Five Greek islands added and no destinations removed from UK travel corridors list

The Greek islands of Lesvos, Santorini, Serifos, Tinos and Zakynthos have been added to the UK government’s travel corridor list following a decrease in confirmed cases of COVID-19.  

From 10 October 2020, passengers arriving in England from these destinations will no longer need to self-isolate so long as they haven’t been in or transited through any other non-exempt countries in the 14 days preceding their arrival. 

The Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC)’s latest risk assessment for these Greek islands indicates that the risks to UK public health from travellers returning from these destinations has decreased to an acceptable level.

A range of factors are taken into account when deciding to add or remove a destination from the exemption list, including the continued increase of coronavirus within an area, the numbers of new cases, information on a destination’s testing capacity, testing regime and test positivity rate and potential trajectory of the disease in the coming weeks. 

At the same time, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) has also updated its travel advice, with Lesvos, Santorini, Serifos, Tinos and Zakynthos now exempt from the FCDO’s global advisory against non-essential travel.

No countries have been removed from the travel corridors list this week.  

The UK government has made it consistently clear that it will take decisive action if necessary to contain the virus, including removing countries from the travel corridors list rapidly if the public health risk of people returning from a particular country without self-isolating becomes too high. 

COVID-19 has profoundly changed the nature of international travel. Travellers should always check the latest advice from the FCDO, given the potential for changing coronavirus infection rates to affect both the advice about travelling to other countries and rules about self-isolation on return.  

All travellers, including those from exempt destinations, will still be required to show a complete passenger locator form on arrival into the UK unless they fall into a small group of exemptions. 

Penalties for those breaching the self-isolation rules when returning from non-exempt countries have increased, from £1,000 for first offences up to £10,000 for subsequent offences, mirroring penalties for those breaching self-isolation following a positive COVID-19 test or contact from Trace & Trace.