November 29th - The New Covid Testing Requirements For Travel
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 29 November 2021
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After a weekend of bad news around the Omicron variant of coronavirus, new testing measures are being put in place for travel, with changes from lateral flow tests to PCR tests and adjustments to quarantine rules. I take you through what the new measures are and how you can minimise quarantine time and still keep everyone safe.
Of course this podcast is completely free, as is my weekly travel email. You can sign up at independent.co.uk/newsletters.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Mm, picnic. What does one take to a picnic? Crisps, dips, sausage rolls. No, come on, think outside the box. |
| 0:11.2 | Mm, napkins? What are you, the mum? No, something a bit more exciting. Something like, I'll have those red scratch cards, please. Add some play with National |
| 0:25.6 | Lottery Scratch cards. Search Dream big, play small, rules and procedures apply. Players must be 18 or over. |
| 0:34.1 | Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest news on travelling, whether you're dreaming of a great escape or rather regretting that you've got plans for one. |
| 0:48.4 | That, of course, could be after an extraordinary weekend which have seen the return of very strict controls on |
| 0:56.8 | arriving travellers to the UK. And that is what I'm going to be talking about today. |
| 1:05.1 | Of course, this podcast is completely free, as is my weekly travel email. You can sign up at independent.com.uk forward slash newsletters. |
| 1:17.9 | Saturday afternoon is never a good time to get bad tidings, not least, because it means that |
| 1:25.0 | I'm going to be up on most of Saturday night sorting out |
| 1:29.4 | what is happening with the world of travel. But as you will have heard, of course, the current |
| 1:36.9 | requirement for a lateral flow test has been changed to a PCR test. It seems only a few weeks ago that exactly the reverse happened and that's entirely the case. |
| 1:49.8 | So this is going to cause some ructions among the testing firms. |
| 1:55.3 | Some of them are being very, very good and they've already sent out refunds because as from |
| 1:59.8 | 4am tomorrow, Tuesday, I'm afraid that |
| 2:03.3 | your lateral flow test that you may have booked for coming back in is not going to be of any |
| 2:09.2 | use. You will need a PCR test and the crucial twist is that you're also going to have to self-isolate until you get a negative |
| 2:21.5 | result to that test. |
| 2:24.2 | And we've not been in that territory before. |
| 2:27.7 | So how does it work? |
| 2:29.6 | Well, as always, to complete the passenger locator form, you've got to have a test booked, |
| 2:35.0 | and that will require you to, of course, buy one which you probably weren't expecting if you're fully vaccinated. |
| 2:43.0 | By the way, everything stays exactly the same for unvaccinated people, |
... |
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