British Holidaymakers To Be Given FREE Covid Test Kits To Use Abroad

British Holidaymakers To Be Given FREE Covid Test Kits To Use AbroadAs UK Foreign Office Hints At ‘Green List’.

Travellers will be issued with free Covid tests to take abroad under plans to help make foreign holidays become a reality this summer. Whitehall sources to the Daily Mail said on Tuesday, May 4, that fast-turnaround tests would be made available free of charge to people travelling abroad to cut the hassle and expense of getting a pre-return test in a foreign country.

People returning from abroad will still have to pay for a gold-standard PCR test when they get home, at a cost of at least £50 each though.

Boris Johnson is due to will confirm on Friday, May 9, that the blanket ban on foreign holidays will be lifted on May 17. However, sources said quarantine-free travel would be restricted initially to only a ‘very small’ number of low-risk countries.

Announcing the findings of the Global Travel Taskforce set up by the government to examine how leisure travel could be reopened safely after lockdown, UK Transport Secretary, Mr. Grant Shapps, has said that foreign holidays would resume on 17 May at the earliest.

He told the BBC: “This is the first time I’m able to come on and say I’m not advising against booking foreign holidays.

“Yes, you’ll want to check what the situation is in two or three weeks’ time when that list – the green, amber, red, is produced – you’ll want to know that you’ve got good holiday insurance and flexible flights and the rest of it.

“But for the first time I think there is light at the end of the tunnel and we’ll be able to restart international travel, including cruises by the way, in a safe and secure way, knowing about the vaccinations, everything we know about the disease this year, and of course that abundance of caution – having the tests in place.”

Source: The Daily Mail