The Canary Islands have been removed from the UK’s list of safe travel corridors meaning that anyone returning from the Islands after 04:00am o Saturday (12th December) will to quarantine for two weeks.
The move will come as a blow to UK holiday companies including Tui and Jet2 as the Canary Islands are a popular winter destination for British travellers.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps MP made the announcement which he said was down to rising cases on the island.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Data indicates weekly cases and positive tests are increasing in the CANARY ISLANDS and so we are REMOVING them from the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TravelCorridor?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TravelCorridor</a> list to reduce the risk of importing COVID-19. From 4am Sat 12 Dec, if you arrive from these islands you WILL need to self-isolate.</p>— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) <a href="https://twitter.com/grantshapps/status/1337081393508216836?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 10, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>Test and Release
However that quarantine time can be shortened from Tuesday (15th December) when the Government starts to roll out the test and release scheme.
The scheme means that travellers that opt-in on returning to England and get a negative result from a government-approved COVID-19 tester can be released self-isolation after just 5 days.
New Countries declared Safe
The UK Government has also today declared that Saudi Arabia and Botswana are now safe to travel to without quarantine meaning that travellers returning from those countries no longer need to self-isolate when they get back to the UK.