Iceland will now welcome vaccinated travelers to visit the Nordic island nation without quarantine.
The country will open its borders on Thursday to visitors who present evidence that they have been vaccinated against COVID-19, as the aim is to recover from losses from tourism, the Icelandic government announced.
Vaccinated travelers from the USA and the UK will not be subject to mandatory COVID testing at the border or quarantine. Previously, Iceland closed its borders to anyone outside Europe’s Schengen zone to prevent the virus from spreading during the pandemic.
Iceland now allows vaccinated travelers to cross borders without quarantine or mandatory testing. (iStock)
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All vaccines must be approved by the European Medicines Agency, says the new guideline, of the vaccines approved Moderna and AstraZeneca.
“The world has been through a lot in the last twelve months and we all hope for a slow and safe return to normality. This also includes the resumption of the opportunity to travel, which is valuable for culture, commerce and companies”, Katrín Jakobsdóttir , Prime Minister of Iceland, said in a statement. “The decision to apply border exemptions for vaccinated individuals in countries outside the EU / EEA area is a logical extension of our current policy.”
Anyone who had traveled from Europe to Iceland previously was required to be tested for the virus on arrival, quarantined for five days and retested or quarantined for 14 days. In December, travelers from the European Economic Area (EEA) who showed documents that hired COVID-19 and recovered were exempt from testing and quarantine restrictions, the Iceland Review reported.
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Several airlines are testing digital COVID-19 passports that present information about a traveler’s COVID-19 tests and vaccinations that have been verified by laboratories, airlines and government agencies.
Iceland, like many other tourist spots, has experienced an extreme loss of revenue as a result of global outages during the pandemic. The number of tourists dropped by 75% last year, to less than 500,000, reports Reuters.