From today, Friday, 7th of January, people travelling to Scotland from abroad who are fully vaccinated or under the age of 18 will no longer need to take pre-departure Covid tests.

They will not be required to self-isolate on arrival until they’ve received a negative result.

LFDs with photo confirmation will be accepted as post-arrival tests. People will be able to buy an eligible test from the list on gov.uk from Friday 7 January.  Anyone who tests positive will need to isolate and take a free follow-up PCR test for genomic sequencing.

It will still be required to take a test on or before day 2 after arriving in the UK – which can be a lateral flow device rather than a PCR test from Sunday, 9th of January 2022.

The easing of the travel restrictions applies throughout the UK. Travel abroad: step by step

Omicron

On 30th of November 2021 the World Health Organisation (WHO) designated the variant B.1.1.529 a variant of concern (VOC), named Omicron, on the basis of advice from WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution (hereafter referred to as TAG-VE) on 26 November 2021.

 The Omicron variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning. Preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant as compared to other VOCs.

Globally, as of 4:53pm CET, 5 January 2022, there have been 293,750,692 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 5,454,131 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 5 January 2022, a total of 9,118,223,397 vaccine doses have been administered.