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Austria has tightened its Covid-19 measures, including the requirement to wear a face mask outdoors, as omicron continues to spread across Europe.
From Saturday, an FFP2 mask must be worn outdoors where a distance of 2m cannot be guaranteed. This will affect Austrian ski resorts, where social distancing of this sort is difficult.
Proof of vaccination will be also required in all shops in Austria from next week, and the validity of vaccine certificates has been cut to six months.
Austria reported 8,269 Covid-19 cases on Thursday – triple the daily average last week.
A wave of infection continues to spread across the Continent. On Wednesday, France reported more than 330,000 daily cases and Italy yesterday reported a record 219,000 daily cases.
Scroll down for more updates.
Travel testing rules ease as of today
As of 4am today, arrivals in the UK do not need to present a pre-departure test to enter the UK.
From 4am Sunday, arrivals will be able to take a cheaper lateral flow test rather than a PCR for their Day 2 test, and if fully vaccinated will not need to self isolate while awaiting the result.
Following the travel testing rule change, holiday companies have reported a spike in bookings – Jet2 reported a 150% increase 24 hours after the announcement.
Yesterday’s headlines
A re-cap of yesterday’s top stories:
- Israel scraps travel ban on UK arrivals
- Holiday bookings boom as testing requirements are dropped
- More than 100 test positive for Covid on Italy-India flight
- Air New Zealand unveiled as world’s safest airline
- Gatwick divert flights after IT problem at air traffic control tower
- PCR testing for travel remains on standby, says Grant Shapps
Now, on with today’s stories