Easyjet urges UK to put most of Europe on ‘green’ Covid travel list

EasyJet has urged the UK government to declare most of Europe “green” when it publishes its list of permitted destinations for the summer, citing research that suggests travel would have a very limited impact on the number of people admitted to hospital with Covid in the UK. The airline said analysis showed mass travel to popular destinations such as Spain, Portugal and Greece would not affect the UK’s Covid case rate, and would risk a small number of hospital admissions. The government is expected to confirm where and when leisure travel will be allowed in the coming weeks, with hopes that holidays could restart from 17 May. Under the indicative framework set out this month for a traffic light system to categorise all destinations, only countries with high vaccination rates, low case numbers and reliable data will be on the green list – allowing holidaymakers to avoid quarantine on return. EasyJet said research commissioned from epidemiologists at Yale University in the US showed unrestricted travel from much of Europe would increase hospital admissions by 4%, or six cases in the UK on the current daily average.<br/>