{"id":141,"date":"2021-06-04T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-04T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/?p=141"},"modified":"2021-06-04T17:19:49","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T16:19:49","slug":"portugal-moved-to-amber-list-amidst-new-nepal-covid-variant-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/2021\/06\/04\/portugal-moved-to-amber-list-amidst-new-nepal-covid-variant-concern\/","title":{"rendered":"Portugal moved to amber list amidst new \u2018Nepal\u2019 COVID variant concern"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The UK government\u2019s decision to remove Portugal from their list of quarantine-free green list countries for international travel has caused chao for thousands with travel plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following this announcement, many of the more than 112,000 of the Britons will be hurriedly making travel arrangement to return to the UK from Portugal before the amber listing comes into force from Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">It\u2019s 5 a.m. in Lisbon and the queues are getting longer at the airport. First flight to London is full on the day  after Britain announced it would remove the southern European destination from its green list. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4jBeYMmsCj\">pic.twitter.com\/4jBeYMmsCj<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Catarina Demony (@CatarinaDemony) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CatarinaDemony\/status\/1400672521234653186?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 4, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>From 04:00 BST on Tuesday, Portugal will join the amber list, meaning holidaymakers will be advised against travel there and any arrivals will be required to self-isolate at home for 10 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Josh Woogs, from Bolton, had booked a trip to Lisbon just 10 hours before Portugal\u2019s amber travel listing was announced. He said: \u201cI\u2019m still going, and I\u2019ll just isolate when I\u2019m back. It\u2019s an essential trip for me and I just can\u2019t miss it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many in government have defended this decision due to the presence a new COVID variant first observed in Nepal, as well as a rise in positive COVID cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told Sky News that the emerging Nepal mutation of the Indian variant was of concern and Portugal&#8217;s positivity rate has &#8220;nearly doubled since the last review.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dave Somers, a teacher from Lancashire on holiday for the half term, said \u201cI\u2019m in Portugal right now and feel a lot safer here than in the UK. Luckily all our tests are done, and we are travelling back tomorrow on schedule. The locals here are despairing at our government\u2019s decision though.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The UK is one of Portugal\u2019s largest visitor markets, especially to the Algarve Resorts which were unsure whether they could reopen took a chance as the UK was allowing travel, and now they are being flooded with cancellations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Though this has been met with public criticism, the decision has been defended by ministers to do everything they can to ensure that the fourth stage of unlocking can still take place on June 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The UK government\u2019s decision to remove Portugal from their list of quarantine-free green list countries for international travel has caused chao for thousands with travel plans. Following this announcement, many of the more than 112,000 of the Britons will be hurriedly making travel arrangement to return to the UK from Portugal before the amber listing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11,12,13],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories-from-across-the-nation","tag-covid","tag-portugal","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions\/187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/kentconnect\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}