Thousands of vaccinated tourists from Germany and other EU nations are flocking to some of the most popular summer hotspots - while UK holidaymakers face a raft of restrictions if they want a place in the sun.
Under current rules tourists from Germany and most EU countries are allowed to return home after producing a negative PCR test and are not required to isolate, sparking calls for the UK to do the same for double-jabbed sunseekers.
The EU health passport will come into operation on July 1 easing curbs even further - but it could be another month before UK visitors get the go-ahead for quarantine-free travel.
People travelling from Germany have packed into popular tourist destinations like Gran Canaria and Majorca - which are still on the UK government's amber list - meaning who goes there must isolate at home for 10 days - regardless of whether they are double-jabbed.
But health secretary Matt Hancock says the government is "not ready" to launch its own vaccine passport to allow international travel this year.
Latest data from NHS Test and Trace reveals that of 23,465 people returning to the UK from amber countries between May 20 and June 9, 89 tested positive for Covid-19, a rate of around one in 200 - compared to an estimated one in 540 people across the UK.
Professor Robert Dingwall, who sits on the government’s Nervtag advisory group, said it is time for the PM to "stop jumping at shadows.
He told a newspaper: "If you’re double vaccinated, there is very little risk to you from travelling anywhere else on the planet, because the vaccines would work just as well in Kathmandu as in Kenya."
He said that if people bring back a mild variant to the country where "pretty much everybody else" is double jabbed, "they are all protected to the same extent that you are".
Latest vaccine figures show that 59.7 per cent of British adults have now been double vaccinated.
Tim Alderslade, boss of Airlines UK, claimed overseas travel to many destinations was perfectly safe and slammed continuing UK restrictions.
He claimed: “If they continue down this road — ignoring the data as well as the effectiveness of their own vaccine programme — they will never open up travel anywhere ever again.”
