Coronavirus in Scotland: 12 countries given 'green light' as part of no quarantine international travel restriction easing announced by Nicola Sturgeon

Nicola Sturgeon has announced the 12 countries which will require ‘no quarantine’ for those travelling back to Scotland as of next week.

From Monday, May 17, Scotland will move to a ‘traffic light system’ for international travel which will be informed by assessments based on the state of the pandemic in each country. This will include the presence of ‘variants of concerns.’

If you enter Scotland under a ‘red list’ country, identified as ‘acute risk’, you will still be required to go into a managed isolation hotel for 10 days.

These red list countries will include: Turkey, The Maldives and Nepal.

12 'green list' countries announced.

If you enter a country from the ‘amber list’ – where the majority of countries will lie – you must self-isolate at home for ten days and take two PCR tests.

Those travelling from a ‘green list’ country will only need to take a PCR test shortly after arrival and will not be required to self-isolate.

The ‘green list’ countries are: Australia, Brunei, the Falkland Islands, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Iceland, Israel, New Zealand, Portugal, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, Singapore, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

Speaking at the coronavirus briefing, Nicola Sturgeon said: "The four UK chief medical officers have indicated that green list status should be the exception and not the rule and I very much agree with that approach.

"There will have to be very good reasons for adding a country to the green list and so removing quarantine requirements and we will not do that lightly.

"We still intend to be highly cautious on international travel, given the risk of new variants but we consider the situation now allows us to begin a careful move away from blanket restrictions on non-essential travel overseas.”

The traffic light system means that the four nations will have a joint approach to travel.

The First Minister said she believed this is ‘positive’, however added: “The Scottish Government will continue to take the decisions we consider to be right for Scotland - we will not sign up to decisions that will put our progress at risk.”

From Monday May 17, all of mainland Scotland, with the ‘highly probable’ exception of Moray, will move from level three to level two restrictions. The Scottish islands will move to level one.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.