Dominica on England's COVID-19 travel exemption list

Effective Friday, 10 July, anyone travelling to England after having spent at least 14 days here, will be exempt from that country's coronavirus self-isolation regulations.

Under the quarantine rules anyone returning to the United Kingdom from a country outside its common travel area of the UK, the dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, and Ireland must self-isolate for 14 days.

However, London last Friday issued a "green list" of over 50 countries, including Dominica that have been exempted from the regulations.

The government said people travelling to, or returning from, any of the countries with travel corridor exemption and "have not been to or stopped in a country that's not on the travel corridors exemption list in the previous 14 days" would not have to self-isolate.

"This applies to all travel to England, by train, ferry, coach, air or any other route. If you have been to or stopped in a country that's not on the travel corridors exemption list you will have to self-isolate until 14 days have passed since you left that country," it said.

Other Caribbean countries on the "green list" include Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Bonaire, St. Eustatius, Saba, Curacao, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, St. Barths, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago, all of which have contained the coronavirus.

However, the US has been placed on a "red list" of high-risk countries that people are advised not to visit for non-essential reasons because of its continued high level of coronavirus cases,

The number of COVID-19 cases in the US continues to rise at record pace, and the country is on pace to record 150,000 deaths from the virus by the end of July. On the very day London announced the list, over 53,000 new cases were reported, taking the tally to 2,793,034 confirmed cases and 129,430 deaths.

Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee all set records for new cases, according to Reuters.

"They have got very high numbers of infections, which is why they are not on the [green] list today," the British transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Friday.