Travel news latest: Cap cost of ‘rip-off’ PCR tests, Government told

Mobile phone operator Vodafone said on Monday it would reintroduce European roaming fees for new and upgrading British customers in January, following the lead set by rival EE in the wake of Brexit.

Roaming charges were completely abolished in the European Union in 2017, saving holidaymakers and business travellers millions of pounds a year in total additional fees for using their smartphones outside Britain.

But fee-free roaming was not protected in the Brexit agreement Britain signed with the EU.

Vodafone’s UK Chief Executive Ahmed Essam said the majority of its customers were not regular roamers – fewer than half roamed beyond Ireland in 2019 – and they were paying for something they didn’t use.

“So we think it’s fairer to give people more choice over what they pay for, either opting into a price plan that includes free roaming, or paying for roaming only when they roam,” he said.

Eight and 15 day passes would be available at 1 pound per day, Vodafone said, adding that roaming would remain inclusive in the Republic of Ireland for all customers.

All major operators said after the Brexit referendum they had no plans to reintroduce the charges.

EE, however, said in June it would reintroduce the charges for new and upgrading customers from January.

Scrutiny of private providers is welcome, if overdue – but the Government needs to look at is own rules, writes Emma Featherstone. 

“Eight months. That’s how long it has taken the Government to recognise that the prices, and practices, of the private Covid test firms that Britons rely on for international travel may require tougher regulation.

“December 15, 2020 was the date at which the government-approved list of PCR test providers for travel launched for the Test to Release scheme (later followed by lists for tests on day two and day eight, under the traffic light system). Yet it wasn’t until yesterday, August 8, that Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, wrote to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) requesting a “rapid high-level review” of test providers’ practices to help protect consumers. 

“‘I know that for too many people the cost of PCR testing can act as a barrier, especially for families who want to travel together,’ he wrote to Andrea Coscelli, chief executive of the CMA. 

“‘We have all experienced enormous disruption to our lives over this pandemic but it is not right if some families experience yet further disruption unnecessarily because of potentially unfair practices in the market for private travel tests,’ he added. 

“It is certainly welcome that consumers may be better protected when paying for PCR tests. Poor practices include, but are not limited to: inflated prices (the highest cost listed for a day two test provider on Gov.uk is £399); results not delivered in the promised time frame and unresponsive providers and tests kits arriving damaged.”

Read the full story. 

Brunei reported 42 new coronavirus cases on Monday, a record daily tally, following the detection over the weekend of the Southeast Asian country’s first locally transmitted Covid-19 cases in 15 months.

Brunei has implemented strict quarantine rules for inbound travellers and reported 406 infections since the onset of the pandemic. One cluster in the current outbreak was linked to a hotel quarantine centre, health minister Mohd Isham Jaafar said.

“Compared to the (outbreak) last year, we don’t know the sources of many cases this time around,” he said at a press conference on Monday.

The outbreak was causing quarantine centres to quickly fill up, and authorities were also investigating the possibility illegal border crossings between Brunei and Malaysia were the source of the latest infections, he said

“We know that the weakest chain is mainly smuggling routes and frontliners from the airport to hotels,” he added.

The prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, plans to reveal a six-month border control plan later this week.

The Kiwis have kept their borders closed since March 2020, recording only 26 deaths and 2,500 cases of Covid-19.

But Ms Ardern indicated she would be cautious.

“Any changes to border settings will be carefully considered in phases, based on risks. We have come too far and gained too many freedoms to rush at this next step and go backwards,” she said.

Across the pond, new Covid cases in the United States are averaging at more than 100,000 a day for the first time since February, according to analysis from the New York Times.

States where vaccination uptake has been lower have been particularly badly hit, with the director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention suggesting the current phase of the outbreak is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”. 

Over the past week, the average number of cases doubled from two weeks ago, while deaths have nearly doubled to 516 a day over the same period.  Much of the surge is linked to the spread of the highly contagious delta variant, but it has also reignited debates around the role of masks and vaccinations.

Over the weekend, the Republican Governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, said that a previous state law banning mask mandates had been a mistake. 

“It was an error to sign that law,” he told CBS, “I admit that”. 

Read more: Can I travel to the US?  Latest Covid rules and practical guidance

Sticking with France, the quieter side of the popular Loire region makes for a perfect return to the country, writes Ian Moore.

I’ve always been of the belief that the Loire Valley suits both approaches, and with France escaping ‘amber plus’, there’s no better time than to consider it. With a little local knowledge – I have lived in the region for many years – the secret spots aren’t hard to find.

The oft-forgotten fact of the Loire Valley is that there are two great rivers running through it, not just the better-known namesake. For centuries the Loire, the longest river in France, has been the romantic centrepiece, all regency chateaux and Joan of Arc. The less-heralded Cher, among its tributaries, has done more of the heavy lifting, with man-made trade routes extending further into the valley. The difference between the two rivers could be described as canonisation versus canalisation.

But by following the Cher you unearth incredible spots – without the crowds

Read the full story here.

People in France who want to eat our or visit entertainment venues will need to provide show a Covid pass from today. 

The pass will prove someone has been vaccinated, recovered recently from the virus or had a recent negative test.  It’s also required on high-speed, intercity and night trains carrying more than 400,000 passengers a day, while outpatients at hospitals also need to have the pass to attend appointments. 

The scheme is part of plans to encourage more people to get the vaccine and slow down infections, as France previously struggled with high vaccine hesitancy. 

Although the majority of French people have said they support the health pass, thousands have taken to the streets for a fourth consecutive week to protest the measure.

Read more:  Travel to France, latest Covid rules and practical guidance once you are there

More than 24 million people in the Philippines have been plunged into a new, harsh lockdown as Covid-19’s aggressive delta variant runs rampant across the Southeast Asian nation.

The latest lockdown imposed on the capital, Manila, and its satellite cities until August 20 is the third round of harsh restrictions since the start of the pandemic and will compound the already desperate economic struggles of daily wage labourers.

It restricts many people from leaving their homes and bans travel between cities for much of the population, and was imposed after cases began to rise in July after falling from a peak in April.

Health officials have warned that the end of the pandemic is far from sight as the variant has now taken hold in 13 out of 17 regions. To date, an estimated 10.45 per cent of the 109-million-strong population has been vaccinated as the Philippines, like much of Asia, fights to secure enough shots.

Read more here.

The head of a coronavirus test centre has said the Government needs to look at both the pricing and practices of some PCR test providers. 

Edward Heywood, director of Corona Test Centre, said:

“Whilst we welcome the CMA’s investigation into the private covid testing marketing regarding pricing, we’d urge any investigation needs to go further, principally that it look into the suitability of some of the testing providers.

“As we’ve seen from the overflowing returns outside of larger provider clinics, clearly there are some in the market that are overwhelmed by demand; those that haven’t built the infrastructure and systems to offer tests on this scale. 

“This overwhelm isn’t just a customer data and security risk (which is alarming enough) it’s the very real risk of someone potentially losing their holiday or having to stay at home to quarantine longer than necessary.

“If you’re worried about the same thing happening to you, our advice is do your research, check out that clinic’s independent reviews and ensure that the clinic has capacity for testing.”

The Eden Valley has slipped under the radar for 400 million years, and is all the more wonderful for it, writes Greg Dickinson.

“There’s nothing quite like spending the weekend on an English farm to make you feel like the pallid-skinned herbivorous city dweller that you are.

“I’d missed it. That sweet, confusingly pleasant whiff of dung in the air. Those hunks of rusting machinery, designed to crunch and/or carry things. Those lean dogs, who gravitate towards moving car wheels and somehow live to tell the tale.

“Seeing a chicken hop through the passenger door as we unpacked our car, however, was a first for me. Cumbria’s version of a giraffe craning its neck through a hotel window, or a macaque monkey pinching a camera to take a selfie. Peak farmyard exoticism.

“Lucy, who lives on Maughanby Farm with her husband Grant and their children, had seen it before. These once-caged, now very-much-free-range hens are known for their inquisitive nature, Lucy told us, as she shooed the thing away and checked to see if it had left us a present. It hadn’t. We loaded the last of our luggage into the back of a buggy and she cranked the engine to life. My spine rattled as we rolled towards a tract of woodland. Our adventure was underway.”

Read the full story. 

By next year, the coronavirus pandemic should become an “endemic situation” – but we’re in for a tough winter first, especially if new variants which challenge Covid vaccines emerge. 

That’s according to Prof Linda Bauld, a public health academic from the University of Edinburgh. Here’s what she told BBC Breakfast this morning, when asked whether there could be more lockdowns in the autumn and winter:

“None of us has a crystal ball (but) I’m hopeful that will not be the case. I think we will see, for example, outbreaks and surges in localities and we may need a more targeted and local approach.

“If we have the variants we currently have, and we don’t have a new significant variant of concern that really does challenge the vaccine, bearing in mind none of the variants we have seen so far have really challenged the vaccines to the extent that the vaccines do not protect against severe disease and mortality, if we did see one in the future that raised questions (of whether) we would need to change our vaccination programme, we might have to reimpose some restrictions.”

Prof Bauld added that, while she is optimistic that the virus will become an “endemic situation” by next year, she thinks we are “probably going to need vaccines and boosters for the foreseeable future”.

Follow more from the Covid live blog

Russia resumed flights to Egyptian resorts on the Red Sea on Monday, ending a ban that had lasted around six years following the bombing of a Russian airliner that killed all 224 people onboard.

The local branch of the Islamic State group said it downed the plane over Sinai in October 2015, shortly after the aircraft took off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh. At the time, Russian officials insisted that security procedures at Egyptian airports were insufficient.

Britain maintained a ban on flying to the resort for a year, relaxing it in 2016. 

Early on Monday morning, EgyptAir flight MS724 took off from Moscow with 300 tourists. Hours later, the Airbus A300-330 landed in Hurghada, a popular Red Sea destination, Egypt’s national carrier said in a statement.

The Russian plane was welcomed by a ceremonial “water salute” on touchdown and Russian tourists, most of them wearing facemasks, were greeted with flowers and balloons upon disembarking.

The statement said EgyptAir would operate seven flights from the Russian capital to Hurghada and Sham el-Sheikh, on the tip of the Sinai Peninsula. The first EgyptAir flight from Moscow to Sharm el-Sheikh was scheduled for Tuesday, it said.

The Russian state aviation agency, Rosaviatsiya, has cleared eight Russian airlines to operate flights to Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh from 43 cities across Russia. However, the list does not include St. Petersburg, the destination of the doomed Russian airliner downed over Sinai.

France is extending use of vaccine passports to encourage uptake among young people, while the country is no longer on the UK’s “amber-plus” list. But how are cases looking?

Laura Fowler has written on the complexities of a visit to Venice for someone who has never been…

“John was in his 60s when I met him, long ago; a great storyteller, a great drinker and a great romantic. He had always longed to see Venice, but was saving it for when he met the love of his life, so he could take them. He died without doing either.

“This romantic tragedy took seed in my young and impressionable mind. Over time, the myth of La Serenissima grew, becoming so overblown in my imagination – as an unrequited love can – that the reality could surely never live up to the hype. This was compounded by those who “knew” it (and travel writers are the worst) and scoffed at the fool tourists. How could anyone lose themselves and their hearts in a place with many rules? Don’t go in summer, don’t go in the rain, don’t go for Carnevale, don’t get on the wrong vaporetto and, Dio Mio!, don’t eat ice cream in Piazza San Marco. 

“Better not to go at all than get Venice wrong.”

Read the full story. 

Nicola Sturgeon has said she is optimistic lockdown restrictions will not have to be reimplemented in Scotland, but warned she cannot guarantee anything. 

Speaking on BBC Breakfast on Monday morning, she said: “I think any politician, anywhere in the world, in the face of a pandemic of an infectious virus that sits here and says ‘I can guarantee something’ is not being sensible and actually it’s not being frank with people.

“Every fibre of my being hopes that the restrictions we are lifting today in Scotland will never, ever have to be imposed, and am I optimistic about that? Yes.

“Can I guarantee it? Well, I could tell you that right now for the sake of an easier interview, but it wouldn’t be the right thing to say because keeping this virus under control depends on all of us continuing to do all of the sensible things I’ve been talking about.

“We also know that this is a virus that has already mutated, new variants continue to be our biggest threat, so we’ve got to be careful and we’ve got to be realistic.

“But I very much hope that all of that, coupled, of course, principally with the power of vaccination, will mean that never again do we have to face lockdowns.”

With the emirate back on the list of places we can visit, Sarah Hedley Hymers has 10 incentives to head to the glitzy city in the desert…

It is packed with flavour

With the World’s 50 Best Restaurants launching its MENA (Middle East and North Africa) list – and the awards ceremony debuting in the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, in February 2022 – the region is finally on the global culinary map. Contenders for the listing include reasonably priced Trèsind Studio (tresindstudio.com) with its ever-changing modern Indian degustation menus; extravagant nine-seat Hoseki honouring the art of sushi-making at Bulgari Dubai (bulgarihotels.com); and affordable Kinoya (kinoya.ae), an ode to ramen, and the manifestation of local resident Neha Mishra’s passion. Neha’s journey as a chef began hosting sold-out supper clubs at her home, but ramen this dazzling needed a bigger stage, and it got one when she opened Kinoya in April 2021.

Read the full story. 

People in France will from Monday need to show a vaccine passport to enjoy usually routine activities such as sipping a coffee in a cafe or travelling on an intercity train, in a plan championed by President Emmanuel Macron to squeeze Covid-19 infections and encourage vaccination.

The government is pressing ahead with the extension of an already-existing health pass to cafes, restaurants and intercity travel, despite four weekends of angry protests that saw almost a quarter of a million rally nationwide on Saturday.

Macron, who has expressed exasperation with the protests, hopes that the plan will help ramp up vaccinations and quell the fourth wave of coronavirus in France in a strategy similar to that of EU neighbours such as Italy and Germany.

The health pass is generated in a QR code either by a full course of vaccinations, a recent negative virus test or a recovery from Covid-19. The government expects a one-week grace period for consumers and businesses to get used to the new rules.

“The pass and the vaccination drive should help us avoid new curfews and lockdowns,” Health Minister Olivier Veran told Le Parisien daily.

Australia expanded a lockdown to a rural town and the coastal region of Byron Bay on Monday, as fears grew that the virus has spread from Sydney to the northern tip of the country’s most populous state.

Tamworth, a farming town 414 km (257 miles) northwest of Sydney, and Byron Bay, a tourist spot about 770 km north of Sydney, will both enter a seven-day lockdown, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.

Neither Tamworth nor Byron Bay has yet recorded a Covid-19 case, but Berejiklian said two infected people had contravened travel bans and travelled there.

“As a precaution, the health experts have recommended we lock down Tamworth for one week,” Berejiklian told reporters.

New South Wales reported 283 locally acquired cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, up from 262 cases a day earlier.

The state has struggled to contain a surge of the highly infectious Delta variant despite a lockdown of Sydney now in its seventh week.

Some travellers have taken to Twitter to post photos of overflowing drop-off points for PCR tests…

The traffic light system for overseas travel should be ditched and replaced with a single “red list” of countries, the former head of the Government’s vaccines taskforce has said.

Clive Dix, the interim chairman of the taskforce from January to April, told The Telegraph that, given the high proportion of the UK adult population who have been vaccinated, the current border arrangements are too complicated. 

He backed the idea of replacing the current green, amber and red system with a list of countries that people would have to quarantine from when returning to the UK.

For all other countries a Covid test once home would suffice, Mr Dix suggested.

“It’s simple and it’s not too onerous. It allows for people to have more freedom, basically,” Mr Dix said of such an arrangement.

Read the full story. 

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has told Health Secretary Said Javid it is aware of concerns about the cost of PCR tests for holidaymakers. 

Mr Javid has asked the CMA to investigate the pricing of the travel tests to ensure consumers did not face “unnecessarily high costs”.

In a letter to CMA chief executive Andrea Coscelli, he said: “We have all experienced enormous disruption to our lives over this pandemic, but it is not right if some families experience yet further disruption unnecessarily because of potentially unfair practices in the market for private travel tests.

“It is important that the sensible measures we have introduced at the borders are fair and transparent and don’t involve unnecessary costs or low quality provision to people who have made so many sacrifices during this pandemic.”

He asked the CMA to conduct a “rapid high-level review of the market for PCR travel tests to assess what action might be taken to ensure that consumers do not face unnecessarily high costs or other poor provision”.

A CMA spokesman said: “We are aware of concerns about the evolving markets for Covid-19 tests for international travellers.

“We look forward to providing the Secretary of State with advice on how best to ensure that travellers have access to tests that are affordable and reliable.”

The traffic light system remains in place, despite its critics. Here’s how it works…

1. Green countries: no quarantine, but a pre-departure test before returning to England and post-arrival PCR test. There is also a green watchlist. Destinations on this list are at risk of moving to amber.
2. Amber countries: pre-departure test before returning to England, two post-arrival tests and self-isolation for up to ten days on arrival back in England (with the option to use ‘Test to Release’, which cuts the time in self-isolation). Fully vaccinated arrivals no longer have to quarantine on return from all amber destinations. However, they must still take a pre-departure test before returning to England and pay for a PCR test on day two of their return as well as completing a passenger locator form.
3. Red countries: non-residents banned entirely, compulsory hotel quarantine (and testing) on return for returning residents (direct flights are banned from some red-listed destinations)

Here is some more from the Liberal Democrats on its research into the cost of PCR tests for holidaymakers. 

Analysis of the list by the Liberal Democrats shows just 11% of the providers offered tests for under £50, with the cheapest offering prices ranging from £20.

Some 24% of the providers were charging more than £200 – with the Mayfair GP clinic listed as £575, although its own website said prices start at £399.

Lib Dem health spokeswoman Munira Wilson said: “”Many have not seen their loved ones abroad since the beginning of the pandemic and the cost of testing is a real barrier to travel.

“When the cost of providing a test is estimated to be £20, why are many companies charging well over £100 and some over £500?

“Testing is vital in our fight against the pandemic, but if it is safe to travel it should be affordable to travel.