UK closes travel corridors from Monday
From Monday 18 January, all international arrivals to Scotland and England (including UK nationals) are required to present a negative COVID-19 test taken up to 3 days prior to departure, and provide evidence of a negative result before they travel. This is to help protect against new strains of coronavirus circulating internationally.
Passengers will be subject to an immediate fine of £500 if they fail to comply with the new regulations on pre-departure testing. If you are arriving from countries, not on the government’s travel corridor list, you will still be required to self-isolate for 10 days, regardless of the test result.
Last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson had announced that the government had made the difficult but necessary decision to introduce a new national lockdown.
The statement was issued as under.
Both globally and domestically we are seeing significant increases in levels of coronavirus (COVID-19), including the emergence of worrying about new strains. It is therefore imperative that we ensure we are doing all we can to protect travel, reduce the risk of imported infections, including from new variants, and protect our NHS while national lockdown and vaccinations take effect.
We already have strong safeguards in place, including a requirement for mandatory 10-day self-isolation for the vast majority of arrivals and our travel corridors system remains critical in managing the risk of imported cases from high-risk countries. However, as a result of increasing instances of COVID-19 around the world, including the emergence of new variants, we are now taking additional steps to add a further layer of protection to safeguard public health.
We will be introducing pre-departure testing requirements for all inbound passengers to England. Passengers arriving by ship, plane or train will have to take a test up to 3 days before departure and provide evidence of a negative result before they travel.
This will be an additional requirement that applies to all passengers, including those traveling from a travel corridor country, other than those on a very short list of exemptions. This extra layer of protection is in addition to existing self-isolation requirements.
We will establish the standards that tests must meet in regulations. This will include that the test must be of a diagnostic-standard test such as a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, and could in some cases include LAMP and lateral flow tests within set limits. We will provide clear guidance and advice to passengers regarding testing standards and capacity.
In addition, we will also set out the information passengers will need to have with them at check-in and the UK border to show they have had a qualifying negative test. All information on test requirements will be made available to passengers and transport operators through guidance on GOV.UK.
The current advice for those across the UK remains that you must stay at home and not travel abroad unless it is for a permitted exempt reason. If British Nationals test positive for COVID-19 while abroad they should not travel and should follow the local relevant guidance on self-isolation.
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