All non-vaccinated European Union citizens can travel to the United Kingdom by providing the result of a COVID-19 test taken before departure and presented it via the European Digital COVID-19 Certificate (EUDCC), the British authorities have revealed.
According to a press release issued by the Department for Transport, since Monday, October 18, unvaccinated and unrecovered Europeans travelling to the UK can enter the country by presenting their test certificates in the digital or physical format of the EUDCC, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Furthermore, a traveller is considered unvaccinated and is required to present a COVID-19 test if he/she falls into one of the following categories:
- Hasn’t been fully vaccinated against the virus
- Hasn’t been vaccinated with vaccines authorised by the UK
- Has been in one of the red-listed countries or territories during the last ten days before reaching the UK
In addition to the pre-departure test, unvaccinated European travellers who visited red-listed countries before travelling to the UK have to book and pay for two COVID-19 tests to take upon arrival (on days two and eight) and undergo a ten-day quarantine.
Travellers must be aware that the British authorities’ approved tests include PCR tests, LAMP tests, and antigen tests like the LFD test.
>> Travelling From EU to UK: Rules Applying to EU Digital COVID-19 Certificate Holders Explained
“If you have recently recovered from COVID but are no longer infectious, you should use a lateral flow device (LFD) test. LFD tests have a lower sensitivity than PCR or LAMP tests, so they are less likely to return a positive result from a historic infection,” the press release explains.
Furthermore, travellers are advised to take the test within three days before travelling to England. However, if the test’s validity expires or the traveller cannot provide the test result, yet they still travel to the UK, the same risk of being fined €593 (£500) upon arrival.
On the other hand, Europeans who have been vaccinated with one of the authorised vaccines by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) such as Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Janssen can enter the country free of quarantine requirements. In other words, all EU Digital COVID-19 Certificate holders are eligible to enter the country without having to undergo any entry quarantine requirement.
Official data from the British government website for the matters related to Coronavirus reveals that in the last 24 hours, 491,561 positive cases with COVID-19 have been registered in the UK, whereas 45 people have lost their lives due to complications with the virus.
Moreover, the same source shows that 94,800,164 vaccinations have been administered in the UK. About 49,422,753 vaccines were given to people over 12 as the first dose, and 45,377,411 were given as the final shot of the COVID vaccine.
In general, 85.9 per cent of the UK’s adult population has received the first shot of the vaccine, whereas 78.9 per cent is fully vaccinated.
