Laurence Dollimore
ALL travellers arriving to the UK from the Canary Islands must self-isolate from 4am this Saturday.
The move was announced by British Transport Secretary Grant Schapps today in what will be seen as another hit to the travel industry.
It comes after a wave of bookings with UK travel agencies after the islands were added to the safe corridor travel list back in October.
Shapps cited a rise in the infection rate on the Canaries over the past week.
The region has seen its cumulative incidence rate rise but it is still the lowest out of the autonomous communities in Spain.
Shapps tweeted: “Data indicates weekly cases and positive tests are increasing in the Canary Islands and so we are removing them from travel corridor list to reduce the risk of importing COVID-19.
“From 4am Sat 12 Dec, if you arrive from these islands you WILL need to self-isolate.”
It comes as England is set to start its ‘Test to Release’ programme in England, which will allow returning travellers to leave quarantine sooner if they obtain a negative test result.
Shapps explained: “From Tues 15th, the new ‘Test to Release’ service for passengers arriving in England starts.
“This means that all passengers from any location NOT in a travel corridor may ‘opt-in’ to shorten self-isolation to 5 days with a negative COVID-19 test result from specific providers.”
