United States bans travellers from UK without a negative coronavirus test

Travellers at JFK Airport in New York look at test results after arriving on December 22
AFP via Getty Images
Jason Collie25 December 2020

People flying to the United States from the UK will have to produce a negative Covid-19 test before travelling following the emergence of a new coronavirus variant.

The US became, on Christmas Day, the latest country to announce new travel restrictions because of the variant spreading in the UK and elsewhere.

Airline passengers from the UK will need negative tests within three days of their trip and to provide the results to the airline, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.

The agency said the order will come into effect on Monday.

Airlines must deny boarding to any passenger who does not get a test, the CDC said.

The agency said because of travel restrictions in place since March, air travel to the US from the UK is already down by 90%.

Last weekend, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the new variant of coronavirus seemed to spread more easily than earlier ones and was moving rapidly through England.

Dozens of countries have since barred flights from the UK.

Mr Johnson stressed there is “no evidence to suggest it is more lethal or causes more severe illness”, or that vaccines will be less effective against it.

The Associated Press contributed to this article

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in