Travellers returning from Portugal will no longer have to quarantine in hotels

Portugal will be removed from the Government’s travel ban red list, the Department for Transport (DfT) has announced.

This means travellers arriving from Portugal, Madeira or the Azores to England will no longer have to quarantine in a Government-approved hotel from 4am on March 19.

They must instead self-isolate at home for ten days and take a Covid-19 test on day two and eight – but they will be able to leave isolation early through Test to Release.

The DfT added in a statement: ‘The flight and maritime ban from Portugal (including Madeira and the Azores) will also be removed, following evidence that shows the risk of importing a variant of concern from these destinations has reduced.

‘Portugal has put steps in place to mitigate the risk from its links with countries where variants have become a concern, and now has genomic surveillance in place.’

Passengers from these destinations who arrived before 4am on March 19 must stay in their hotel for the remainder of their ten-day quarantine period.

However, Ethiopia, Oman, Somalia and Qatar will be added to the red list from the same date to ‘protect the country against new variants of Covid-19’, said the DfT.

More to follow…