May 23rd - Spain drops hard-line approach to unvaccinated British visitors
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 23 May 2022
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Just ahead of the half-term week for many UK schools, Spain has dropped its hard-line approach to unvaccinated British visitors. Now any unvaccinated British visitor aged 12 or above can enter Spain with proof of a negative coronavirus test – which can be a relatively cheap and quick rapid antigen (lateral flow) test taken within the 24 hours before departure.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the first travel podcast of The Week from the Independent with me, Simon Calder. |
| 0:08.4 | And I am delighted to begin the week with some very good news for people who have not, in the view of the Spanish government, being fully vaccinated because they are now able to travel to |
| 0:24.3 | Spain. This came about really quite quickly. We heard last Thursday some rumblings from the tourism |
| 0:32.3 | minister Reyes Moroto that plans were fairly imminent. They were going to allow unjabbed adults from third countries. |
| 0:41.5 | Now, that's our status since leaving the European Union on production of a test. And initially, |
| 0:48.0 | it was rumoured that that was going to be a PCR test, which is expensive and stressful because of the time it takes, but I'm delighted to say |
| 0:57.1 | that is not the case. So, just as a reminder, Spain has had much tougher rules than a lot of |
| 1:05.7 | other countries. You might remember February half term, loads of families couldn't go on their trips because the Spanish said, nope, anybody over 12 has to be fully jabbed. |
| 1:17.1 | You can't come in with just a test. |
| 1:20.0 | Well, halfway through the half term week, they said, oh, all right, you can if you have a PCR test or indeed a lamp test, which is rarer but quicker. |
| 1:30.5 | By that stage, it was too late. |
| 1:32.4 | And of course, we've seen other countries such as Greece say, you can all come on in. |
| 1:37.3 | And evidently, there's been a row going on in Madrid between the tourism people and the health people and finally we have the borders |
| 1:47.1 | opening. So first thing is if you're fully vaccinated or you've got an official certificate |
| 1:53.2 | of recovery, those that get increasingly hard to get is no good just saying, oh look I uploaded |
| 1:59.5 | a positive lateral flow test to the NHS. |
| 2:03.0 | But if you're fully vaccinated and that counts as having finished your course of vaccines |
| 2:10.2 | no more than 270 days ago, or if it was, well, let's call it nine months ago, you've had a booster note. |
| 2:20.9 | And I hope you're paying attention. |
| 2:22.1 | There's going to be a test at the end that children aged 12 to 17, they are considered to be |
| 2:28.1 | fully vaccinated once they've completed the initial course and no booster is necessary. |
| 2:39.0 | And anyone aged 11 or under, there's no restrictions at all. So, where does that leave people who are regarded as unvaccinated? |
... |
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