The Diplomat
The UK government will not add any more countries to the ‘green list’ of safe destinations to which Britons are allowed to travel without the need for a ten-day quarantine on their return, a decision that dashes Spain’s hopes of getting off the ‘amber list’ and the expectations of the tourism sector.
Portugal, the only European country on the ‘green list’, will now be placed on the ‘amber list’, which includes Spain along with Greece and France. This classification obliges travellers to be confined when returning home and to undergo three coronavirus tests, one before flying to the UK and two more during the mandatory quarantine.
Even the Balearic and Canary Islands, which are among the most popular destinations for British tourists, are not spared from the ‘amber’ list.
The factors the UK government uses to assess whether to place a country on the green, amber or red list are the percentage of the population vaccinated, the rate of infection, the prevalence of variants of concern and the country’s access to reliable scientific data and genomic sequencing.
Boris Johnson’s government has urged Britons not to travel to destinations that are classified as amber, even though travel to them is not banned, nor to those on the red list.
