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Canary Islands ADDED to quarantine list, with Botswana and Saudi Arabia removed

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The Government has announced its weekly tweaks to the UK travel corridors list.

The Canary Islands have been removed from the travel corridors list due to increased levels of coronavirus.

From 4am on Saturday 12th December, anyone returning to England from the Canary Islands will have to self isolate for fourteen days.

Travel corridors update

If you are looking for an alternative holiday destination, Botswana and Saudi Arabia have been added to the travel corridors list.

The official ‘travel corridor’ list – which has not yet been updated – is on this page of the Government website.

Comments (78)

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  • ChrisW says:

    That’s going to mess up a lot of Christmas plans.

    PS – Saudi Arabia is lovely this time of year 😂😂😂

  • Mike says:

    Botswana has an incidence rate of 89 per 100k ppl on a 14-day rolling average basis for week 49 of 2020 (last available data). The country gets added to the UK’s travel corridor.

    The Canary Islands has an incidence rate of 70 per 100k in the same period. An improvement over the previous week, despite which it gets removed from the UK’s travel corridor.

    (By comparison, the UK is at 314 per 100k.)

    Once again, the incompetence of HM Government is resounding.

    • Eugene says:

      Absolutely . Its what happens when ministers get appointed for their fealty to Boris or to the big project. Either way most aren’t top drawer.
      Two hours spent doing handbrake turns and its now a week in Madeira at New Year not Tenerife ! Whew…

    • Dr C says:

      Neither of which are even worth bothering about

  • Anna says:

    From The Guardian :

    “The World Travel and Tourism Council’s president, Gloria Guevara, said there were “compelling reasons” why the UK should be added to the EU’s exemption list to enable international travel to continue, including “relatively low Covid transmission compared with parts of Europe”.

    She said: “British travellers are a major contributor to European economies [and] the biggest proportion of inbound travellers to many major EU countries, such as Spain, Portugal and Cyprus.”

    Airlines said they remained confident that individual EU member states would exercise their right to allow British visitors “non-essential” travel, adding the UK to the list of exempt countries.”

    Sounds like the travel industry is already ramping up to oppose Brussels.

    • Bill says:

      Anna – why cite Brussels when each individual EU member state could exercise their right to allow travel ?

    • Paul Pogba says:

      It depends whether these decisions are based on politics, economics or public health. I assume it’s the latter and have no doubt that when this virus has passed our famed holidays to Malia and kavos will be back on for the reasons you state.

    • Paul says:

      EASA last week published a summary of the effects of various anti-transmission measures, and recommendations arising from them. Even setting aside a presumed bias from the commissioning body, the essential points were that either you stop all travel immediately and isolate effectively (NZ, AUS etc), or you may as well not bother doing anything. Depends which ‘science’ you wish to follow I suppose…

  • Aaron says:

    Oh that’s wonderful news – can finally take that dream getaway to Chop Chop Square in Saudi.

    • Sandgrounder says:

      Saudi Arabia have suspended the relatively new tourist visa for the duration of the pandemic sadly. I was considering a visit this winter, on hold now of course. I had to make do with Tenerife, got back this afternoon, glad to have missed the quarantine obviously.

    • Mike says:

      Have they suspended chop chop?

  • Joe says:

    Landed back from lanza tonight (we went on Saturday) and I planned to come back today in case this would happen. Having lived covid (circumstances not had it) in chicago, buckinghamshire and holidayed in michigan and now lanza, I must say lanza was by far the best. Negative test to get in, strict masks everywhere, gloves to serve food at hotels, socially distanced tables etc. I really feel for the people with businesses etc there…

    On the plus side, CE was delightful both ways, superb crew, well loaded champagne, food ok for a box. Really reminded me of the old ba in the staff – flight out thought it was a fluke, but flight back too makes me think the good service might be back (for a while at least hopefully!)

  • Mike says:

    Just landed back from TFS, having managed to get poor man’s business class (actually 3 whole rows to myself at the back!) on one of the last BA flights back. Was lovely but that was a damn expensive day trip LOL.

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