Portuguese living in UK – as well as family members of British expat residents – heard this week that quarantine will be lifted in two weeks time, opening travel to ‘red listed countries’ (those without travel corridors).
The need to go into self-isolation on people’s return isn’t done away with entirely, but it is reduced from 14 days to around five or six.
All people will have to do is take a Covid ‘gold standard PCR test’ after spending five days in isolation and await the result.
Says the Telegraph, “travellers will be able to order a Covid test from a list of approved companies published on GOV.UK.
“The gold standard PCR tests are expected to cost between £130 and £180, although prices are likely to fall if there is high demand”.
The paper adds that ministers are looking into cheaper ‘rapid saliva tests’ – which give results within an hour and cost roughly half the price of PCR tests.
Critical to this change of policy has been research that shows tests at five and seven days can detect Covid “in 90% of cases”.
Says the Telegraph research has also shown that the 14-day quarantine policy was not effective “because of compliance rates as low as 25 %”.
