London, Europe Breif News – Most European countries have changed their travel restrictions in a bid to control the spread of COVID-19.
The EU has recommended that from 1 February anyone travelling from within the bloc will need only a basic ‘green pass’ health certificate, which can be obtained via vaccination, recovery, or a recent negative Covid test, and remove the need for self-isolation. However, not all countries have stated that they will adopt this rule so check with your destination.
Thus, face masks are no longer mandatory in the UK.
Travellers to the Netherlands with a booster vaccine will no longer have to quarantine from 2 February.
Denmark will lift all domestic travel restrictions from 1 February
Switzerland and Austria have relaxed travel restrictions for UK travellers.
Sweden has dropped the requirement for proof of a negative Covid test from arrivals.
France has now reopened to UK tourists.
Cyprus now requires pre-departure PCR tests from all travellers.
Italy requires all travellers to present a negative PCR test on arrival.
Only fully-vaccinated UK travellers can enter into Spain.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has earlier warned of ‘tsunami’ of COVID cases in the near future. The declaration was due to Omicron spread.
The WHO further warned of the risk posed by the Omicron variant after COVID-19 case numbers shot up by 11 percent globally last week.
Omicron is behind the rapid virus spikes, the WHO said in its COVID weekly epidemiological update on Wednesday.
Thus, the update came after a number of countries reported record-high infection figures in recent days.
In some parts, the increase followed the emergence of the new Omicron variant, first detected in South Africa.
