Mallorca remains on Britain’s amber list in June
Friday, June 4th, 2021
The first review of the British Government’s traffic light system for international travel, which had initially come into force on the 17th of May 2021, took place on Thursday, the 3rd of June.
This date had been awaited eagerly in the hope that Mallorca would change its position from “amber” to “green”. Sadly, this turned out not to be the case, much to the disappointment of many in the UK. The ongoing amber status means that anyone visiting the island will continue to have to quarantine at home for 10 days on their return from holiday. The decision also dealt a blow to the tourist industry in Mallorca, as UK nationals form the second largest group of visitors to the island, with over 2.4 million visits in 2019 alone.
Meanwhile, case numbers in Mallorca remain low. The seven-day incidence rate for the Balearics on the 2nd of June was 18.18 per 100,000. By comparison, the UK reported a seven-day incidence rate of 33.7 per 100,000 on the 3rd of June. In light of this, the decision not to add Mallorca to the green list is difficult to understand.
However, Mallorca is not the only holiday destination to miss out on the green list status, as no new countries were added to the list, and Portugal, which had been given the green light on the 17th of May, was relegated to amber status. Grant Shapps, the British transport secretary, explained this fact with concerns about recent coronavirus variants, including the new Delta variant, while Boris Johnson stated that his priority was to remain focused on the vaccine rollout.
This seems to make sense as, according to statistics published by Public Health England, the majority of the patients infected by the Delta variant had not been vaccinated. As the vaccination programme continues to make good progress in the UK as well as in Spain, including Mallorca, we can remain hopeful that it will soon have the desired effect of stopping the spread of the virus. This in turn will finally allow us to travel freely between both countries once more and to set off on that long-awaited holiday to the beautiful island of Mallorca.
