BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Aug 9 (Borneo Bulletin/ANN): The United Kingdom (UK) Transport Department has announced that Brunei and Malaysia have been added to the UK’s safe list.
The two nations were added to the list of travel corridors for England after being assessed by the Joint Biosecurity Centre as posing a lower infection risk.
From 4am on August 11, passengers arriving in England from these destinations will no longer need to self-isolate, so long as they haven’t been in or transited through any other non-exempt countries in the 14 days preceding their arrival.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) also updated its travel advice against all but essential travel to Andorra, Belgium and The Bahamas.
Brunei and Malaysia are already exempt from the FCO’s global advisory against non-essential travel.
The UK government has made it consistently clear that it will take decisive actions to contain the virus, including removing countries from the travel corridors list rapidly if the health risk of people returning from a particular country without self-isolation becomes too high.
The department said Covid-19 has profoundly changed the nature of international travel.
Travellers should always check the latest advice from the FCO, given the potential for changing coronavirus infection rates to affect both the advice about travelling to other countries and rules about self-isolation on return.
All travellers, including those from exempt destinations, will still be required to show a complete passenger locator form on arrival into the UK unless they fall into a small group of exemptions.
Meanwhile, Brunei reported no new cases of Covid-19 on Saturday night with the national tally of cases standing at 142.
According to Brunei's Ministry of Health, no more recoveries were recorded on Saturday, maintaining the total number of recovered cases at 138. There is one active case being treated at the National Isolation Center, who was recorded on Friday, breaking the country's 92-day record without new cases since May 7.
Meanwhile, currently there are 571 individuals who are undergoing mandatory isolation at the monitoring centres provided by the government, who have arrived in the country after travelling abroad.
There have been three deaths that resulted from Covid-19 in Brunei. - Borneo Bulletin/Asian News Network
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