The UK will open travel corridors on July 6 that allow British tourists to avoid quarantine on their return home, with a set of European countries to be released on Monday, the BBC reported.
The broadcaster states that the list of countries must include Spain, France, Greece, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Norway and Turkey, but not Portugal or Sweden.
Since June 8, all people arriving from abroad to the UK, including Britons, have been forced to remain in isolation for 14 days to reduce the likelihood of contagion from covid-19.
If they do not respect the quarantine, they will incur a fine of around 1,000 euros.
Cited by the BBC, a government spokesman said the new rules would give Britons “the opportunity for a summer holiday abroad”, but stressed that the easing of measures depends on maintaining a low risk of spreading the virus.
The Government “will not hesitate to halt” the new rules if the epidemiological situation develops unfavorably. Portugal and Sweden, which have registered an increase in the number of infections, should be classified with the color red, according to the color scheme that London plans to apply.
The spokesman quoted by the BBC acknowledged, however, that nothing prevents a British tourist from traveling to an airport in Spain, driving by car to Portugal and, after holidays, returning to his country in the same way, by car to Spain and, then, by plane to the United Kingdom.
Portugal’s Secretary of State for Tourism, Rita Marques, stressed to the BBC that Portugal was named the safest destination in Europe by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and is a “clean & safe” destination.
“Some countries are on this list and Portugal is fighting for a place,” said the Secretary of State, adding that the situation is “completely under control” and a significant number of tests are being carried out.
The British travel and tourism sector has criticized the government’s approach to travel to European countries, considering the opening of air corridors “encouraging”, but calling for them to be extended to more countries, namely Portugal, the destination of around 3 million tourists. British annually.
According to official figures for Friday, the UK has recorded 43,414 deaths (in 309,360 cases of infection) since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, the highest in Europe and the third highest number in the world, behind the USA and Brazil.
In Portugal, according to figures from the General Directorate of Health (DGS) also on Friday, 1,555 people out of 40,866 confirmed as infected died.
Globally, the covid-19 pandemic has already killed more than 490,000 people and infected more than 9.68 million people in 196 countries and territories, according to a report by the French agency AFP.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late December in Wuhan, a city in central China.
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