Double jabbed from EU and US no longer need to quarantine in UK
pharmafile | August 2, 2021 | News story | Sales and Marketing |
Arrivals to the UK from the EU and US no longer have to quarantine if they have been double jabbed against COVID-19.
The rule changes came into play at 4AM on Monday.
The UK Government said it hoped the move would “reunite people living in the US and European countries with their family and friends in the UK”.
Travellers will instead be required to take a pre-departure test, as well as a PCR test on or before the second day after their arrival.
Those in the EU, plus Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Andorra, and Vatican City – will need to show their “digital COVID certificate”, while people coming from the US can show the paper card they were given after being vaccinated.
The only exception in Europe is France, those returning from the country will still be subject to quarantine rules due to the domestic coronavirus situation.
Prof Christine Pagel, Director of the Clinical Operational Research Unit at UCL, told The Guardian: “By definition the variants we are most worried about are the ones that infect vaccinated people.
“So making vaccinated people exempt from quarantine doesn’t make any sense if variants are what we are most worried about.
“If the current reduction in cases here is real and if we’re actually in a good place, then why would we risk it?
“We should be taking advantage of the fact that we are an island and having much more control over potential new variants coming in.”
Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, said on told BBC Radio 4’s World At One: “If you want variants, you’ve got the perfect storm for that, and it is not in Watford – it is in Zimbabwe and Rwanda and South Africa.”
Lilly Subbotin
