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England Keeps Thailand on Travel Red List, Amber List Scrapped

It has been announced that England has chosen to simplify their traffic light system for international travel. A single red list will be introduced on October 4, with Thailand remaining on that list for the time being.

Grant Shapps, the UK Transport Secretary, also revealed that eight countries in total were being removed from the red list, with Turkey being one of them as many people had expected.

Anyone from the UK or Ireland returning from areas not on the red list do not have to stay in mandatory hotel quarantine, which costs 2285 per person.

Fully vaccinated British and Irish citizens who return to England shall now not have to take a PCR test, it was also announced in the Mr. Shapps’ statement.

If a traveler to England has been double-jabbed, there will now no longer be the need for a pre-departure test prior to leaving a nation that does not appear on the red list.

Mr. Shapps went on to explain that by the end of October, the day two PCR test would be phased out. A less expensive rapid lateral flow test is now confirmed to replace it.

If this latest travel update is anything like the others, the decision of England will see the powers that be in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland follow suit.

The Welsh authorities have already announced that their updated red list no longer features Kenya, Oman, Egypt, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the Maldives and Turkey, in a move that mimics England’s.

Wales also said that they plan to carefully consider updating their policies on testing but did state that those changes “are not without risk”.

Scotland confirmed that their traffic light system was too also be simplified, but that they had decided not to remove PCR testing because of “concerns over the impact on public health”.

England’s latest update would be in place until “at least the start of 2022” Mr. Shapps confirmed.

“Our purpose is to make it easier to travel without the bureaucracy, without so many tests, and with a greater level of certainty now that we have so many people vaccinated,” he stated.

The travel industry said the announcement was a step towards helping tourism recover.

Airlines UK said it was a “shot in the arm” that “moves us much closer to the reopening of UK aviation”.