Reopening more foreign travel will be ‘challenging,’ UK says

Reopening more international travel routes from the UK will be “challenging” because the country must do everything it can to protect itself from new coronavirus variants, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said. Britain last week tightened restrictions on overseas travel, removing Portugal from its so-called green list in a major blow to the airline industry. Restoring travel in the medium-term is an “incredibly important goal,” Hancock told parliament on Monday, but he added: “It’s going to be hard.” The “biggest challenge and the reason this is so difficult is that a variant that undermines the vaccine effort obviously would undermine the return to domestic freedom -- and that has to be protected at all costs,” Hancock said. Ministers will be studying data on infection rates and hospitalizations in the days ahead as they weigh up whether to ease England’s remaining Covid-19 restrictions as planned on June 21. The relaxation has been thrown into doubt by the rise of the highly transmissible delta variant first identified in India. No decisions have yet been made on moving ahead with the final step out of lockdown, Hancock said. An announcement will be made on June 14. Britain is “in a race” between the vaccine program and the virus -- and the delta variant has given the virus “extra legs,” he added.<br/>