European leaders held a video conference on Thursday on how to prevent the mutation of the Covid-19 virus from spreading in Europe and what border measures countries can put in place.
France has decided to require all air and boat arrivals, including those from EU/EEA/Schengen, to have a negative Covid-19 PCR-RT test administered not more than 72 hours before departure.
Canada is considering a mandatory hotel quarantine for all international arrivals to slow the Coronavirus spread and its more potent mutations.
These hotel quarantines can work when very little community spread occurs; that is not Canada’s case. Also, the number of positive instances imported by air appears to be minimal.
Seychelles is one of the first countries that has fully opened its borders without quarantine requirement for those with one of the four widely used Covid-19 shots. They still need to provide a negative Covid-19 PCR-RT test, however.
The country appears to have a very aggressive vaccination schedule and plans to have the majority of its citizens and residents inoculated by mid-March when only a negative Covid-19 PCR-RT test without quarantine is required for foreign arrivals.
There have been very mixed signals coming out of Tokyo whether the 2020 Olympic Games will go ahead in 2021 in just six months or scrapped altogether.
The Japanese population, in general, have turned against having the Olympics at all, although the country’s Prime Minister tries to keep up a brave face that they will go forward.
Hong Kong SAR government is considering new methods to lower Covid-19 and new mutations’ potential spread by requiring all crews arriving in Hong Kong and staying more than two hours to quarantine for 14 days.
The new rule would require local Cathay Pacific cockpit and other crew members to quarantine at local hotels for 14-days after arriving from a foreign trip.
The Netherlands government is in the process of instituting more stricter entry and transit requirements from everyone arriving to or transiting through the Netherlands from countries that are deemed high risk (most).
Passengers need a negative Covid-19 PCR-RT result not administered more than 72 hours before departure plus a rapid antigen test that is performed within four hours of boarding a flight to the Netherlands.
As a result of publishing pieces about my coronavirus experiences, from being tested in Finland in early October to having Covid-19 in Brazil in late October/early November 2020, I have received some questions and comments from the readers.
I have also pointed out that the most commonly used test required for travel, PCR-RT, may yield positive parts of virus RNA weeks or even months after you are no longer contagious and recovered, complicating travel or returning to your home country.
Last week, the US announced that all arrivals to the country would need a negative Covid-19 test administered no more than 72-hours before departure, effective January 26, 2021 (read more here).
My phone was buzzing last night when an alert came from WSJ that the outgoing administration is removing the travel ban from EU and Brazil arrivals. Less than an hour later, another alert that the new administration would keep it in place and strengthen it.
Australia instituted an international travel ban back in February 2020 that has resulted in tens of thousands of its citizens still stranded overseas due to the very low number of incoming passengers allowed in weekly due to hotel quarantine capacity and international airlines further cutting flights to the country last week (read more here).
Now, the top health chief has predicted that the international ban on travel to and from Australia will stay in place until 2022 despite Qantas starting to sell international flights from July 2021 (read more here).
The UK scraps the Travel Corridors that were introduced for summer travel in 2020 tomorrow at 4 AM (read more here) when all arrivals to the country require a negative Covid-19 test combined with a mandatory 10-day quarantine.
The UK’s media is now reporting that the country’s government is mulling far more serious actions for international arrivals that would include mandatory quarantine at government-provided hotels with a fee, combined with GPS and facial tracking.
The UK introduced a list of “green countries” past summer called “Travel Corridors” that allowed leisure travelers not to quarantine after returning home.
Now, the UK has decided to scrap travel corridors with little advance notice. They will be closed at 4 AM on Monday, January 18, 2021. After that time, all passengers arriving in the UK need to have a negative Covid-19 test and quarantine for 10 days.
On Thursday, France announced that it would require a negative Covid-19 PCR-RT test for all arrivals outside of the EU/EEA, including the UK.
The test must not have been administered more than 72 hours before scheduled departure. It is unclear whether this also applies to transit passengers and those arriving from the handful of “green” countries allowed to enter Europe for all purposes, including tourism.
Japan banned most international arrivals to the country in March last year and only late 2020 allowed foreign residents to return that happened to be outside of the country when travel restrictions were put in place.
The country has made reciprocal agreements with eleven Asian countries for reciprocal access for business travelers to enter, which has been halted through Feb 7, 2021.
Travelers to England were originally required to provide a negative Covid-19 result before boarding the flight to London from January 15, 2021. The requirement was announced less than 72 hours before it was scheduled to go into effect.
The start date has now, however, moved from Friday to Monday (4 AM on January 18, 2021) based on the fact that many travelers could not have got tested with practically any advance notice.
