Spain In Talks With UK Over Pre-Departure Testing Scheme

Spain Is In Talks With The UK Over A Pre-Departure Testing Scheme.

Spain’s secretary of state for tourism, Fernando Valdés, is hopeful a pilot scheme for mutual pre-departure testing for travel between the UK and the Canary Islands could begin next month. He said talks were underway with the UK, and Germany, for mutually-recognised rapid Covid-19 testing schemes with the archipelago to be implemented.

“The current requirement in Spain for PCR tests to prove tourists are Covid-free has to change to reduce barriers to travel ahead of a vaccine rollout,” he said.

Spain passed a bill on November 12 that arrivals must show negative PCR tests, which require lab analysis and typically take two days to process, to enter the country. The Canaries, which has a lower infection rate than the mainland, has since said it will move to accept antigen tests in time for a winter market.

UK transport secretary Grant Shapps is yet to confirm the type of tests the UK will accept when its ‘Test to Release’ scheme comes into force on December 15, when negative results on tests after five days grant travellers an exemption from quarantine. Sources close to the taskforce expect PCRs to be required at first.

The EU Commission recommended on November 18 that member countries move towards rapid antigen tests to diagnose Covid-19. Valdés has predicted a move towards some form of rapid diagnostic testing “within weeks, not months” and said “the science is moving very fast” with health officials in Spain improving sensitivity and reliability of rapid tests “every week”.

“Just two months ago we didn’t know we had a vaccine,” he said. “Thing can move very fast.” While Valdés wants to move away from quarantine altogether with the pre-departure tests, he believes the next step is to trial the regimes with bilateral mutual recognition.

He is hopeful talks with Spain’s two biggest tourism markets, the UK and Germany, will lead to a rapid testing regime being rolled out, starting with a two-month pilot in the Canaries, a popular winter destination that has a low rate of Covid infection. “A pilot gives us a window of opportunity,” he said, suggesting it could run for two months from December 15 to February 15.

Thank you for taking the time to read this news article “Spain In Talks With UK Over Pre-Departure Testing Scheme”. For more UK daily news, Spanish daily news and Global news stories, visit the Euro Weekly News home page.