According to various Whitehall officials, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is seriously ‘considering’ prohibiting foreign leisure travel and restricting practically all foreign tourists from entering England as part of extreme new government efforts to combat the Omicron variant.
The prohibition on traveling overseas for vacation would be part of a larger package of lockdown measures that would see restaurants, pubs, and other hospitality facilities closed, hotels locked, and people barred from visiting their friends or relatives in enclosed settings.
Non-essential stores would be closed, gyms would be compelled to close, and severe limits on how many people might congregate in outside public spaces would be imposed. The limits could be implemented just after Christmas and persist until January.
Although government scientists have urged for the limits to be implemented sooner, Johnson is expected to postpone the implementation of social distancing measures until December 27.
Pippa Crerar, a journalist for The Mirror, broke the news. She has exposed a series of embarrassing allegations involving parties at the Prime Minister’s residence and offices at No 10 Downing Street and across Whitehall, all while the rest of the UK was in lockdown or under restrictions that prohibited people from seeing their loved ones in person.
When Johnson declared England in lockdown at the eleventh hour before Christmas last year, foreign travel was effectively prohibited. In March 2021, new laws were enacted that primarily targeted foreign vacationers, and it wasn’t until May that restricted international travel was finally permitted.
The resumption of overseas travel had a rocky start on May 17th, but demand picked up in the late summer as COVID-19 immunizations reached an increasing number of people.
President Biden’s decision in November to ease the travel ban on European and UK visitors was a watershed moment in how nations dealt with the pandemic, according to the travel sector.
After new COVID-19 testing standards were introduced at short notice, the travel sector demanded a unique package of financial aid to help struggling enterprises survive the winter. South Africa and numerous other countries were placed on England’s ‘Red List,’ further eroding confidence.
Along with financial backing, airline executives, including British Airways CEO Sean Doyle, have urged that the government stop testing fully vaccinated airline passengers for COVID prior to departure and after arrival.
Instead of imposing limitations on fully vaccinated travelers, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has proposed banning the unvaccinated from flying.
