Coronavirus Travel Country Stats to 9th May

Now with UK ratings from 17th May.

New 'Traffic Light Index' to track progress for countries over time

While last week's announcement was disappointing at least we've got the framework and hopefully it will improve. Read on

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All country data for

Africa
Asia
Europe
Americas

Oceania not included, no data other than Australia/NZ already in main dataset.

NB - Especially in Africa some countries do very little testing so case numbers unreliable.

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Europe overall still looking almost universally better, looking good for summer!

Cyprus back below 1000 and falling fast.

Turkey continues to report large declines.

Only concerning place at the moment is Latvia & Lithuania which are both quite high and still increasing.

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Situation outside Europe still very mixed.

India still at a very high peak, hopefully declines start soon.

USA declines really picking up now, will fall very fast now with

Brazil continues very slow decline, rest of S. America too seems on a bumpy slow decline.

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Outside Europe (2)

Continued dreadful numbers from Maldives and Seychelles, hopefully to turn around soon.

UAE continues to drift down very slowly, Qatar falling a bit faster, but still higher.

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So last Friday we had the much speculated about UK announcement

My take on it and what I got wrong/right is here - https://twitter.com/EvilDoctorK/status/1390969482173161472?s=20

It's a start, albeit a lot more limited than we'd have liked and many of us thought .. but now where does it go from here ?

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There's clearly some countries that 'just missed out' on last time around so we can hope for a longer Green list in about 3 weeks time

Especially Malta & Finland maybe a few others in Europe too

Spain, Greece and Italy maybe too soon, but not impossible

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Outside of Europe probably more East Asian countries can be added next time ( quite weird that some lik HK or South Korea weren't ) but unfortunately this won't add to the list of practical destinations for UK travellers.

Outside bet on Morocco for Green maybe ?

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The 'Island Rule' as hinted didn't happen. I don't think it will at this stage as events will overtake it.

If we presume/hope Greece, Spain and Italy all get in max 6 weeks time then its largely irrelevant as it's really just for those countries that it would apply.

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The detailed rules that will apply from 17th May have not yet been published, so some questions are yet to be totally clarified.

Unfortunately based on previous rulemaking we can only expect these closer to May 17th which isn't ideal.

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The interaction with FCO advice and the clear wish to discourage, but not prohibit, leisure travel to non destinations seems not to have settled down yet

Main thing is check your Travel Insurance, some but not all policies will be okay.. Otherwise no rules against travel

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Remember also the whole rules framework is due for review at the end of June.

I hope concessions for travellers are introduced. It would be low risk and provide another positive benefit to people getting the

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Remember also UK system is only one part of the puzzle, travellers also need to consider Entry restrictions at the destinations - two useful tools below

https://unwto.org/unwto-iata-destination-tracker from IATA/World Tourism Org

Also

https://apply.joinsherpa.com/travel-restrictions has better presentation

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For Ireland restrictions remain

- Test before travel to Ireland
- Passenger Locator Form
- Hotel Quarantine for growing list of arrivals
- Isolation for all other arrivals.

No substantial changes yet, but it sounds like something expected to be announced soon

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Ireland did remove a 11 countries ( including fellow EU members Italy and Austria ) from the Mandatory Hotel Quarantine list this week.

Added Nepal ( for unfortunately obivous reasons) and Anguilla ( really no idea why!) from 12th May

At least the list is getting shorter!

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Common Travel Areal from Britain to Ireland is unrestricted from Britain, but entry into Ireland remains highly restricted

With low rates in both countries an easy first step could be to exempt British arrivals into Ireland from some/all restrictions.

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Let's hope travel opens up soon, get vaccinated when you can to help this.

Remember it's not only holidays.

Data from https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus  converted by me into the ECDC format used for European travel decisions.

Spreadsheet available here - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HH6qYlA3_bVDlB_XqJQo2dzSOOeqxwslcCoimuCRBrE/edit?usp=sharing

ends/