Portugal, Hungary and more added to England quarantine list, Sweden off

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• The Lord says:

  10 Sep10 September 17:22

  Good to see Sweden back on the list

  • Riccatti says:

    10 Sep10 September 20:17

    It is off the list.

    • Pangolin says:

      10 Sep10 September 20:58

      It is added to the travel corridor list, as you surely know.

• Harry T says:

  10 Sep10 September 18:14

  Well, I did get back from Portugal last week, so it was inevitable.

  • Darren says:

    10 Sep10 September 18:17

    hhhmmm. Oh well.

  • Pangolin says:

    10 Sep10 September 21:00

    I’m not sure whether Harry is trying to outrun covid or covid is trying to outrun Harry 🙂

  • Lady London says:

    10 Sep10 September 22:18

    Where are you going next, @Harry T? just so we know to get there and get home before you.

• Nick says:

  10 Sep10 September 18:55

  Anyone else see the irony in this story being headed by a very large ad for TAP reading “Porto. Ready to go” ?!

  • Rob says:

    10 Sep10 September 19:06

    They paid good money for that ad too ….

  • MD says:

    10 Sep10 September 20:47

    Typhoid Harry strikes again 😂

    • MD says:

      10 Sep10 September 20:48

      I have precisely zero idea why that posted twice, apologies. It was (sort of) funny the first time…

  • Colin says:

    11 Sep11 September 12:01

    And they have been truly awful regarding refunds for cancelled flights – surpassed only by Lufthansa IMO

• Aliks says:

  10 Sep10 September 19:40

  Anyone got any thoughts on Kenya? Looking at published numbers, they are in good shape to open up to tourism, but what is the picture like really?

  • Graeme says:

    10 Sep10 September 20:28

    Simon Calder wrote an article about them a day or two ago – look it up. I didn’t read it, but the link seemed positive.

• Jimbob says:

  10 Sep10 September 19:40

  Harry T, is there any chance you could share your travel itinerary for the next 12 months, so we know which Countries are likely to be on the quarantined list? 😛

  • Anna says:

    10 Sep10 September 20:16

    +1, Harry T, or “Dr Quarantine” as he shall henceforth be known. Could be a Bond film title!

  • Harry T says:

    10 Sep10 September 20:27

    All my upcoming plans are Uk Based – perhaps we shall see local lockdowns? 😂

    • Jimbob says:

      10 Sep10 September 21:41

      Perhaps you could get local tourist boards to sponsor you not to go on holiday?!

• Riccatti says:

  10 Sep10 September 20:22

  Bingo!

  Inevitable when you are using 7-day SMA. The indicator is just as random.

• Gothbe says:

  10 Sep10 September 20:48

  The whole system is a total disaster. It would make far more sense if they gave say 7 days notice. That way people who want to go away can plan with peace of mind as could the whole travel industry. Who wants to go anywhere at the minute with the threat of quarantine hanging over your head with 2 days notice at best

  • ChrisW says:

    10 Sep10 September 22:15

    Yeah, giving people seven days to return from a covid hotspot without quarantining isn’t really going to solve anything…

    • Gothbe says:

      10 Sep10 September 22:52

      Hardly a big difference them returning Saturday compared to 5 days later. Totally arbitrary numbers. Perhaps go to Luxembourg where the figure is -147. Complete nonsense

• AndyW says:

  10 Sep10 September 21:12

  Arrived back from Portugal mid afternoon today, well before announcement. Border official said, ‘are you aware you have to quarantine for 14 days’. Told him we didn’t, and he had a look at a bit of paper in front of him and said oh yes you are right. Either they knew the announcement was coming and got themselves muddled (unlikely I would think) or more likely there is utter confusion even at the border, which isn’t a great sign.

  In addition, probably hundreds of people stopped before passport control filling in the passenger locator form (which incidentally they checked for on arrival even though we don’t need to self isolate).

  • BP says:

    10 Sep10 September 22:05

    What airport was that? Returned to Edinburgh from Portugal last week and no sign of checking for quarantine forms.

    • AndyW says:

      11 Sep11 September 06:21

      Into Gatwick

  • Brian says:

    10 Sep10 September 23:32

    Even the Germans are confused. I flew into Munich last week – we were all handed forms by the (Lufthansa) flight attendants to fill in and told we needed to take a test because we were arriving from a risk area. Several people questioned this, but they made an announcement saying that it was true. When I landed, I got online – the UK was on the list, but only because of Gibraltar!! In other words, you didn’t need to fill out the form and do the test if coming from the UK proper.

    • BigDave says:

      11 Sep11 September 07:26

      and Germans only put Gibraltar on because loads of peeps staying in Spain are flying back via Gibraltar and not claiming to have been in Spain.

      Gibraltar has 32 active cases of covid when writing this ….
      but at leas the Germans are playing it safe and make you do a covid test on arrival and you isolate until you get the results – that is the future of air travel

      • GeorgeJ says:

        11 Sep11 September 07:39

        The rate of cases for Gibraltar is roughly 50percent above current high UK levels.
        The rate per 100,000 per the last week is @80 according ECDC data well above the 20 threshold.

      • HAM76 says:

        11 Sep11 September 09:14

        This is about to change… The new plan in Germany is to let everyone self-isolate for five days, then do a test. With a positive result you have to self-isolate for another 14 days. The test will also not be free anymore.

        In Germany all of this is regulated at the state level. You might still get a free test when arriving in MUC as Bavaria intends to offer free tests, but might not flying into TXL, HAM or FRA.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          11 Sep11 September 12:09

          5 days then a test is fair.

        • GeorgeJ says:

          11 Sep11 September 13:27

          Thats interesting HAM76, how are they going to police it, will they have a version of the PLF (currently they have nothing, I have just gone Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Austria and only Greece required any notification or contact details from me) given that a lot of Germans travel cross border by car, or is this airports point to point only.

        • HAM76 says:

          11 Sep11 September 14:20

          Right now we have repurposed parking lots next to motorways just beyond the borders to host temporary testing centers. So wether you drive or fly, there’s a way to get tested, often for free, for now.

          From October 1st you are required to contact your local health authority when you arrive and then again when you have a negative test result after 5 days of isolation. It appears to me, because I haven’t found any information to the contrary, that enforcement is purely based on high fines if you get caught and the concept that most people comply with rules. I must admit, I have no idea how this is supposed to work with tourist or business travelers from areas considered to be risky.

        • GeorgeJ says:

          11 Sep11 September 16:41

          Thank you for replying Ham76 this is most useful.
          I will be flying to Munich from Greece and then driving to Austria on 3 October so may see the process in operation. Hopefully Greece remains green.

        • HAM76 says:

          11 Sep11 September 17:11

          There are special rules for transits. If you arrive in Munich in order to drive straight to Austria and you can explain why you couldn‘t possibly fly to Austria directly then the rules I mentioned won‘t apply to you. Of course, you still have to check how Austria values a transit through Germany and a visit to Greece.

        • HAM76 says:

          12 Sep12 September 09:23

          One more thing you might want to keep in mind. While the 14-day number for Germany is 20.9 right now, Bavaria is the part of the country that has most new cases and 14-day average twice as high as the country. Within Bavaria Munich is one of the cities with the highest number of infections, twice as much as the state average. The number of infections per 100,000 in the past 14 days for Munich is around 80, similar to Romania, higher than most countries in Europe and twice the UK number.

  • Renaud says:

    11 Sep11 September 14:21

    Passenger Locator Form is required for any arrival, regardless of the quarantine status of the country, because you might indicate that in the last 14 days you stayed in another country that is on the quarantine list. I had to fill one when coming back from France in July, when it was still on the exemption list.

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