Things are looking up for summer 2021!
With a roadmap announced last week as to how the UK will finally exit lockdown and more people being vaccinated, some countries are keen to open up their borders to tourists once again. With the UK government in talks with Greece regarding summer holidays, another country looking to welcome Brits is Cyprus.
The Mediterranean country announced today that it plans to open its borders to visitors from the UK who have received the Covid-19 vaccine, without restrictions, from the start of May. However, with plans to reopen its borders on May 1, this date for Cyprus reopening its borders would clash with the ban the UK government has imposed on overseas travel.
According to the UK’s roadmap out of lockdown, it hopes to allow international travel for leisure purposes from May 17 at the earliest, if all continues to go well. This date is also dependent on four key tests, including the emergence of new coronavirus variants and the progress of the vaccine programme.
Cyprus has not yet outlined how it will prove that British visitors have received both does of the Covid-19 vaccine. Cyprus’s deputy tourism minister, Savvas Perdios, said the country would allow visitors from the UK who have been given vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) the right to enter without the need for a negative test or to quarantine. The tourism minister also added that visitors would be required to have had their second dose at least seven days before travelling.
So far, over 20 million people have been vaccinated with at least one dose, of which nearly one million people have been given both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. Currently the Pfizer-BioNTech, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Moderna jabs have been approved for use by the EMA.
We might all be craving a bit of summer sun, but not all is lost as the roadmap out of lockdown may see us being able to go on holidays within the UK from April 12 at the earliest – you can read all about that here.