Scientists have warned that summer holidays abroad are unlikely as we continue to battle the Covid-19 pandemic.
Professor Mike Tidesley, one of the scientists who consults SAGE, said that holidays were “extremely unlikely” for the average person and added that the UK faces a “real risk” if people are allowed to travel abroad this summer.
Professor Tidesley added, “I think we are running a real risk if we do start to have lots of people going overseas in July, for instance, and August because of the potential for bringing more of these new variants back into the country.”
“What is really dangerous is if we jeopardise our vaccination campaign by having these variants, where the vaccines don’t work as effectively, spreading more rapidly.”
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told Sophy Ridge, “we can’t put at risk the gains of our vaccination campaign. If we were to be reckless in any way, and import new variants that put out risks, what would people say about that?”
“We’ve got good direction of travel, we’re getting there, and I think we need to make sure we preserve that at all costs.”
Currently, Britons are only allowed to travel abroad for a very specific and skewed number of reasons.
Everyone who travels has to fill out a Declaration of Travel form and some countries require an expensive hotel quarantine upon re-entry to England.
Boris Johnson’s roadmap out of lockdown promised that people could be able to travel for pleasure from the 17th of May, subject to a review on the 12th April.