Iceland will now welcome vaccinated travelers to visit the Northern Island nation without being placed in quarantine.
The country will open its borders on Thursday to visitors who can provide proof that they have been vaccinated against COVID-19 because they want to return due to tourism losses, the Icelandic government announced.
Vaccinated travelers from the US and the UK will not be subject to border or quarantine mandatory COVID testing. Previously, Iceland closed its borders to everyone outside the Schengen zone in Europe to prevent the spread of the virus during the pandemic.
Iceland now allows vaccinated travelers to cross borders without mandatory quarantine or tests. (iStock)
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According to the new guideline, all vaccines must be approved by the approved Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines.
“The world has gone through a lot over the last twelve months and we all hope for a slow and safe return to normal. This also includes the resumption of the opportunity to travel, which is valuable for culture, trade and business,” Katrín Jakobsdóttir , Prime Minister of Iceland, said in a statement. “The decision to apply vaccinated border exemptions to individuals outside the EU / EEA area is a logical extension of our current policy.”
Anyone who had previously traveled from Europe to Iceland had to be tested for the virus on arrival, quarantined for five days and again quarantined for 14 days. In Iceland, travelers from the European Economic Area (EEA) who showed documents that they had contracted and recovered COVID-19 were exempted from the test and quarantine restrictions.
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A number of airlines test digital COVID-19 passports that contain information about a traveler’s COVID-19 testing and vaccinations verified by laboratories, airlines and government agencies.
Iceland, like many tourist destinations, experienced extreme loss of revenue due to global downtime during the pandemic. Tourist numbers fell by 75% last year to less than 500,000, reports Reuters.