‘Progress we can all enjoy’: England reopens its doors to Europe, US

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London: Boris Johnson has reopened England’s doors to fully vaccinated Americans and Europeans who have, until now, had to quarantine on arrival in Britain as part of coronavirus restrictions on international travellers.

From Tuesday, anyone fully vaccinated with a vaccine approved by the European Medicines Agency and the US Food and Drug Administration arriving from Europe and the US will be allowed to visit England without quarantining.

A traveler walks underneath a British Union Flag at Terminal 5 in London Heathrow Airport.Credit:Bloomberg

International cruising has also been given the go-ahead.

While the move puts England ahead of Asia-Pacific countries like Australia, Singapore and Thailand in luring back tourists, the government is playing catch up to many European nations like Malta, France and Greece.

Those countries have already been accepting vaccinated tourists quarantine-free, despite those countries having lower vaccination rates.

Their reopening has prompted alarm amongst government backbenchers that Britain is squandering the dividends to Europe despite being first to inoculate much of its population.

More than 88 per cent of eligible adults in Britain have had their first vaccination against COVID-19 and more than 71 per cent of eligible adults are fully dosed, which the British Prime Minister said was the highest proportion in the world.

“That is enabling us to make the economic progress that we are,” Johnson told London radio LBC.

“There will still be bumps on the road but I think you’ll see a story of steady economic recovery and perhaps quite fast economic recovery as well.”

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said England was taking “another important step forward,” to reopening international travel following the pandemic-induced shutdowns.

“Whether you are a family reuniting for the first time since the start of the pandemic or a business benefiting from increased trade – this is progress we can all enjoy,” Shapps said.

“We will of course continue to be guided by the latest scientific data but thanks to our world-leading domestic vaccination programme, we’re able to look to the future and start to rebuild key transatlantic routes with the US while further cementing ties with our European neighbours,” he said.

But he warned of long queues at British airports and said that no-one travelling this northern summer should expect it to be normal.

More electronic gates will be upgraded at England’s main airports Heathrow and Gatwick over the next few months so they can process health checks.

Tom Thackray from the CBI which represents businesses and has offices in London, Washington and Brussels said the long-awaited reopening would provide a significant boost to the beleaguered travel industry.

“The task now is to implement these changes as rapidly and smoothly as possible, which should include an efficient pre-travel system of assessing passengers’ COVID-status to prevent congestion at airports,” he said.

John Holland Kaye, the CEO of Heathrow Airport has been critical of the British government for letting Britain fall behind its EU rivals by being too slow to reopen.

“We will now work with colleagues in the industry to boost UK trade, reunite family and friends, and generate billions in new tourist income,” he said in a short one-line statement issued after the announcement.

Heathrow has suffered £2.9 billion ($5.5 billion) in losses since the start of the pandemic which ground most international travel to a halt. In the first six months of 2021, fewer than 4 million people travelled through the airport – the equivalent of 18 days of passenger movements in 2019.

Britain has been buoyed by a dramatic but unexplained fall in infections. Cases have more than halved since their post-Euros peak when infections breached 60,000 in a single day to around 27,000 on Wednesday, but the 7-day trend declined further to 38 per cent compared to the week before.

However, in a blow for Britons wanting to travel to the US, the Biden Administration will not reciprocate the move and keep its borders closed to the UK, despite the Delta strain now also prevalent in the United States.

Adding to complications, the FDA has not approved the British-created Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine for use in the US.

Former President Donald Trump first imposed the travel ban on Britain and Europe at the start of the pandemic and it has continued in light of the Delta strain which has been dominant in the UK for several months.

But the strain has now also taken hold in the US, particularly in states with lower vaccination rates, prompting the CDC to revise its mask rules and recommend them indoors even for the fully vaccinated.

All travellers arriving into England still have to test negative up to three days before departure and within two days of arriving in the country regardless of their vaccination status.

The country still maintains a red list where travellers from countries have to go into hotel quarantine at their own cost.

Boris Johnson credited England’s successful vaccination program. Credit:Getty

Britons have been free to travel abroad for essential travel throughout the pandemic although leisure travel was briefly restricted for several months at the beginning of 2021.

The opposition has attacked Boris Johnson’s government for not restricting international travel enough, particularly from India during its second wave of infections and has dubbed the fast-spreading Delta variant the “Johnson variant.”

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