You’ll need a jab to travel abroad for ever says minister
BRITISH travellers will have to be fully vaccinated ‘for evermore’ if they want to enter another country, the Transport Secretary warned yesterday.
Grant Shapps said most countries – if not all – would permanently require visitors to be double-jabbed before letting them in.
He warned youngsters who have yet to receive the Covid vaccine – in the belief that the virus does not affect them – that their ability to travel around the world would be severely limited without it.
Mr Shapps made the admission as he defended the changes to the traffic light travel system, which has left thousands of British holidaymakers scrambling to get back from Mexico, which joins the red list on Sunday. He insisted Britons will now be able to go on holiday for the rest of August ‘without looking over their shoulders the whole time’ as the next set of travel changes will not come into force until September.
‘I hope people will be able to go away under the simplified system, to enjoy their breaks and have a great time,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday.
‘I think double vaccination or full vaccination is going to be a feature for evermore and most countries, probably all, will require full vaccination in order for you to enter.’ His comments suggest vaccine passports for foreign travel will become the norm for years to come.
And speaking to LBC, Mr Shapps said it was ‘important to understand that there are simply going to be things that you will not be able to do unless you’re double vaccinated’. He added: ‘So actually there are good reasons if you’re perhaps in your twenties and you feel like “Oh, this doesn’t really affect me” – well, it is going to because you won’t be able to leave the country.’
The minister’s comments are seen as part of the Government’s drive to increase the rate of vaccine take-up among younger age groups. Boris Johnson said that he wanted to take a balanced approach to foreign travel as he acknowledged how important holidays are to millions.
The Prime Minister said: ‘People think about them, they save up for them, people yearn to go abroad this year – I totally get that. We’ve got to balance that against the need to protect our country against the influx of new variants. We’ve got a balanced policy but clearly we have the benefit now of the double-jab system.’
Asked whether he would book a holiday to Spain, Mr Johnson said the Government was trying to make travel as simple as possible by lengthening the gap between changes to guidance.
However, the travel industry was less impressed with the developments and accused ministers of operating at a ‘snail’s pace’. Abta chief executive Mark
‘Need to protect our country’
Tanzer has warned that the UK is at risk of ‘falling behind our European competitors’.
He said: ‘The Government is still failing to capitalise fully on the success of the vaccine roll-out with a very cautious approach to the green list and failure to relax restrictions on travel, including requirements for multiple tests even when visiting lowrisk destinations.
‘As a result, the UK is progressing at a snail’s pace – making it difficult for travel agents and tour operators to generate enough income to kickstart a recovery.’