- On Wednesday, France reopened its borders to passengers flying in from the UK
- Previously on Tuesday, a deal was reached with Paris to allow French and other EU residents to return home, providing they have a negative RT-PCR test report
- Britain stated that it would look into handing out tests at multiple locations
THoD Newsdesk, France: On Wednesday, France reopened its borders to passengers flying in from the UK, terminating the ban which was set in motion to curb the transmission of the new strain of COVID-19.
More than 40 countries have halted their travel from Britain and France had suspended all travel from Britain for 48 hours, including the transportation of goods by road, air, sea or rail.
Previously on Tuesday, a deal was reached with Paris to allow French and other EU residents to return home, providing they have a negative RT-PCR test report, that is less than 3-days old. Britain stated that it would look into handing out tests at multiple locations but the authorities also warned that the process would be time-consuming.
Secretary of State for Transport of the United Kingdom, Grant Shapps, stated, “We’ll be making sure that tomorrow we’re out there providing tests. This will take two or three days for things to be cleared.”
Earlier, the European Commission had mentioned that non-essential travel to and from the UK should be halted but people heading back home should be permitted to do so, provided they undergo a COVID-19 test or quarantine for 10 days at least. However, border controls are governed by national policy, so each EU country can have its own rules.
Shapps added that France had agreed to accept the results of “lateral flow” COVID-19 tests which have been used in other mass testing programmes and this method can garner results typically within an hour’s duration.
