All UK travel corridors, that allow visitors from certain countries to avoid being quarantined, have now closed.
All countries have been removed from the quarantine-free list in order to prevent new mutations from entering the country. Under the new policy, a negative test in no more than 3 days prior to arrival in the United Kingdom is compulsory, but yet, it does not set you free from quarantine.
The self-isolation period is associated with the second round of testing. Either you will test negative at least 5 days after crossing the border, or isolate yourself for 10 days. Those who arrive without the test could face a fine of £500.
“Yesterday we announced that we’re banning flights from South America and Portugal and to protect us against the risk from as-yet-unidentified strains we will also temporarily close all travel corridors” , Boris Johnson said.
Travel corridors came into force in summer to allow people coming from the countries with low numbers of Covid-19 cases to avoid quarantine on arrival.
The travel corridor, which was suspended on January 18, had included several countries around the world like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Iceland, South Korea, and Singapore.
“What we’re doing now is taking steps that you’d expect to protect against the new variants because the situation now is we have a very high rate of domestic infection in the United Kingdom combined with a massive vaccination program,” said Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“At this crucial stage what we can’t have is new variants with unknown qualities coming in from abroad and that’s why we’ve set up the system to stop arrivals from places where there are new variants of concern and set up the extra tough measures that I’ve outlined.”
The suspension of the program will last at least until February 15.
