Italy announced on Friday that travelers heading there from fellow European Union countries or from the United Kingdom or Israel from Sunday-on will no longer need to participate in a five-day quarantine.
In order to take advantage of this change, they will, however, still need to provide a negative COVID-19 test result from a swab that had been taken within the previous 48 hours before traveling.
This change was made as a result of two significant contributing factors: the increasing vaccination rates that are taking place throughout the EU and Italy wanting to take as full advantage of the summer holiday period as possible as that time of the year is pivotal to the financial health of the country.
Another benefit that affected travelers will be able to take advantage of is only needing to take that one test prior to departure. Previously, they had to take another one after their quarantine period ended.
Travelers should also note that those who are allowed in from countries that are not in the aforementioned group may need to quarantine for longer than five days, generally 10 days.
Another announcement that was made on Friday revealed that the restriction barring nearly all non-Italian residents who had been in Brazil at any point in the past 14 days from entering the country will be extended. It had been set to expire on Saturday.
In addition, Mario Draghi, Italy’s prime minister, stated that his country is considering extending these non-quarantine privileges to those eligible to come from the United States, Canada and Japan. However, it is uncertain when tourists from those places will be able to enter Italy although the EU has voiced possibly opening up its member countries to vaccinated American tourists this summer.
In Italy, 8 million of the country’s 60 million inhabitants have been fully vaccinated while 26 million doses in total have been administered.
However, a recent study by Eurofound revealed that 27% of EU-based adults were either “rather unlikely” or “very unlikely” to get vaccinated.