Maldives continues to remain in the United Kingdom’s Travel Red list.
Although there were hopes for the island nation to move up to Amber List as the Covid-19 situation across the nation improved and vaccination picked up, however, Maldives was exempt from the Green List updated and publicized by the UK government on Thursday.
While Maldives is among the 62 nations that are currently on UK's red list, the country has three lists -green, amber and red- and each country has its own rules for arriving holidaymakers.
Green lists are among three lists compiled by governments -red, amber and green- and lists rules for travel to the respective nation from other countries.
Maldives’ High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Dr. Farahanaz Faizal expressed disappointment that the UK continues to keep the Maldives on the red list, despite low case numbers and high vaccination rates.
She noted that the country has just begun regular Genome sequencing as well and questioned whether it came too late for the recent review.
Health Protection Agency (HPA) had previously revealed that the reason Maldives is on UK's red list is because the country had not completed the Genomic Sequencing test required to move up the list.
Farah earlier stated that there is no longer a valid reason for the Maldives to be included in the UK's red list, after the initial list came out on August 21. As such, she said that the international Covid-19 and other influenza virus database known as GISAID "has now been updated with Genome sequencing date as required by the UK". She went on to stress that the Maldives currently has low case numbers and high vaccination rates in comparison to other countries.
As the country aims to welcome 1.3 million visitors this year, being removed from the United Kingdom’s red list will be a major boost to Maldives tourism.
The country saw 555,213 tourist arrivals in 2020, during which United Kingdom was in third in the tourism market with 19,686 visitors.
Maldives was recently removed from Abu Dhabi's green list as well.
