Trinidad and To­ba­go is among 35 coun­tries whose vac­cine pro­grammes are be­ing recog­nised for trav­el to the UK from Mon­day No­vem­ber 1st.

A re­port in the UK Mir­ror notes that Pe­ru and Ugan­da al­so are on the list of 35 coun­tries get­ting the okay for trav­el to the Unit­ed King­dom.

UK Trans­port Sec­re­tary, Grant Shapps, said that would bring the to­tal num­ber of coun­tries whose vac­cines are recog­nised for trav­el to the UK to about 135.

The 35 new coun­tries are An­go­la, An­guil­la, Ar­genti­na, Ar­me­nia, Azer­bai­jan, Be­lize, Bermu­da, Botswana, Cam­bo­dia, Cay­man Is­lands, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Dji­bouti, Eswa­ti­ni, Gibral­tar, Guyana, Hon­duras, Lebanon, Lesotho, Mada­gas­car, Mau­ri­tius, Mon­go­lia, Nepal, the Oc­cu­pied Pales­tin­ian Ter­ri­to­ries, Pana­ma, Pe­ru, Rwan­da, Sey­chelles, Sier­ra Leone, Sri Lan­ka, Suri­name, Tan­za­nia, Trinidad and To­ba­go, Tunisia, Ugan­da and Uruguay.

No more “red list”, for now…

UK Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps. (Image courtesy UK Mirror)

In ad­di­tion, the UK Trans­port Sec­re­tary an­nounced that the Gov­ern­ment was do­ing away with the “red list” and ho­tel quar­an­tine for for­eign trav­el, af­ter the sev­en re­main­ing coun­tries on that list were re­moved, name­ly Colom­bia, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Ecuador, Haiti, Pana­ma, Pe­ru and Venezuela.

How­ev­er, the UK Gov­ern­ment is re­serv­ing the right to re-ac­ti­vate the “red list” should the need arise, with con­tin­u­ous re­views of the red list tak­ing place every three weeks.

"We will keep the red list cat­e­go­ry in place as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure to pro­tect pub­lic health and are pre­pared to add coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries back if need­ed, as the UK’s first line of de­fence," Mr Shapps stat­ed.

The move will come in­to ef­fect at 4am on Mon­day 1st No­vem­ber in Eng­land, Scot­land, Wales and North­ern Ire­land.

What the changes mean

From November 1st, there will be no countries on the UK's “red list”, but the UK Govt may reactivate the “red list” as the need arises. (Image courtesy CNN via Hollie Adams/Getty Images)

For the most part, an end to the manda­to­ry 11-night, £2.285-a-head ho­tel quar­an­tine.

The UK gov­ern­ment re­duced the num­ber of quar­an­tine ho­tel rooms, but some will re­main “on stand­by” in case coun­tries are added to the red list in fu­ture.

The last ma­jor trav­el up­date on Oc­to­ber 11 cut the red list down from 54 coun­tries to sev­en, re­mov­ing South Africa, Mex­i­co, Brazil, Thai­land and In­done­sia.

A wider over­haul of UK trav­el rules came in­to force ear­li­er this month, with the am­ber and green lists be­ing scrapped in favour of just two lists—the red list and 'rest of the world'.

Trav­el from red list coun­tries is banned un­less peo­ple have res­i­dence or na­tion­al­i­ty rights in the UK, in which case they can come but must stay in a quar­an­tine ho­tel.

For peo­ple com­ing from the rest of the world to Eng­land, there are two sets of rules de­pend­ing on vac­ci­na­tion sta­tus.

■   Chil­dren and ful­ly-vac­ci­nat­ed adults ar­riv­ing from the rest of the world—as long as the UK recog­nis­es their vac­cine—now on­ly have to take one test, a ‘Day 2’ lat­er­al flow af­ter land­ing.  There’s no need to iso­late, and no need to take a “pre-de­par­ture” test be­fore fly­ing.

■   Un­vac­ci­nat­ed or par­tial­ly-vac­ci­nat­ed ar­rivals from the rest of the world must take three tests—a pre-de­par­ture test, plus a ‘Day 2’ as well as a ‘Day 8’ PCR test af­ter land­ing.  They must al­so iso­late for 10 days at home or wher­ev­er they’re stay­ing, un­less they pay for a fourth ‘test to re­lease’ test to leave iso­la­tion ear­ly.

_____

Source: THE MIR­ROR (UK). Ar­ti­cle by DAN BLOOM, On­line Po­lit­i­cal Ed­i­tor.