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Ireland took the plunge over the weekend and dropped the mandatory quarantine policy for travellers coming from countries on their high-risk list.

This will include people who arrive without proof of vaccination or a recent COVID-19 test, as they will simply be required to self-isolate.

These policy changes are reportedly putting “serious and growing pressure on the government of the United Kingdom” to also drop the hotel quarantine rule.

Ireland’s decision was made on the advice of the country’s chief medical officer, with Health Minister Stephen Donnelly mentioning that hotel quarantine was needed at a time, but that it is safe to move on from it at this stage.

The Evening Standard has more from Donnelly:

 “The Mandatory Hotel Quarantine system was introduced as an exceptional public health measure at a time that our country was contending with the very serious risk of importation of variants of concern that had the potential to overwhelm our health service and, in particular, to undermine Ireland’s COVID-19 vaccination programme.”

Travel industry insiders hope that this decision could “embolden” ministers and the UK government to move away from the expensive hotel quarantine as quickly as possible for red-listed travellers.

Currently, anyone wanting to go to the UK from South Africa has to pay almost R50 000 for a hotel quarantine.

While South African experts are talking it out with the UK government about getting us off their travel ‘red list’, with a review of the list coming up in the next two weeks, there’s a sneaky little loophole for some.

People with British or Irish citizenship can bypass hotel quarantine when returning from South Africa by way of Ireland as travel between the two countries is subject only to spot checks at their borders, per Business Insider SA:

The travel rules between the two means their citizens are not asked for standard COVID-19-related passenger locator forms that list where they recently travelled, experts in the travel industry say – and so a citizen of Ireland or Britain could leave South Africa on one ticket, and cross to the UK on another ticket without being detected.

That would not apply to South African citizens, and UK or Irish citizens doing so would technically be breaking a requirement to fill in a passenger locator form, which is required even for those travelling from Ireland if they had not spent at least 10 days there.

Spot checks between the two regions are said to now include questions about where you’ve travelled before, which could mean a passenger will have to lie to border agents.

Still, some are heralding it as an option for those getting impatient with the thus far failed efforts to have South Africa removed from the UK ‘red list’.

Hopefully, Ireland’s decision will help speed that process along.

[sources:businessinsider&eveningstandard]