How do we prove we’ve had the Covid vaccine for our Cyprus holiday?

Q We are hoping to go on a family holiday to Cyprus at the end of May or early June. We will have had both vaccinations. How do you expect we will prove we have had the jabs? And what about my kids, aged nine and 12, who won’t be vaccinated?

Name withheld; submitted via the weekly Ask Me Anything on travel, each Thursday at 4pm

A At present the conditions for arrivals from the UK to Cyprus are fairly onerous. The UK is on the island’s red list, requiring a PCR test before departure to Cyprus, a second test on arrival (priced at around £26) and mandatory quarantine until the result is known.

But by late May I expect the UK to have leapfrogged from Red to Green on the Cypriot list. Proof of vaccination will replace the need for testing for the adults.

So how do you prove it? The British government identified the need for some kind of digital proof of Covid vaccination almost six months ago. The first Global Travel Taskforce report, published in November 2020, identified the need for “a global framework for validating test results and vaccination records”.

It noted: “The global harmonisation of measures will simplify travel between countries, strengthening public confidence in international travel and enable travel to be more quickly reestablished between countries.”

But progress on a globally accepted form of Covid certification for the tens of millions of British people who have thankfully been jabbed is painfully slow.

To be fair, there is precious little international agreement on what a “vaccine passports” should look like (incidentally, I prefer “Covid status certificate” because it does not confer the same freedom as an actual passport).

Meanwhile, if you have a vaccination card, that may suffice – though it is possible that a letter from your doctor may be required.

Your children face mixed fortunes. Under-12s escape the testing requirement altogether, but your 12-year-old will not. Check nearer the time exactly what is required.

Finally, if Cyprus is assigned to the UK amber list rather than the green list, you will need to self-isolate on return.

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Q Like many other people we combine holidays abroad with seeing bands play live and attending festivals.

We were due to attend the Festival des Nîmes last year. The tickets are still valid and the rescheduled date is 15 June 2021.

We haven’t booked our travel arrangements yet because of ongoing uncertainty. I don’t want to miss the concert, but equally don’t want to lose money on ferry or plane tickets.

I believe the French culture minister has announced that only concerts with a maximum of 5,000 seated spectators will be permitted.

For myself and others who have European festival and gig tickets carried over from last year, what is the likelihood of any of these events taking place?

Rebecca R

Q After the shambolic rollout of vaccination programmes across the EU, it remains unclear how many big European events will be able to go ahead this summer.

As you will appreciate, there are many problems standing in the way of your trip to southern France or anywhere else – starting with the UK government’s view on your proposed trip, and what sort of travel restrictions it imposes when you come back into Britain.

Those rules will depend on the coronavirus picture: everything from the rate of vaccination and the effect jabs have in reducing Covid infections, to the possible emergence of dangerous variants.

Agreed, reports in French media say the culture minister, Roselyne Bachelot, is capping concerts at a maximum of 5,000 seated spectators – a fraction of the capacity of the Arène de Nîmes, the magnificent Roman amphitheatre in the city that serves as the venue for festival events.

I infer that you are booked to see Foo Fighters on 15 June. In your position, I recommend you do what I am planning with my Euro 2020 ticket for a group match in St Petersburg: request a refund. I regard the chances of being able to get to France, Russia and dozens of other countries in June without having to quarantine on return to the UK are very low, sadly – regardless of the hassles involved in getting there in the first place.

Foo Fighters are also playing in Lisbon six days later. Portugal is a more likely prospect for a relatively smooth trip. But your caution is correct; don’t book any travel arrangements yet.

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Q I need to travel to Dubai for an event in the third week in May. However, I have children and can’t quarantine in a hotel for 10 days on return, as the current “red list status” demands.

Do you have any inside information about Dubai being downgraded to amber or green? Or is there someone I can contact to put the case that this is an urgent work trip that I should be able to make without quarantining in a hotel?

Name supplied

A To answer your final point first: there is no one in government who is interested in providing a no-hotel-quarantine guarantee, however important the trip. But I am still optimistic you can travel to Dubai and back without hotel quarantine in late May.

The United Arab Emirates was placed on the UK’s red list on 12 January. At the time, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said “the latest data” required anyone arriving from the UAE – which includes the key hubs of Dubai and Abu Dhabi – to self-isolate.

Three months on, much of the adult population in the UAE has been vaccinated. Deaths from Covid-19 are averaging three per day.

In contrast, France has given a first jab to just 16 per cent of its people. It is averaging 30,000 new Covid cases per day and, sadly, 300 daily deaths (corresponding to 43 per day in a country with the population of the UAE).

Yet while France remains on the “amber” list, requiring 10 days of self-isolation at home, the UAE is stuck on “red“ – which means 11 nights of hotel quarantine at a cost of £1,750 per person.

In your position, though, I would be confident that the pretence that the UAE presents more of a threat to the UK than France will end in early May.

That is when the government says it will assign countries into red, amber and green categories, ahead of the relaunch of international leisure travel on 17 May; work trips are allowed at any time.

Unless some dramatic event takes place, there seems no grounds for keeping the UAE as red – and some analysts argue that it should move straight to green, requiring just a couple of tests and no self-isolation.

The big UAE airlines seem to agree. At present neither Emirates of Dubai nor Etihad of Abu Dhabi is allowed to sell tickets from the UAE to the UK (though their planes still fly in daily to carry cargo and pick people up). But they are already selling inbound to the UK from 18 May and 16 May respectively.

A return Emirates flight from London Heathrow to Dubai, going out on 13 May and back a week later, looks good value at under £400 return. If my prediction turns out to be wrong, while you won’t get a refund you can change dates, rebook or extend ticket validity for two years.

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Q I know you wouldn’t recommend the Middle East in June, but we have flights and hotels booked (flexibly) for travel on the first of that month.

Firstly: do you think it’ll be on the green list and we’ll be able to go?

Secondly, my second vaccination is on 31 May: will I have to still have those pesky tests outbound and inbound?

“Swinuk” via the weekly Ask Me Anything on travel – each Thursday at 4pm. 

A Thanks for acknowledging my antithesis to much of the region in summer. I love the Middle East. But I would only visit the Gulf countries between October and March because of the intense heat the rest of the year. I know many people don’t share my view.

Anyway, it all depends where you are going. Let me run through the main locations for Brits, starting with the most obvious one. The UAE is currently on the UK’s red list, but (as mentioned in yesterday’s Travel Question) the justification for this hardline status looks less and less robust. I wouldn’t be surprised if it jumped straight to green.

Bahrain looks a lot less likely to qualify, with a sharp increase in cases over the past month.

You may possibly mean Jordan or Egypt, so let me cover both of those. Jordan (which is, by the way, worth visiting in June) is well on the way down from a very sharp peak a month ago. But the kingdom is still suffering many more Covid-related deaths a day than the UK, even though it has barely one-seventh of the population.

Egypt’s official case rates, relative to its population, are much lower than both the UK and Jordan – but they are rising, and for that reason alone I can’t see any prospect of the country joining the green list for a while.

The testing requirements on your outbound trip will depend solely on your destination country. There is no UK rule for a negative Covid test when leaving the country. But for the purposes of returning to the UK, your vaccination status makes no difference at all. You will still need a negative result before boarding your plane home, and undergo a PCR test within 48 hours of arriving.

Email your questions to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder