Boris Johnson announced plans to relax Britain’s border quarantine rules.
Currently anyone arriving in the country has to stay indoors for 14 days and tell authorities where they’ll be staying.
But in new changes expected to take effect within weeks, the rules will be changed so arrivals from some countries don’t have to quarantine at all.
But how will the ‘traffic light’ system work - and is it the same as an ‘air bridge’?
Here’s everything you need to know about the new travel quarantine rules.
Who will and won’t have to go into quarantine?
Arrivals from countries deemed to be ‘safe’ won’t have to go into quarantine.
The Joint Biosecurity Centre - which is responsible for setting the Coronavirus alert level - alongside Public Health England, have drawn up a list of safe countries, based on “strict public health criteria.”
They’ll introduce a ‘traffic light’ system for the list of countries - with arrivals from amber and green countries exempted from quarantine.
Will the traffic light list change?
It might.
The government says it will maintain a “strict handbrake mechanism” allowing them to change a country’s risk category if there’s an outbreak in that country - or even in part of it.
What countries are in the safe list?
We don’t know yet.
The full list will be published next week and is the colour-coding is expected to be based on how well those countries have contained the outbreak.
Number 10 say they’re likely to be talking to France, Greece and Spain over the coming days.
Does this mean we won’t get quarantined when we arrive at another country?
No.
Most countries are still yet to announce whether Brits will be able to trave
l to their countries without quarantine.
The government wants to negotiate so-called ‘air bridges’ - where two countries agree not to quarantine each other.
We’re not there yet, but expect an announcement on that ‘soon’.
Announcing this first seems like a weird move. If we’re negotiating air bridges, shouldn’t we wait for other countries to agree to let us in before giving up all of our bargaining chips?
