Top tips for the next changes to country travel classifications
What changes to UK travel classifications might we expect on July 15?
The UK releases data from its arrival testing programme every three weeks. That timing is supposed to align with the publication of revisions to the red/amber/green classifications. But this time around, we got the new data on July 8 and the next batch of reclassifications isn’t due until July 15. I assume that the classification change announcements got delayed to make room for last week’s announcement of the exemptions for double-vaccinated Brits.
The rest of the data that are supposed to form the basis of the assessments is taken from public sources, so in theory we have access to the same figures that the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation (JCVI) will be using to make its recommendations to the government.
Trying to predict what changes to classifications the government is going to make has proven to be something of a mug’s game. But armed with a somewhat fuller set of data in advance, I’m going to give it another go.
Criteria for getting on the green list
In an earlier post, I looked at previous green classification decisions to try to work out what criteria might be being applied. I suggested that all of the following tests need to be met.
Case rate at or below 20
Test positivity of 1.5% or less
Testing rate of 1 or more per 100,000
Vaccination rate is said to be another factor, but countries like Australia and New Zealand have been on the green list with very low vaccination rates. Portugal was added when only 32 doses per 100 people had been delivered. So this seems like a “consideration” rather than a hurdle.
The number of genetic samples being publicly uploaded to GISAID is Grant Shapps’ favourite excuse for why countries with low case rates haven’t qualified for green status. Only six of the 25 countries currently on the green list have ever uploaded any data to GISAID. But Grant Shapps says it is important, so I will also bear that in mind for my predictions.
Most deserving case for going green
Canada is my top prediction for getting onto the green list. The case rate is only 9.6 per 100,000 and is declining. Test positivity is quite low at 1.0%. Testing rates are good (10 per 1,000). 111 vaccine doses have been administered per 100 people, almost matching the UK’s 118 and catching up fast.
48,408 sequences have been uploaded to GISAID, the fifth highest in the world. Admittedly, the last upload was at the end of May, so maybe that will be held against them. At that time, 47% of cases were the Delta variant. But almost all UK cases are Delta, so it would seem odd to be over-sensitive to that now.
In terms of the arrivals testing programme, there were 1,741 travellers from Canada in the most recent three-week period and only 7 tested positive, a rate of 0.4%. We don’t know how many of these were sent for sequencing or how many variants were found, except that it was fewer than three in both cases.
It is hard to see a better candidate for the green list. The Canadian authorities continue to bar entry to Canada to British Nationals. But so do Australia and New Zealand and they are on the green list. It may be a matter of timing though, as I'm sure politicians would prefer to announce a simultaneous relaxation of travel restrictions.
European candidates for green
There are sixteen European countries which are currently on the amber list which meet my reverse-engineered green list criteria for case rates, test positivity and testing volumes.
There are no contradictory signals from the arrivals testing programme. The overall test positivity rate is 0.4% for these countries, which compares to the 0.3% rate that Portugal had when it remained on the green list back on June 24.
Seven of these countries have contributed nothing or very little to GISAID (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Hungary, Kosovo, Northern Macedonia, Romania and Serbia). So they might get ruled out from green list classification on that basis. But that still leaves nine countries in Europe that look like strong candidates for “promotion to green” (Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Switzerland).
Once again, the Delta variant makes up quite a big proportion of the cases in these countries. But that is increasingly the case for the whole world and it is undoubtedly the case that travellers from Scotland are a much higher risk to England when it comes to the Delta variant.
Other non-European green candidates
Outside of Europe, Hong Kong continues to stick out as an oddity. It has essentially zero cases and great testing data. Only 0.2% of arrivals from Hong Kong tested positive. It is a big source of overseas students and an important business destination. Yes, there is the political dimension vis-a-vis China, but Grant Shapps assures us that “no classification decisions are taken for non-scientific reasons”, so it ought to be green. A similar case could be made for Taiwan.
Azerbaijan, Bhutan and Vietnam all meet the main tests, although none have contributed to GISAID. The arrivals positivity for Azerbaijan at 1.5% is a little high. Vietnam has new variant worries. I don’t know much about Bhutan, but the data we have is positive. But I’d be surprised if any of these three made it to green.
When it comes to the United States, the figures still look a little high for green, if the country is judged as a whole. The case rate is 39 per 100,000 and test positivity is 3.7%. Looking at the arrivals data, it does come out as one of the lowest risk countries, with only 0.3% of arriving passengers testing positive. Vaccination figures are very good, of course. So I think there is some political wiggle room for including it as green if a deal gets done on reopening the US border.
Green list demotions?
Since the last review was published on June 24, case rates in both Israel and Malta (49 per 100,000) have been rising fast and neither country would now qualify for green status based on my “reverse-engineered” criteria. That is particularly embarrassing in the case of Malta, as it was the only country added to the green list at the last review that wasn’t immediately flagged as “at risk” of moving back to amber (the so called “green watch list”). The positivity rate of arrivals during the last three weeks of June was low, with Israel at 0.1% and Malta at 0.4%. But that was before cases took off in both countries, so I think there is real chance that both will at least get put on the watch list for potential downgrade.
Amber to red
Let’s look at the case rates and test positivity for countries on the amber list, to see which countries might be candidates to add to the red list. Here are the amber list countries with case rates over 125.
These are the ones with test positivity over 12.5%.
I thought that countries could get classified as red on the basis of breaching either of those hurdles, unless other data such as the arrivals testing figures provided reassurance.
Iraq is the only country that is above both my putative red thresholds, with a case rate of 137 and a test positivity of 16.7%. However, it is marginal on both counts and only 1.6% of arrivals into the UK tested positive during the last three weeks of June. Perhaps travellers have better access to vaccines and so are not as high risk and it will therefore escape being classified as red.
We don’t know whether the arrivals testing data is reassuring or not for Fiji, the second highest case rate country currently on the amber list. Fewer than three travellers returning from there tested positive on arrival into the UK, but that could still represent a 10% positivity rate. With case numbers exploding, it does look like a candidate for being added to the red list.
Kuwait has had high reported case numbers for a while and has remained amber, probably because arrivals testing has remained reassuring. That is still the case, with fewer than three positives meaning that positivity is ≤0.2%.
The amber list country with the highest case rate is Cyprus, and figures look very worrying on the face of it. Case rates are very high (631 per 100,000) and climbing fast. That is way over my “red list” hurdle of 125 per 100,000. On the other hand, test positivity of 1.7% is still relatively low - only just above my green list threshold. The reason for this divergence is that Cyprus is a world record holder in terms of testing volumes, with 358 weekly tests per 1,000 of population. Arrival test positivity is just 0.5%, so I think the government will hold off adding it to the red list for the moment.
The other European countries that appear on the >125 case per 100,000 list are Andora, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. And of course the UK itself. All of these are being driven by the Delta variant. Will the UK add European countries to the red list when they have fewer cases than the UK does itself? Especially when the arrivals testing data isn’t too worrisome - Spain was only 0.7% for example. Somehow, I doubt it.
Mexico continues to show relatively low positive test results for arriving passengers (1.2%), so I think it will stay amber despite the alarming figures for test positivity coming out of the country. On the other hand, two countries which might get put on the red list on the basis of the very high percentage of travellers testing positive on arrival are Sierra Leone (6.8%) and Indonesia (4.2%).
Red to amber
There are 11 countries which are currently on the red list which don’t belong there on the basis of case rates and test positivity, despite apparently having reasonable levels of testing. They are Bahrain, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
I’ve shown the recent trend in case rates for these countries on the chart below. In the main, the fact that they don’t fit the red list criteria on the basis of infection rates is not something that has changed since the last review.
Bahrain is one country where it could be argued there has been a real change, with case rates plummeting since the last review. I think it only got added due to high infection rates, so maybe it will move back to amber.
When it comes to test positivity, scores, the Philippines and Sri Lanka are the only two in this list where test positivity has moved from above 12.5% to below since June 24. In neither case is it that decisive a move, so I would guess they will stay red.
Most of these countries are presumably on the red list because of concerns about variants. India, Pakistan, Peru and the Philippines all have the Delta variant as the dominant strain. The last data showed Delta as 38% of cases in Kenya and 10% in Sri Lanka - in both cases this will probably have risen considerably since.
The UAE, Qatar and perhaps also Turkey are on the red list due to concerns about their role as major transit hubs for parts of the world with scary variants, with Delta being high on the concern list at the time they were added.
So I guess these will all these will stay red until there is a change of policy on the Delta variant. Is there a chance that will happen?
Attitudes to the Delta variant
There is one thing that perhaps has changed recently is the tacit admission by the UK that the Delta variant is now just “the virus”, not only in the UK. but increasingly worldwide. If the UK wants to argue that British travellers should be let in to other countries, despite having a high incidence of Delta cases in the UK, it seems odd to keep lots of countries on its own red list just because they have Delta.
As the UK begins to open up again, despite surging cases, political pressure from the Middle East may also at some point trigger a reassessment of keeping these countries on the red list just because they are major transit hubs. These countries bring in a lot of money to the UK and at some point travel will have to be reopened. Since we have been told that all the decisions are based on science, not politics, maybe a scientific acknowledgement that there is no longer much logic for keeping borders closed against countries with the Delta variant will be the trigger.
Could that happen at this next review? Perhaps. But it is probably more likely to need to wait until the results of the more comprehensive review of the system are announced at the end of the month.
Summary of possible changes
So here are my best guesses for countries that might change classification:
| Change | Continent | Country |
|---|---|---|
| Green to 'Watch List' | Europe | Israel, Malta |
| Amber to Green | Americas | Canada |
| Asia | Hong Kong, Taiwan | |
| Europe | Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland |
|
| Amber to Red | Africa | Sierra Leone |
| Asia | Fiji, Indonesia | |
| Red to Amber | Middle East | Bahrain |
We have a comprehensive review of the system due at the end of the month and a big change happening on July 19 for immunised Brits. So it is quite possible that politicians will seek to minimise the changes to the lists themselves. With the Delta variant driving an upsurge in cases across the world, they may be particularly cautious about moves from amber to green which may need to be subsequently reversed.
In Grant Shapps’ last statement on the travel restrictions, he said that he wants to “get business moving again, kickstarting our economy while keeping the UK safe and supporting a wide range of jobs and industries in the process”.
Whilst reiterating that “Public health remains our key priority”, he also said:
“We know that travel is important and that many people have not been able to travel for the last year and a half. This is not, of course, just about holidays, eager as we are for time in the sun; it is also about reuniting families who have been apart throughout the pandemic. It is about helping businesses to trade and grow and supporting the aviation sector, which hundreds of thousands of jobs rely on.”
Which Grant Shapps will turn up on July 15? The one who wants to get travel going again or the one who is taking a cautious approach? Maybe my predictions would be more reliable if I could forecast that with more confidence.
