UK says no Covid testing decision for arrivals before November

Exclusive: government to announce new travel taskforce instead, in further blow to airline industry

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A decision on plans to introduce Covid-19 testing for international arrivals to cut quarantine times will not come until next month at the earliest, with Downing Street instead setting up a global travel taskforce to look at proposals, the Guardian understands.

After months of lobbying by the beleaguered aviation industry, which has been crippled by two-week quarantine restrictions, an announcement on whether tests for arrivals from at-risk countries would be introduced by the UK government was widely anticipated to come this week.

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