UK Quarantine Requirement Removed for Vaccinated British Overseas Territories Residents Travelling via Amber List Countries
Grand Cayman, 21 July 2021 – Entry requirements for people arriving in England via countries currently on the United Kingdom’s amber travel list and also vaccinated under the UK’s vaccination programme delivered in UK Overseas Territories were updated on Monday, 19 July to remove the requirement for quarantine on arrival.
This policy, which is in effect in England but has not yet been extended to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, positively impacts Cayman Islands residents vaccinated on-island and travelling to England via common transit countries including the Bahamas, the United States, Canada, Jamaica, or any other amber list country.
Unaffected by the change are fully vaccinated Cayman Islands residents taking direct flights from Grand Cayman to England. These travellers already have no need to quarantine on arrival in the UK as the Cayman Islands is on the UK ‘green watch’ list allowing for entry without quarantine, although you still have to book and have a PCR swab and test two days after arrival.
His Excellency the Governor Martyn Roper explained, “Regulations have recently changed in the United Kingdom to allow residents of the British Overseas Territories vaccinated under the UK vaccination programme to be treated as if they were vaccinated directly by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).”
Vaccines which have been administered in the Cayman Islands and supplied by the UK through the Governor’s Office, allow locally vaccinated people to have the same status as those vaccinated by the NHS for the purposes of entry to England.
However, the UK is not currently accepting the vaccination cards given to Cayman Islands residents as verified proof of vaccination. Instead, the Governor’s Office has worked in conjunction with the Cayman Islands Health Services Authority (HSA) and the Public Health Department to develop a standard certificate in line with all other British Overseas Territories which can be used for entry through the UK border.
Chief Medical Officer Dr John Lee noted, “While a ‘Letter of Certification’ has been developed for entry through the UK border, we would like to remind Cayman Islands residents vaccinated locally that this is for border entry purposes only. At this time, it is not possible to have a Cayman vaccination entered into the UK’s securely verifiable electronic NHS system.”
The Letters of Certification will be available from the office of the Medical Officer of Health. Members of the public are asked to apply by email to nola.sanderson@hsa.ky attaching a copy of their vaccination card via screen shot or attachment to the email request.
All requests will take three business days to process, so applicants are asked to take this time into account when submitting their requests prior to travel.
Dr Lee has previously reported that local efforts to develop a securely verifiable electronic system for COVID-19 vaccines administered in the Cayman Islands are ongoing.
He said, “The Health Services Authority has contracted with Cerner, the HSA’s hospital information system, to provide securely verifiable evidence of a Cayman Covid-19 vaccination programme in the form of a secure QR code, although this will take computer engineers a few months to implement.”
The complete amber list rules for fully UK vaccinated travellers can be found: HERE
The quarantine exemption for fully UK vaccinated travellers is not valid for travellers who have been in France in the 10 days before arrival in England.