Where can we go on holiday with an unvaccinated child?

Q My wife and I (both fully vaccinated) are able to travel somewhere for a couple of weeks on 19 July, along with our unvaccinated 16-year-old daughter. Where should we go for maximum enjoyment and minimum hassle?

Julian W

A Minimum hassle implies a “green list” destination, from which you need not quarantine on your return to the UK. “Amber” and “red” categories, which include far more countries, both require self-isolation on return.

For a smooth journey, you also want low barriers to entry outbound. So my short answer is: go east, so long as the green list evolves as it should.

At present the no-quarantine list comprises a handful of destinations, with varying degrees of complexity in their admission rules. The easiest is Gibraltar, with a free test on arrival. But a two-week stay in the British Overseas Territory would prove fairly expensive and, dare I say so, limiting. I recently spent six days there, which was great, but I confess I was looking longingly at the Andalusian and Moroccan hills, both of which are on the amber list.

The Spanish islands of Mallorca, Ibiza and Menorca comprise a useful backup option, providing they don’t slip from “green watchlist” to amber. But your daughter will need an expensive PCR or Lamp test with onerous timing requirements to get in. Malta, meanwhile, is not will simply not allow in anyone unvaccinated aged 12 or over.

Instead I recommend you wait and see what happens in the next “traffic light” review of country categories, due on 15 July. It should expand to embrace a few low-risk eastern European countries – some or all of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, North Macedonia, Albania and Romania. All of these are fascinating destinations, with beaches on offer everywhere except Slovakia. (Landlocked Hungary has Lake Balaton, North Macedonia shares Lake Ohrid with Albania.)

Of these, Poland is the most appealing to me. But it has a jab-or-quarantine policy (unless your daughter has recovered from Covid in the past six months). The most accessible, with no testing, quarantine or vaccination requirements, are North Macedonia and Albania. So those would be my recommendation – they are very easily combined. But check the latest requirements nearer the time.

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Q We live in Sussex, close to Gatwick. Our teenage daughter is coming back from Italy later this month and then we are all hoping to go on holiday to a Scottish island, departing on 26 July and staying in a cottage.

She hasn’t booked a flight to the UK yet. Ideally, we would want her to fly back to Gatwick, come straight home and overnight with us, and then we all travel to Scotland where she will quarantine. Is that legal, and are there any pitfalls we need to consider?

Name supplied

A The statistical evidence is that your daughter will be far more at risk of infection from the family in Sussex than you will be from her, but the law takes exactly the opposite view: she presents a threat to public health and must quarantine.

If she has miraculously been double jabbed, the vaccination-replacing-quarantine policy may have taken effect by then. Assuming not, then there are two possibilities I can see.

If she elects to quarantine in Scotland, then an en route stop is allowed. “If you have a long journey within the UK to arrive at the place where you’ll be quarantining,” the rules say, “you may be able to stop overnight in accommodation where you can quarantine yourself from others before continuing your journey.” But the stop would need to be in quarantine conditions (ie self-isolating from the public) at a Gatwick airport hotel, not at your home.

There is a decent Premier Inn directly opposite the entrance to North Terminal. She could travel on the same flights as you to the quarantine location in Scotland. On arrival in Scotland she must self-isolate in accordance with the Scottish rules, which means testing on days two and eight only from an official supplier, and no possibility of “test to release” after day five as there is in England.

Your daughter may prefer to serve her time at the family home in Sussex and use the test to release option. If you time it carefully, day five can coincide with the day of the flight test to Scotland. She would be allowed to travel to the test centre under quarantine regulations and, assuming it is negative, cease quarantine and travel with you.

For the avoidance of doubt, day five is the fifth full day after she arrives in England. Assuming this coincides with 26 July, then she should arrive in England no later than 11.59pm on 21 July

One more point for the whole family: the Scottish government asks you to take a free NHS lateral flow test three days before your flight to Uist, and on the day of departure itself.

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Q I wonder if you would be able to advise on the Indian-made version of the AstraZeneca jab. According to the latest news, anyone who has received it could face a possible ban from travelling to Europe. I am enquiring on behalf of my son who is in his thirties and is so disappointed at hearing this warning.

His first jab was the Indian-made version but his second was from the UK. I don’t know if this might make a difference, or would he be turned away at the airport if he wished to travel to Europe or the US?

Judy M

A As the proud owner of one dose of the Indian-made AstraZeneca vaccine and one of its European equivalent, I would be just as disappointed as your son if I felt that there was any merit in the story that has emerged over the last couple of days. It wasn’t actually headlined, “Wrong kind of jabs could wreck holidays,” but it might as well have been.

The original article raised the prospect of “thousands of Britons [being] turned away at EU border crossings when the batch numbers on their vaccines are checked digitally”. At issue: the bureaucratic inconvenience that the European Medicines Agency has not yet signed off batches of the AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India.

Indian-made AstraZeneca vaccines are said to start with the sequence 4120Z00 and end with 1, 2 or 3. Pharmacologically they are identical to their European equivalent. Were the UK part of the EU’s digital Covid certificate scheme, the issue might impede movement. But that is some time away.

Proof of vaccination using the NHS app is not even standardised across the four nations of the United Kingdom, and so I imagine it will be a while before any interface between the UK and Europe is put into effect.

By the time a common system is established, I am sure this bureaucratic issue will be solved. Meanwhile, as the story acknowledges: “Individual member states are free to accept other vaccines if they choose.”

The only tests that matter are:

1 Does the NHS confirm your son received the approved vaccines?

2 Does the destination trust the NHS?

Prospective travellers such as your son really don’t need cooked-up scare stories, and I am sorry it alarmed him.

On the US front, there is certainly an issue with AstraZeneca certification at present, but by the time we are allowed to visit I am sure it will have been resolved.

Email your questions to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder