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UK transport secretary Grant ShappGetty Images

(LifeSiteNews) – The Transport Secretary of the U.K. is predicting that “full vaccination” will be required for most or all international travel, and that COVID-19 vaccination will be a permanent part of life. 

“It is a reality that in this new world, we’re living with coronavirus … I think double vaccination or full vaccination is going to be a feature for evermore, and most countries, probably all countries will require full vaccination for you to enter,” Grant Shapps said on the BBC’s Today program, when asked if U.K. residents might have to self-isolate when booking a trip to Spain, for example, later this year. 

“If you are perhaps in your twenties and you feel like ‘oh this does not really affect me,’ well it is going to, because you are not going to be able to leave the country. That is not something the British government is doing, that is something that is being required by every government around the world,” he said.

Despite his apparent support of COVID-19 vaccine requirements for international travel, Shapps conceded during his BBC interview that vaccines are not a foolproof defense against COVID-19 infection, which Shapps attributed to emerging virus variants. 

As Shapps was grilled on the reasoning behind current obstacles to U.K. residents’ travel, particularly COVID-19 PCR tests, he defended such tests as a way to “guard against the next big variant,” which he said could “escape” the vaccines. 

After Shapps openly anticipated a future need to get jabbed in order to travel, BBC Today presenter Nick Robinson replied, “But that’s not where it stops, is it? … You’re now telling travelers to take an expensive PCR test before and after a trip to Spain.” 

The U.K. correspondent further pointed out that people were hoping to be able to travel to Spain with a “cheap lateral flow test,” but instead, are going to “have to pay for a PCR, that’s many hundreds of pounds, if you’re a family, extra, on quite low budgets for many people traveling to Spain.” 

“Why are you so worried about it?” he asked Shapps. 

Shapps repeatedly defended the testing requirement by insisting that nothing had changed: “So there’s not actually a change here, it’s just a reminder of course that we’re always having to track variants.” 

When asked what the U.K. government would do if people “refuse” the COVID tests, Shapps responded, “You can’t ignore it, you can’t board the plane without one of these tests.” 

“Let’s talk about the principle here for a second,” said Robinson. “There are people who are watching 40,000 folk going to a music festival … who say the idea of these sorts of travel restrictions is hopelessly out of date, it’s disproportionate, it’s unnecessary, it’s just spoiling people’s holiday plans and damaging a very vital industry.” 

Shapps insisted that he wants their “travel industry to be successful.” However, he went on to defend the testing measures with what Robinson found to be questionable logic.   

“We have to live in the reality, which is that different variants of the coronavirus can spring up anywhere,” said Shapps. “What the entire world has discovered this last year and a half is it doesn’t matter what you do. It will always get to you eventually.”  

“Even Australia, who completely locked down their borders, eventually it reaches you, so it’s only ever a question of slowing it down in order to allow vaccinations to roll out, and so on,” he continued. 

“So what we want to do is make sure that people can travel as safely as possible, that we protect the domestic gains of people having gone through these lockdowns for the best part of a year and a half and are coming forward for their vaccines, and to get the right balance between the two,” said Shapps. 

“But if it gets to you eventually, and there are very few restrictions here, there’s almost no logic in barring people from traveling or making it costly to do so, is there? It’s going to get here and it will spread,” countered Robinson. 

“No, I don’t agree, because actually often with these things, time, and having the time in particular during the phase where we’re still encouraging people to come forth for the vaccinations, has been extremely important,” responded Shapps. “It’s been one of our only so sort tools or weapons against the virus, because the more people we’ve got vaccinated, the greater the opportunity to prevent it from coming again.” 

“Now, you might say well, surely everybody’s vaccinated, therefore it doesn’t matter. We know that ‘vaccine escape,’ so-called, which is where a particular variant is able to escape the vaccine … is of course the big thing we’re always looking out for,” he continued. 

“It would be irresponsible for us not, therefore, to be testing people when they do travel both before they leave and when they get back – that’s how you can guard against the next big variant that none of us know about yet.” 

“So I think we’ll have to sort of settle down into knowing that this will happen, but as the world opens up and international rules are adopted for travel, which will certainly include full vaccination, I think things will start to become more routine for people who do travel,” Shapps continued. 

The U.K. is currently regulating international travel according to a “traffic light” system that color codes countries according to their designated COVID-19 risk. 

The U.S. has recently announced plans to require nearly all foreigners entering the United States to be fully vaccinated. 

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