Excerpts from a couple of letters to
The Guardian today:
From 19 July – “freedom day” – the UK government will scrap its requirement for a 10-day quarantine for arrivals from amber list countries (Report, 8 July). It seems like good news. But there is a big catch. The UK will only accept vaccination certificates that have been given in the UK. This is plainly daft, as well as discriminatory. How can visitors from overseas be expected to have had vaccinations and vaccination certificates in the UK?
My sister has had two Pfizer vaccinations in New York and has a laminated certificate to prove it. But at present the UK does not accept these. The only Covid vaccinations it accepts from visitors are those that have been given in the UK (unless you are a football official, in which case you are exempt).
If the UK government is doing this because border control doesn’t have the manpower to check vaccinations, it should increase the manpower or redeploy staff allocated to police quarantine.
Why have politicians decided that only those vaccinated in the UK can avoid self-isolation? This leaves my daughter, recently returned from Spain having been double-jabbed several weeks ago, quarantining – having had a vaccine that the UK is importing itself to vaccinate its public. Bizarre!
In his letter (8 July), Tim Pollard complains about being refused entry to Malta although he had NHS evidence of being fully vaccinated. He needed an EU digital vaccination certificate, he was told.
Unfortunately, the UK government behaves in exactly the same way: it does not recognise EU vaccination certificates for British subjects living in the EU. I live in Germany and am fully vaccinated, but as I do not have NHS certification I cannot travel to and enter the UK without isolating for 10 days. No chance, therefore, of being able to visit my family in the UK yet. Abandoning these childish games on both sides would be a sensible step forward for all Europeans, not just those in the EU.