Coronavirus travel advice eased for another 51 countries

Britons will no longer be advised to avoid holidays in 51 destinations, including the Bahamas, Jamaica and Cameroon, the Foreign Office has said.

The change will make it easier for people visiting these locations to get travel insurance.

It follows the easing of similar travel advice for 32 locations on Wednesday.

The advice is separate to the red list of countries which require travellers to quarantine in an approved hotel at their cost for 10 full days.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the latest change would allow people to "exercise personal responsibility".

From Friday, the Foreign Office will lift its advice against all but essential travel for the Bahamas, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Jamaica, Martinique, Palau, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Western Sahara.

Advice for a further 42 locations will be lifted on Monday (scroll down for the full list).

Travellers should still check the Foreign Office travel advice website for entry requirements to their destination, such as proof of vaccination and testing and quarantine rules.

• Where can I go on holiday now?

• Travel red list cut to just seven countries

The changes comes after the traffic light travel system was replaced by a single red list on Monday.

People should not visit red list countries "except in the most extreme of circumstances", the government says.

From 04:00 BST on Monday, only seven destinations will be on the list: Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.

The red list - set by the Department for Transport - deals with rules around inbound travel, whereas the Foreign Office travel advice is based on the situation in the destination country.

The latest change is part of a new policy to stop advising Britons to avoid travel on Covid-19 grounds to countries which are not on the red list - apart from in "exceptional circumstances" such as if the local healthcare system is overwhelmed.

It will continue to advise against all but essential travel for all red list countries where the risk to British nationals is deemed to be "unacceptably high".

When the Foreign Office advises against travel to a country, all but a handful of travel insurance policies are invalid.

Meanwhile, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he hoped to change the Covid tests needed for people coming to the UK in time for families returning from half-term holidays, which start for many schools on 22 October.

However, Mr Shapps did not give an exact date for when expensive PCR tests will be swapped for cheaper lateral flow tests.

Currently, fully vaccinated adults entering the UK must take a PCR test within two days of arriving.

Latest official figures show a further 127 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus, bringing the UK total to 137,541. Another 36,060 positive tests were recorded.

Full list of countries affected

From today, the advice against "all but essential travel" will be lifted for: the Bahamas, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Jamaica, Martinique, Palau, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Western Sahara.

From Monday, the same advice will be lifted for: Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Cape Verde, Chile, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Georgia, Guyana, Indonesia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mexico, Mongolia, Montenegro, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Paraguay, Philippines, Reunion, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Suriname, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

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