We are all waiting with bated breath for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to announce information about the potential lifting of restrictions on foreign travel – so that we can get booking our summer holidays.
One of the possible plans that have been discussed to allow COVID restrictions on international travel to potentially ease, is the introduction of the so-called traffic light system.
How would the traffic light system work?
We don’t have any firm information at the moment, but it is widely believed that foreign destinations would be graded as red, amber and green for travellers from the UK. If a country was on the green list it would mean that travellers could return to the UK with no restrictions. Countries on the amber list would potentially mean that travellers would have to quarantine at home and those on the red list would continue to require a 10-day quarantine stay in a hotel.
How does this differ from the current situation?
At the moment (April 2021) all international travel is banned, except for essential international travel. There are 34 countries on the red list at the moment and so the majority of people who are arriving back into the UK at the moment are either quarantining in a hotel for 10 days or at home.
However, they can potentially be released from this quarantine early if they take a Test to Release test on day five of quarantine, as long as it comes back with a negative result.
How will the Government decide what status countries are given?
They will probably take a wide variety of factors into account, including current COVID infection rates, the speed at which the infection rates are changing, and how widespread the vaccination programme rollout is.
Whatever happens, Fit2FlyTest are here to help ease the return to international travel. We offer you a gold standard Fit to Fly COVID-19 PCR Test (with certificate included) for pre-departure peace of mind, and also a Test to Release COVID-19 PCR test to potentially end your quarantine period early (on receipt of a negative test result).
