Nations issue plea to be given green light to join Britain’s air bridge list

PORTUGAL, Sweden and Turkey are fighting to secure “air bridges” with the UK, as the Government prepares to unveil its list of 50 countries to be exempted from quarantine.

Officials from Portugal, which relies on British holidaymakers for 20 per cent of its tourist income, have disputed claims that Lisbon is facing a second wave of coronavirus that could keep the country off the UK list.

Authorities have reimposed a lockdown in 19 Greater Lisbon parishes with all but supermarkets, restaurants and service stations closing at 8pm in the rest of the city. Some 70 per cent of the 300 cases being reported daily are in Lisbon.

But Prof Henrique Barros, president of Portugal’s National Health Council, said the outbreak was “clearly controlled”, there was no scientific or empirical justification for excluding Portugal from the list, and that the UK Covid-19 status was “worse”.

He said the outbreak was restricted to Lisbon’s poorer areas where tourists did not visit. “The places where tourists tend to walk are the safest in the country. Tourists are not taking the overcrowded metro or train at 6am in the morning to go to work,” he added. “I mean the risk is almost negligible.”

Portugal is understood to be classed as “red” on the Government’s traffic light system for assessing risk. Visitors to countries rated green and amber will not be required to self-isolate for 14 days on their return.

Countries are assessed on the prevalence of coronavirus, the UK’s confidence in the reliability of their data, and “crucially” the trajectory of the disease in the country, say government sources. Spain, Greece and France are the only countries publicly identified as likely “safe” destinations. Sweden has been identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as suffering a Covid-19 resurgence with 155 infections for every 100,000 inhabitants in the past 14 days, higher than anywhere else in the WHO’s defined Europe region, other than Armenia.

This week Sweden reported its highest number of daily infections, with 1,610 on Wednesday. However, Anders Tegnell, a state epidemiologist, said the rise was due to more testing.

It was “unfortunate”, he said, that the WHO was “confusing Sweden” with countries at the start of their epidemic. “The number of admissions to intensive care is at a very low level and even deaths are starting to go down.”

The number of new coronavirus cases in Turkey has doubled to 1,492 in a month, after the country started easing lockdown restrictions in late May. Prof Guner Sonmez, of Üsküdar university, said he feared the government was losing control.

Ryanair yesterday dismissed the plan to relax quarantine requirements for France, Greece and Spain as “more idiotic rubbish”.