Portugal travel chaos ‘dividing Britain’
THE travel quarantine system descended into further confusion last night as Wales imposed restrictions on travellers from Portugal and Greece, but English travellers remain exempt.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps had been expected to remove Portugal from the ‘green’ list of safe countries after the number of cases per 100,000 residents hit 23 yesterday – higher than the Government’s threshold of 20.
But in a surprise move that grants a reprieve to 75,000 English holidaymakers in Portugal, Mr Shapps said there would be no changes to the quarantine list.
Whitehall sources said the decision was based on evidence that the figures have been skewed by a large increase in testing in Portugal. They say data showed that although the figures have gone up, the proportion of positive tests has decreased.
By contrast, the Welsh government said restrictions would be imposed on travellers returning from Portugal, Gibraltar and six Greek islands including Crete and Mykonos after their own health officials identified a ‘significant risk’ to public health.
The new rules came in at 4am this morning but only apply to travellers entering Wales. Scotland has also imposed restrictions on arrivals from Greece which take effect from 4am on Saturday.
Last night, critics suggested the increasingly controversial quarantine rules were ‘dividing the United Kingdom’. The news will anger thousands of English travellers who cancelled holidays to Portugal fearing quarantine measures would be imposed.
Travel bosses said the shambolic handling of the fiasco proves ‘arbitrary’ quarantine rules are broken. Paul Charles, boss of travel consultancy The PC Agency, said: ‘ The quarantine policy is in tatters and dividing the United Kingdom.
‘Consumers are totally confused by the different approaches and it’s impossible to understand the Government’s own criteria any more on when to add or remove a country.’
Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said: ‘Days of speculation around this announcement meant many people rushed to pay extortionate prices for flights back to England to avoid having to quarantine on their return – only to now find out there was no need.’
A Department for Transport spokesman said ministerial decisions around adding or removing countries from the list took into account a range of factors, ‘including virus incidence rates, information on a country’s testing capacity [and] an assessment of the quality of data available’.