A set of new, more onerous travel rules for UK travellers and visitors are set to make holidays more complex this festive season.
From today, vaccinated travellers wishing to enter the country must take a pre-departure test and present a negative result, as well as taking a PCR test - rather than a previously permitted lateral flow - within two days of arrival. They must also self-isolate until a negative result is returned.
The addition of a pre-departure test for double-jabbed passengers will apply to those aged 12 and over, travelling to the UK from any foreign country except Ireland and Ethiopia.
During the past two weeks, the government also added 11 countries to the formerly emptied red list, including South Africa, Botswana and, most recently, Nigeria.
Leaders and officials in red-listed countries expressed outrage at the “selective” listing of southern African countries, when omicron is now present in dozens of countries around the world.
Yesterday Nigeria’s high commissioner Sarafa Tunji Isola described the travel bans, by countries including the UK and US, as travel “apartheid”.
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