All the people who are coming from the other country has required that they have to take a pre-departure Covid-19 test to stop the new Omicron form, the health secretary has announced. Sajid Javid said that they need to strict the requirements which will come into force from 4 am on Tuesday 7 December.
Tourist has to submit evidence of a negative report or PCR test to enter, which have been taken a maximum of 48 hours before the present time. Nowadays, people need to do self-isolate until they test negative within two days of coming.
The Scottish and Welsh governments also announced that people who are coming to Scotland and Wales from abroad will also need to take a pre-departure Covid test before their entry. The Department of Health and Social Care declared it intended the rules to apply in all the devolved nations around the world.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has announced that the total number of actual Omicron cases had increased to 160 on Saturday, up 26 from the past days.
Javid said on Twitter that, according to the most recent data, the government was “trying to take more action to decrease the cases of new virus” and stressed that vaccines remained the “first line of defence”, urging the public to have their boosters when they offered.
The introduction of pre-departure tests for visitors coming to the UK has been called a “devastating blow” for the travel industry by the chief executive of the Airport Operators Association. Karen Dee said to PA Media that the rule will show as a “major deterrent” to travel.
“Most of the short stand demand following the re-introduce of self-isolation will now fall away, just as airports were hoping for a small improvement over the Christmas holiday,” she said. “Travel and aviation are the only sectors that hit with any operating restrictions in response to the Omicron variant. The UK and assigned governments should have done the right thing and, apart from the restrictions, confirmed support for our businesses and our staff to get through another time of shutdown.”
The CEO of Airlines UK, Tim Alderslade, shared the opinion “premature”. He said: “We don’t have any clinical proof. The red list extension made complete sense – that’s what it’s there for – but we know from experience that blanket restrictions do not stop the importation of variants.
Until now. They’ve now changed their travel advice again within just a week and it’s just impossible for anyone to plan. These escort must be removed as soon as possible in line with the speed of the booster programmer.”
The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said on their Twitter account that he understood the move would be difficult for the travel industry. “As the scientists are working to understand new Omicron variant but because of the restriction on the output from another country that why we need to apply additional caution until the picture is clearer,” he tweeted. “We appreciate this will be hard for the visitor sector as we give more priorities to public health & protect the progress of our world-leading vax & booster programme.”
His comments come one day after convincing tourists that pre-departure tests would not be needed.
For now, the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, tweeted: “Finally the health secretary accepts Labour’s call for pre-departure tests, but why it’s up to 48 hours before the flight?”
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