The Times - UK (2022-03-15)

24 Tuesday March 15 2022 | the times

News

Travel into Britain will return to
normal this week for the first time in
two years after ministers agreed to
scrap the last remaining Covid rules.
Passenger locator forms and testing
requirements for those who are unvac-
cinated will be removed on Friday in a
boost for the travel industry before the
Easter holidays.
Border measures are the last Covid
measures to be ditched under the
government’s plan for living with the
virus, which in effect stands down Brit-

Last Covid rules scrapped for travel to Britain

Chris Smyth Whitehall Editor
Ben Clatworthy
Transport Correspondent

ain’s pandemic response. Ministers

agreed the changes after Sajid Javid, the

health secretary, rejected objections

from health officials and argued that it

was time to get back to normal.

The travel industry described the

move as a “huge watershed moment”.

Grant Shapps, the transport secre-

tary, said: “All remaining Covid travel

measures, including the passenger

locator form and tests for all arrivals,

will be stood down for travel to the UK

from 4am on March 18. These changes

are possible due to our vaccine rollout

and mean greater freedom in time for

Easter.”

Last month the requirement for

vaccinated travellers to take a test was

scrapped to make half-term breaks

easier but the passenger locator form

was maintained as a way of tracking

people quickly.

Health officials argued that the

locator form was helpful in dealing with

the arrival of new variants because it

allowed contact tracing to be carried

out more quickly but airlines argued

strongly for the extra paperwork to be

scrapped.

Shapps had also pushed for the loca-

tor form to be scrapped and Javid broke

with previous advice from his depart-

ment to back lifting the rules.

The government’s Covid O commit-

tee, revived to sign off the changes,

agreed at a meeting yesterday to

remove the remaining travel rules on

Friday.

Tour operators and airlines had been

lobbying for the ditching of the locator

form and testing for unvaccinated

arrivals, arguing that both had outlived

their usefulness.

“The removal of the last remaining

Covid measures for international travel

is a huge watershed moment and one

that enables the industry to start taking

the momentous challenge of rebuilding

itself,” said Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief

executive of the Advantage Travel

Partnership, the largest group of travel

agents in the UK. “As the last sector left

with Covid measures, removing bar-

riers to trade is a positive step forward.”

The passenger locator form was sim-

plified last month in an effort to make it

less time-consuming for passengers,

although critics said the changes did

little to speed the process.

Airlines were particularly keen for

the form to be scrapped because the

onus had been on them to ensure that

passengers had completed the paper-

work.

Tim Alderslade, the chief executive

of Airline UK, the industry association,

said: “This announcement sends a clear

message to the world — the UK travel

sector is back. We’re grateful for the

timing of the announcement as we pre-

pare to welcome back passengers this

Easter and summer, for which we know

there is huge pent-up demand, and for

the UK’s leadership in being the first

major aviation market to remove all re-

maining restrictions.”

Johan Lundgren, the chief executive

of easyJet, said: “This welcome move

marks a return to truly restriction-free

flying to and from the UK, giving an

extra boost to travel this Easter.”

Virgin Atlantic said: “The removal of

all remaining UK travel restrictions, in-

cluding the passenger locator form, is

the final important step towards fric-

tionless air travel, helping to further

restore consumer confidence.”

6 Workers finally appear to be return-

ing to their desks, with “weekday

footfall” rising to 89 per cent of the

pre-pandemic level, according to the

Centre for Cities’ monthly high street

recovery index.

The national picture

How many people have Covid-19?

There were 72,898 new cases reported

yesterday, bringing the cumulative total to

19,530,485 or 292.4 for every 1,000 people

56.3% increase from seven days ago

(based on seven-day moving average)

How many are in hospital?

There are 11,944 patients in hospital being

treated. 253 patients are on ventilators. An

additional 1,459 patients have been

admitted, up 16.9 per cent in seven days to

March 7 when this data was last updated

Daily cases

Oct Jan

2021

Apr Jul OctJan

2022

0

50,000

100,000

150,000

200,000

Seven-day

average

Oct Jan

2021

Apr Jul Oct Jan

2022

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

Hospital admissions

Seven-

day

average

Seven-

day

average

Deaths

Oct Jan

2021

AprJul Oct Jan

2022

0

500

1,000

1,500

National

R number

0.8 to 1.0

How does 2021 compare?

There were 11,150 deaths from all causes

recorded in England and Wales in the week

to February 25, of which the coronavirus

accounted for 6.9 per cent. The number of

weekly deaths was 636 lower than the

five-year average for the same time of year

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

2020/21

Jul Oct Jan

2021

Jan

2022

Apr Jul Oct

Five-year average

How many have died?

Yesterday there were 114 deaths reported,

bringing the total number of deaths in the

past seven days to 730. The rolling average

number of daily deaths is 104.3, up from

101.4 a day a week ago

No need to worry about

rising cases, insists Javid

Chris Smyth

A “modest” increase in infections is not

a concern, the health secretary has in-

sisted as scientists grow nervous about

scaling back the pandemic response.

Sajid Javid said that a rise of more

than 50 per cent in a week was “to be

expected after we’ve opened up” and

that Britain remained in a “very good

position” with the coronavirus.

He stressed the importance of vacci-

nation as the government prepares to

reduce infection monitoring and stop

free tests next month for all but the

most vulnerable.

The details are still being negotiated

after Javid was told that he would have

to fund future surveillance and testing

efforts, estimated to cost up to £2 billion

a year, from his existing budgets.

The Scientific Advisory Group for

Emergencies (Sage) has been stood

down and former members have said

privately that ending almost all restric-

tions, monitoring and advisory meas-

ures simultaneously is “a bit gung-ho”.

They fear that Britain will be left ex-

posed to the next dangerous Covid-19

variant, and to future pandemics.

On Friday, 72,898 infections were

reported across the UK, almost double

the number when England’s final re-

strictions were lifted two weeks earlier.

Daily hospital admissions reached 1,521

on Wednesday, compared with Janu-

ary’s peak of just over 2,000.

Javid told Times Radio: “We are

seeing a modest increase in infections

but that’s to be expected after we’ve

opened up and we’re seeing more social

mixing. The infection rate is way below

the peak for Omicron.”

He also played down fears about the

hybrid “Deltacron” variant.

Professor Paul Hunter, an epidemio-

logist at the University of East Anglia,

said that the final restrictions had prob-

ably been lifted a month too early. “At

the moment those rises in hospitalisa-

tions are probably people ‘with’ Covid

and not ‘because of’ Covid,” he said.

“But that’s only because we won’t

start to see more people sick because of

Covid for another week or so.”

He added that booster vaccines were

starting to wane in the oldest groups,

but predicted that protection against

severe illness would last longer. People

over 75 and those with suppressed

immune systems are due to start having

fourth doses next week.