FOREIGN HOLIDAYS ON TRACK TO START MAY 17!
With 5 million fully vaccinated and deaths tumbling, it’s Happy Easter...
BORIS Johnson could give Britons the green light for summer holidays from May 17 – after a triple dose of good news on vaccines.
The Prime Minister will announce that the near blanket ban on foreign travel will be replaced by a traffic-light system, paving the way for holidays overseas in just six weeks.
Countries will be assessed according to the progress of their vaccination programmes, virus infection rate, the prevalence of known variants and, crucially, the ability to identify them.
While only a handful of popular European destinations are expected to be given ‘green’ status, it will likely
open the way to trips to countries such as the Maldives, Gibraltar, Malta and Israel.
With the potential for circumstances to change, the first list of ‘green’ countries will not be announced until next month.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has previously made clear that she would be wary of lifting the ban on international travel on May 17.
But she would come under immense pressure if she insisted Scots could not enjoy a summer holiday abroad when people living in England would be allowed.
The last time the Scottish Government tried to take a different approach on international travel by imposing tighter quarantine rules than the UK Government it backfired, as it was unable to ensure the rules could be enforced on travellers flying via English airports.
Renewed hope for millions of Britons for a summer holiday abroad comes as Britain’s vaccination programme continues to make huge strides.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that an efficiency drive at the Oxford Biomedica factory will allow the factory to produce five million extra doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine each year.
In North Wales, a so-called ‘fill and finish’ plant, where the vaccine is decanted into vials for distribution, is in the process of increasing the number of production lines and the European boss of the pharma firm Moderna said 200,000 doses every week will soon begin arriving in the UK.
With the rate of second doses accelerating and using up much of the supplies of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines, almost all the Moderna doses will be go to those aged under 50.
The number of second doses given has exceeded the figure for people getting their first jab on each of the last four days. The stream of positive news came as: l Daily UK deaths fell to ten, the lowest number since September 14. Hospitals admissions fell by 23 per cent week-on-week and positive tests were down more than 28 per cent over the same period; l The Government hailed reaching the milestone of more than five million second vaccine doses, meaning more than one in ten adults have now had both. UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said it represented fresh evidence ‘of progress along the road to freedom’. Meanwhile, the number of first dose jabs reached 31.4 million, almost 60 per cent of adults; l A new Anti-Virals Taskforce is being set up to develop innovative coronavirus treatments, sources told The Mail on Sunday, with the creation of a simple pill to ward off the serious symptoms of the virus top of its target list; l Oxford University and the Office for National Statistics are to examine the low vaccine take-up in certain communities as early evidence suggests that ethnic groups who have shunned vaccinations may have started to see higher rates of Covid infection and deaths; l A vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson is expected to be approved for use by Britain’s medical regulator ‘within weeks’, according to Government insiders. Its jab requires only one dose; l The Government is preparing to launch a PR offensive to encourage Britons to have staycations in the nation’s cities which have been badly hit by domestic lockdowns and the near disappearance of overseas travellers; l France was plunged back into a near full lockdown with tougher Covid-19 restrictions across much of Europe. In America, there was a growing divide, split largely on Republican-Democrat lines, over the wearing of masks.
Downing Street is hopeful of hitting its target to offer a vaccine to all 32 million people in the first nine priority groups this week, ahead of its target of April 15.
Posting on Twitter, Mr Johnson said: ‘We have made huge strides over the past few months with our vaccine programme and everyone in the country has made huge sacrifices to get us to this stage.
‘We are doing everything we can to enable the reopening of our country so people can return to the events, travel and other things they love as safely as possible, and these reviews will play an important role in allowing this to happen.’
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister used an Easter message to reflect that virus restrictions meant many Christians would not be able to mark the day as they would like.
He paid tribute to the ‘church leaders and congregations that have stepped up to support us all in these very challenging times’.
He added: ‘This has been a very tough 12 months. But, as ever, the arrival of Easter brings with it new hope.’
‘We have made huge strides on vaccines’