The Government is set to review travel testing requirements in the next few days, and senior sources suggest pre-departure tests will no longer be needed. One source told the Times that ‘pre-departure tests were brought in to try to slow the spread of Omicron and stop it coming into the UK’, but it is thought the tests are largely redundant now the Omicron variant is widespread across the country. Since then, cases of both coronavirus and the Omicron variant have soared in the UK and numbers of hospitalisations have almost doubled, reaching the same level as last February. At the moment double-vaccinated travellers must take a pre-departure test, and self-isolate until they receive a negative result after arriving in England. Although pre-departure tests are likely to be dropped, PCR tests on day 2 are expected to remain.

Source: The Times January 03, 2022 21:47 UTC