Holidaymakers could have choice of destinations
BRITISH holidaymakers could visit destinations including Italy and France this summer if Covid-19 cases there can be driven down to UK levels, a senior scientific adviser has said.
Professor Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, who advises the UK Government, said he had not yet booked a break abroad but the risks were focused on countries with higher infection levels than the UK.
The Welsh Government has expressed concerns that any decision made by the UK Government will impact Wales because so many people use airports like Bristol, Manchester, and Liverpool with First Minister Mark Drakeford having been clear about what he sees as a need for caution when it comes to international travel.
It comes after the European Commission said it would ease restrictions on travel to the bloc amid progressing Covid-19 vaccinations and lower infection rates.
The EU is proposing “to allow entry to the EU for non-essential reasons not only for all persons coming from countries with a good epidemiological situation, but also all people who have received the last recommended dose of an EUauthorised vaccine”.
The UK Government’s “green list” of countries to which people can travel without having to isolate for 14 days on their return is also expected to be released shortly.
Prof Ferguson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think if, for instance, by the summer, infection levels in France and Italy are the same sort of level as they are here, then there’s no risk associated with travelling overseas.
“The risk comes from going from a place like the UK with very low infection levels and going to a place with much higher infection levels.
“If the two places are at comparable levels, and that’s what the EU is saying, then there is no particular risks associated with travel.”
He said the risk of vaccines being less effective in the face of variants was “the major concern” that could still lead to a “very major third wave in the autumn” in the UK.
It was therefore “essential we roll out booster doses, which can protect against that, as soon as we’ve basically finished vaccinating the adult population, which should finish by the summer,” he said.
Prof Ferguson said he was “feeling fairly optimistic that we will be back to something which feels a lot more normal by the summer”.
Agreeing that “everybody would like to safely reopen international travel”, he added: “The EU in its statement did have a very strong caveat that it reserves the right to clamp down again if there were variants of concern, and I think that’s everybody’s concern at the moment across the European continent, that we don’t want to see vaccination undermined by things like the South African variant spreading in an uncontrolled manner, but with that one caveat, if we can find ways of reopening international travel which mitigates that risk, then I think everybody would like to be able to have some opportunity to go overseas.”
Commenting on the Prime Minister’s view that the one-metre plus rule on social distancing could be scrapped in June, Prof Ferguson said it was a political judgement on how much infection was acceptable, given deaths had been driven down.
He said “we do expect transmission and, to some extent hospitalisations and deaths, to tick up in late summer if we completely go back to normal, but at a much lower level than we saw, for instance, back in December and January”.
“It’s obviously a political judgment as to what is acceptable in terms of number of infections, but we don’t see any prospect of, for instance, the NHS being overwhelmed – with the one caveat around variants I’ve already mentioned – so it’s always a matter of judgment.”
He said there would need to be “much higher levels of infection in society in order to risk overwhelming the NHS and we think that’s actually unlikely to happen unless a variant comes along which resets that relationship again.”
Prof Ferguson stressed that his team still do have some concerns about late summer and early autumn but “they’re diminishing”, particularly in light of new data showing the effect of vaccines on transmission of the virus.
Meanwhile, Portugal’s secretary of state for tourism, Rita Marques, said the country is “taking the lead” at the European Council in negotiations aimed at opening up the European Union to UK holidaymakers.
She told BBC Breakfast: “We are really pushing hard to open up to third countries like the UK.”
But International Trade Secretary Liz Truss urged people to wait for an announcement from the UK’s travel taskforce.