Air-bridge uncertainty: Portugal’s place on quarantine list still unclear

Dozens of countries will be exempted from travel and quarantine restrictions on entry into the UK, but it remains to be seen whether Portugal will be included, British media reported this Thursday.

The Daily Telegraph reports that 75 low or very low-risk countries will be covered, while The Times suggests that the list includes up to 95 countries and that it comprises almost the entire European Union, as well as Bermuda and Gibraltar, Turkey, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, among others.

The two newspapers remain uncertain about the inclusion of Portugal due to the outbreaks of people infected with the novel coronavirus identified in recent weeks, namely on the outskirts of Lisbon. The British government had indicated last week that it would select a limited number of “corridors” with some countries, which would be classified according to a traffic-light system of destinations most at risk of infection with Covid-19.

However, some of these countries maintain travel restrictions for the UK on their side, such as Greece, which announced on Monday that it would maintain the quarantine requirement for people arriving from the UK until at least 15 July.

High-risk countries, such as the United States, Russia and Brazil, are classified as red by the British government, the Daily Telegraph said today.  

The mandatory two-week quarantine was imposed on 8 June on all arrivals from abroad to the UK to reduce the risk of cases imported from abroad and help prevent a second wave of the virus. Now that the British government believes it has controlled the pandemic, it has begun a phased outbreak and on Monday, Transport Minister Grant Shapps confirmed that the partial lifting of the quarantine was authorized by health authorities for low-risk countries.

The list of countries will have as factors not only the prevalence of coronavirus, but especially the number of new cases and the potential trajectory in the coming weeks of the disease in the country, he said at the time. The executive chairman of Red Savannah, a travel agency, said today that the quarantine imposed on all foreign arrivals to the United Kingdom since 8 June was “useless” and detrimental to the tourism sector. “There was no regulatory or economic assessment, no consultation. What it did in practice was to prevent the sector from, after four months without revenues, from getting back on its feet”, he criticized, speaking to the BBC this morning.