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More countries could be removed from quarantine-free travel list, Foreign Secretary warns

27 July 2020, 08:24 | Updated: 27 July 2020, 08:48

Dominic Raab warned that there's 'no guarantee' more countries won't be removed. Picture: PA

By Polly Foreman

Dominic Raab has said there are 'no guarantees' that more countries won't be removed from the travel 'safe list'.

More countries could be removed from the UK's quarantine-free travel list if they see a spike in coronavirus cases, the Foreign Secretary has warned.

On Sunday (26 July), Spain became the first country to be taken off the 'safe list' of countries that Brits can visit without having to quarantine for two weeks on their arrival home - and there are now concerns that more could follow suit.

Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: "I’m not going to tell people what they should and shouldn’t do; they should follow the advice", but he added that he would be 'staying home' this summer.

Brits returning to the UK from Spain now have to quarantine for two weeks on their arrival. Picture: PA

Mr Raab continued: "As we’ve found with Spain, we can’t give a guarantee.

‘All we can say is we’ve got this Joint Biosecurity Centre, we monitor the risk in real time, we take decisive swift action and so there is an element of uncertainty this summer if people go abroad."

Mr Raab also defended the short-notice of the decision, which was announced on Saturday afternoon.

He said: "The reason this was taken at reasonably short-notice was the spike in Spain that we’ve responded to … so it was the real-time response, the data we were getting from Spain (meant) we had to respond very swiftly.

The government has said there are 'no guarantees' more countries won't be removed from the list. Picture: PA

"The cases in Spain, the data came we got was on the Friday, showed a big jump right across mainland Spain, that was then assessed yesterday afternoon and we took the decision as swiftly as we could.

"And we can’t make apologies for doing so.

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"We must be able to take swift, decisive action, particularly in relation to localised, or internationally in relation to Spain or a particular country, where we see we must take action.

"Otherwise, we risk re-infection into the UK, potentially a second wave here and then another lockdown."

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