Hello, it's Thursday the 5th of August and thanks for joining me for the latest on travel and

destinations from the Green List and the travel desk of the Independent. Today, France gets a reprieve

after the Reunion Affair. Mexico goes red, but India and the UAE turn amber and the Greenlist

expands a bit and not where I thought it would.

Of course, this podcast is completely free, as is my weekly travel email. You can sign up at

independent.com.com.uk forward slash newsletters and it will be with you first thing on Friday morning,

assuming I've had a moment to write it.

Well, the big news from the late Wednesday night traffic light rearrangement was that France is being moved to plain amber from its mysterious Amber Plus status. That means as from 4 a.m. on Sunday morning,

the 8th of August, anyone arriving from France, who's been doubly jabbed by the UK NHS or in the

European Union or indeed the US will not need to quarantine. That will end 20 days in which

France has been treated differently from the rest of Europe. And we found out a bit more about

what the cause was. It was apparently infections on the island of Rayunion that actually fed more infections in northern France,

and that was why France was on the Amber Plus list. Reunion, which is currently on the Amber list,

is actually turning red on Sunday morning.

Along with Reunion, Mexico is going red,

and that is causing immense problems for a lot of people there.

An estimated 5 to 6,000 British holiday makers who are in Mexico,

they have to be back by 4 a.m. on Sunday or they will be required to go into hotel quarantine. Of course, some of them may choose to come back to perhaps somewhere like Spain

and spend 10 days there laundering their Mexican status before they come back to the UK. It would certainly be

more fun than being in a quarantine hotel. But at the other end of the red scale, India, the

United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar have all gone amber. It's difficult to explain why the UAE and Qatar should have

done and I've been trying to find out from the Department for Transport because we know that they

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