Can I travel into and out of UK’s Covid Indian variant hotspots for a staycation this half term?

The government has targeted eight areas of the UK and issued new advice saying people should not be travelling in or out of them due to concerns over the new Indian variant of the coronavirus, which looks to be significantly more transmissible than other mutations.

The guidance was quietly posted online on Friday 21 May, but only became widely known about after journalists picked up on the changes on Monday 24 May.

Labour claimed the measures were essentially “local lockdowns by stealth”, while the prime minister’s spokesperson denied they amounted to a “lockdown”.

Here’s everything you need to know about the latest rules, and whether they could affect a planned domestic holiday this half term.

The new guidance has been issued for eight areas: Bolton, Blackburn, Kirklees, Bedford, Burnley, Leicester, North Tyneside and the London borough of Hounslow.

The advice states that people should not be travelling into or out of these areas unless essential, should meet outside instead of indoors and should stay two metres apart from anyone not in their household or support bubble.

Those in affected areas are told to continue to work from home where possible.

It is guidance only; unlike previous lockdowns, which were enshrined in law, this has no legal standing. If people ignore the advice and travel into or out of these areas, for example for a half-term holiday, there is currently no penalty for doing so.

“It is important to emphasise that this is guidance,” said Boris Johnson’s spokesperson. “These are not statutory restrictions. People should try to follow it if at all possible. We recognise that in certain circumstances this will not be possible.”

They emphasised that locals should use their “individual judgement” when asked if residents should refrain from travelling outside their home areas to work or go on holiday.

“I think the public understand, as we set out when we first moved to step 3 (of the roadmap out of lockdown), that we are moving away from central government edicts back to a situation where the public are able to exercise their judgement,” they added.

Councils and local health chiefs in the eight areas affected do not appear to have been alerted to the change in guidance in advance.

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth claimed the guidance was “plonked on a website on Friday night” without proper communication.

Leicester City Council said in a statement that the suggested measures amounted to no more than “advice”, and that no evidence had been provided for why people or businesses in the city should not continue to follow the existing rules applying to the rest of England.

The council also said that no one from the Department of Health and Social Care or Public Health England had been in contact about the new advice, which came at a time when Leicester has lower rates of the infectious new variant than other parts of the country.

Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, said that in Hounslow, one of the impacted areas, surge testing is taking place and more vaccines are being made available.

“It’s vital that anyone who is offered a test or a vaccine takes it as soon as possible,” he said. “I also continue to urge the government to increase the availability of the vaccine to younger age groups where this variant is spreading.”