Vaccination rules for entry into England clarified
The UK Government has clarified the rules around what vaccinations will be accepted in order to take advantage of the changes to the traffic-light system that come into force in England at 4am on Monday 4 October.
The government has announced that arrivals will be considered fully vaccinated if they have received a complete course of jabs:
under an approved vaccination programme in the UK, Europe, USA or UK vaccine programme overseas
with a full course of the Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna or Janssen vaccines from a relevant public health body in Australia, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Dominica, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan or the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
It has also clarified that formulations of the four approved vaccines, such as AstraZeneca Covishield, AstraZeneca Vaxzevria and Moderna Takeda, qualify as approved vaccines but only from the countries listed.
The Government has also announced that people who have been given two different jabs of the four approved vaccines in any of the approved countries will also be considered fully vaccinated.
The rules for fully vaccinated people will also apply for those:
under 18 and resident in the UK or one of the listed countries or territories with approved vaccination programmes
taking part in an approved Covid-19 vaccine trial in the UK or USA – the Government expects to extend this to other countries "in due course"
Travellers must be able to prove they have been fully vaccinated with a digital or paper document issued by a national or state-level public health body that includes, as a minimum:
forename and surname(s)
date of birth
vaccine brand and manufacturer
date of vaccination for every dose
country or territory of vaccination and/or certificate issuer
If the document does not include all of these, the traveller is considered unvaccinated and may be denied boarding.
Under the new rules, fully vaccinated travellers do not need to take a pre-departure test, take a day eight test or quarantine on arrival. A day two PCR test is still required although the transport secretary says this is expected to change to a lateral flow test later in October.
The new rules have been condemned by some in countries that do not appear on the list, including India, the world’s biggest vaccine producer.
Indian politician Shashi Tharoor pulled out of a debate at Cambridge University because of the rules. He tweeted: “It is offensive to ask fully vaccinated Indians to quarantine”.
