Canada: Coronavirus vaccine uptake discussed by expert

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Following Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s comments the door is “not shut” on foreign holidays, Express.co.uk asked readers: “Should Britons be allowed to go abroad or is 2021 year of the staycation?” Voting on the exclusive online poll, 2,024 out of 2,666 voted Britons should not be allowed to go on foreign holidays this summer. Just 614 voted ‘yes’ while 28 were not sure over the matter as the UK proceeds with its roadmap out of lockdown.

Commenting on the Express.co.uk story, one person urged Britons to stay home and visit the many beauty spots across the UK.

They said: “Stay home help the UK economy.

“East Yorkshire is a lovely place for family holidays.”

A second said: “It would be lovely to go abroad, but after all the suffering we’ve gone through – staying in, not seeing friends and family we need to make sure that we are well and truly safe.

“Even after vaccination we are safe but we cannot bring back any other strains from other countries!

“Stay at home this year to be sure!”

A third said: “No, why would we allow holidays to third-wave hotpots after months of lockdown.

“Its utter madness. You’d have to be crazy. Why risk bringing it in.

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“I think next year would be a safer bet.”

Questions over foreign travel arose this week after Mr Hancock refused to rule out summer holidays abroad for Britons.

The Government is concerned that allowing foreign travel may cause the transmission of a new strain of the virus, which may cause case levels to spike, and evade current vaccines.

In order to combat any new strain, scientists are working on ways to alter vaccines so they can stop any new mutations from spreading across the UK.

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The Government has pledged to evaluate the data when making a decision in terms of international travel over the summer.

Last week, the Prime Minister also warned it was too early to rule out international travel this summer.

Government adviser Prof Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London, however, said: “I think conservatively, and being risk-averse at the moment, I think we should be planning on summer holidays in the UK not overseas.”

Under the current roadmap, international travel is not permitted until May 17 where it will then be reviewed.

However, due to the rise in cases across the continent, some have called for most of the EU to be put on the red list.

Air and hospitality insiders have demanded the Government open travel or both industries could be severely impacted.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden told Sky News: “We consider all options as part of the travel taskforce.

“You would expect when government formulates policy, the way we do this is we look at all the different options, we weigh them up, we come to a position and then when we come to that position, we publish that position and that’s the position that we’ll be setting out at the beginning of next month.

“Clearly there are challenges around international travel, you only have to look across the continent and see the rising case rates in many of our nearest neighbours.

“It has been in the past the case that those rising infection rates have seen their way through to the UK; we’re hopeful that won’t happen this time round because of our progress with the vaccine and so on, but we do need to be cautious about that.”

This poll opened at 5.54pm on March 29 and closed on March 30 at 2.19pm.

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