Anger, confusion spread over UK's new COVID travel rules

Travelers and authorities from India and many African countries are furious — and confused — about Britain’s new COVID-19 travel rules, calling them discriminatory

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Travelers and authorities from India and some African countries are furious — and confused — about Britain's new COVID-19 travel rules, calling them discriminatory.

The British government announced what it billed as a simplification of the rules last week, including allowing fully vaccinated travelers arriving in England from much of the world to skip quarantine and take fewer tests.

But the fine print on who was considered “fully vaccinated” is proving far more complicated. In order to skip self-isolation, travelers must have received a vaccine under the American, British or European programs or have received a U.K.-authorized shot from an approved health body. Bodies in more than a dozen countries in Asia, the Caribbean and the Middle East made it to the list — but India's did not, nor did any in Africa.

Countries like Kenya, which has received hundreds of thousands of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the U.K. itself, were left wondering why their vaccination programs don't appear to be good enough in the eyes of the British government. That’s leading to concerns that the rules could exacerbate already worrying vaccine hesitancy in Africa as some people question whether the doses available there don’t measure up.