English officials announced on Wednesday that the country will relax restrictions on vaccinated travelers seeking to enter the country from the European Union and the United States.
“We’re helping reunite people living in the US and European countries with their family and friends in the UK,” Secretary of Transport Grant Shapps wrote on Twitter. “From 2nd August at 4am people from these countries will be able to come to the England from an amber country without having to quarantine if they’re fully vaxxed.”
The governments of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have so far been silent on whether they will adopt England’s new travel policies or move forward with their own regulations.
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Shapps clarified that the new policies do not completely eliminate travel regulations, writing, “The changes will apply to fully vaxxed people with an FDA or EMA vaccine – they’ll still need to do the usual pre-departure test before arrival and take a PCR test on day 2 of returning to the England.”
The new policy is a major step forward for England, which up until now had tight and rigid restrictions on the arrival of U.S. and European travelers.
We’re helping reunite people living in the US and European countries with their family and friends in the UK ?
From 2nd August at 4am people from these countries will be able to come to the England from an amber country without having to quarantine if they’re fully vaxxed ?
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) July 28, 2021
Angela Rayner, a deputy Labour leader, expressed caution over the new policy in the wake of the emerging COVID-19 delta variant.
“So we’re really concerned about making sure that new variants do not come into the UK and that we do have a system that identifies where we have variants of Covid where infection is and we’re able to isolate it,” Rayner said, according to the BBC.
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Shapps added that international cruises and testing programs would also be helped by the new policies.
“We’re also able to confirm the restart of international cruises and flexible testing programmes to help key workers and drive our economic recovery,” Shapps added. “Whether you’re a family or a business, this is progress we can all enjoy.”
