UK scrapping testing requirements for vaccinated arrivals

The British government has announced it will scrap COVID-19 testing requirements for vaccinated air travelers, The Associated Press reported.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said on Monday the new changes will take effect on Feb. 11, coinciding with the same time schoolchildren return from midterm holiday break.

Travelers who are fully vaccinated had previously had to take a rapid coronavirus test within two days of arriving in the country and unvaccinated travelers had faced stricter testing and quarantine rules, according to the AP.

Great Britain is also lifting testing requirements for adult residents and children under the age of 18 and will ease restrictions for unvaccinated residents, who will now take virus tests before and after traveling, foregoing previous quarantine requirements.

The British government will also lift restrictions, including mask mandates this week, partly to rely on vaccinations and virus testing in an effort to keep the virus in check, according to the AP.

"Border testing of vaccinated travelers has outlived its usefulness," Shapps said in a statement. "Today we are setting Britain free."

This comes as most countries are currently dealing with a winter surge of COVID-19 infections due to the omicron variant.

Tourism and travel firms who were hampered by the previous restrictions applaud the British government's recent decision, the AP reported.

"Nearly two years since the initial COVID restrictions were introduced, today's announcement brings international travel towards near-normality for the fully vaccinated, and at last into line with hospitality and the domestic economy," Airlines UK chief executive Tim Alderslade said in a statement.

In a statement, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the lifting of restrictions is "to show that this country is open for business, open for travelers, you will see changes so that people arriving no longer have to take tests if they have been vaccinated, if they have been double vaccinated."

Great Britain has recorded more than 154,000 COVID-related deaths in the ongoing pandemic, the second-highest death total in the continent behind Russia, the AP noted.