t be on green list now. But also with concern over variants - my sense is as much of which country will be in which category will also come down to (amongst other things) genome sequencing ability. IE confidence in data. As we all know - garbage in, garbage out.

lcylocal

It was originally 12 April. Johnson then announced it would be 5 April (when a small update was published), and it was actually published 9 April. But as others have noted, the key decision of what can open, when, was not made on the grounds of insufficient data. That’s where we are now.

There is no commitment on date to do this prior to 17 May (which is when it could take effect or it could be later). The government will make public advice on whether roadmap step 3 is happening on 10 May (or maybe a touch earlier as there is a Queens Speech on 11 May). I expect that is probably the latest we would hear.

However there is tremendous pressure from the industry. So I would expect the most likely window for an announcement is the last week of April or first week of May.

xnetco

Glad someone raised this else raised this too.

I wonder if the sudden surge testing from the ZA variant in south london might not be helping. That came from an African country that wasn’t on the red list at the time. Apparently it is now.

I do wonder opening the borders is going to be fairly damaging.

it seems like a giant game of snakes and ladders.

u01sss3

Giant Haystack could always leak it to the press and see how the public react . He does it for everything else.

xnetco

Very true. I have a feeling this pandemic is going to roll on for another couple of years.

bafan

well, yes, the virus is here to stay. The only issue is how we deal with it. Now we have widespread vaccination in the UK (and subject to probable annual booster shots), there should be no reason for further lockdowns or widespread travel bans, on current data at least.