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The United Kingdom will give the option of Covid tests to reduce the quarantine of international travelers to five days

International travelers will have the option of undergo a test for the Coronavirus and thus cut the quarantine mandatory for 14 to five days upon arrival on British soil. The measure will be implemented on December 15, in time for the Christmas holidays.

Airlines have embraced the ad as “the light at the end of the tunnel”, but the cost of the tests (75 to 125 euros per head) may be enough to deter many travelers, forced to pay even more than for the plane ticket in destinations such as Spain, which also requires an entrance test.

From mid-December, together with the health form that passengers are required to fill out when entering the United Kingdom, there will therefore be the option to choose (and pay) to have the Covid test carried out by a private provider. Even so, travelers will be obliged to spend five days in isolation, waiting for the test and the result.

“We are going to make sure that the exit from this pandemic is done in a careful and balanced way,” he warned. Secretary of Transportation Grant Shapps, that last July his vacation was interrupted when the British Government decided to include Spain in the list of high risk countries. Since then, travelers from our country (including the British) have been obliged to quarantine for 14 days when arriving by plane, ship or train.

“Our new strategy will allow us travel more freely to see loved ones or conduct international business, “said Shapps.” By giving travelers the option to undergo a test at five days, we are also supporting the airlines, during the duration of the recovery after the pandemic “.

The airlines, however, have shown their preference for tests at the point of departure or on arrival at airports or stations. Shapps nevertheless defended the need for tests after five days of self-isolation “to achieve more reliable results and eliminate the risk of false negatives.” The Secretary of Transport gave as an example countries such as Germany and Iceland, which have opted for a similar measure.

The announcement came hours after the “premier” Boris Jonhson glimpsed “the end of the epidemic” in a message to Parliament, in which he expressed his confidence in the massive tests to the population and in the imminence of the vaccine of Oxford, of which the British Government plans to order 100 million doses. Johnson announced the suspension of the lockdown in England on December 2, the introduction of a stricter system of local alerts and a special plan throughout the country to allow reunions with family and friends at Christmas.

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