People arriving into Guernsey from within the Common Travel Area no longer need to have a lateral flow test or self-isolate.

The border testing rules are being relaxed from midnight on Wednesday 19 January.

Anyone arriving from outside the CTA who is fully vaccinated will only need a lateral flow test on arrival, rather than a full PCR test.

Non-CTA arrivals who aren't fully vaccinated will still have to self-isolate until they have had a negative test result after eight days.

Anyone due to travel to Guernsey in the next few days who has already paid £25 for a pack of lateral flow tests can request a refund from the States.

Guernsey's border testing requirements are being relaxed from Wednesday

Travel rules aren't the only ones being relaxed. From next Monday (24 January), islanders will no longer be advised to work from home.

At the same time, the quarantine period for those who test positive for Covid-19 is being reduced to six days rather than seven - as long as they don't have any symptoms and have tested negative on days 5 and 6.

The island's Chief Minister, Deputy Peter Ferbrache, says it follows a decline in positive coronavirus cases in the Bailiwick:

"We’ve seen a very encouraging steep drop in positive cases in recent days and, while we also greet such good news with a degree of caution based on how quickly things can change, it has further enhanced the CCA’s collective view that we can and should begin to remove measures in a steady and sensible way. I hope that today’s announcement will be welcome news for the community and I want to thank everyone for the high levels of uptake we see on the mitigations in place as by-and-large people continue to want to do the right thing.

"We announced last week our intention to ease border restrictions from tomorrow and I’m pleased to say that decision was confirmed at our meeting today. This largely brings us in line with the UK’s border restrictions. But we also looked at internal measures and discussed at length what further changes we could make to ease the impact COVID-19 has on people’s lives. I’m sure a further reduction in self-isolation requirements, provided certain criteria are met, will be welcome news for many and we have also decided to remove our guidance for people to work from home wherever possible – both of those changes come into effect from Monday just to allow a little more time to hopefully see a further reduction in case numbers.

Deputy Peter Ferbrache chairs the Bailiwick's Civil Contingencies Authority

"Additionally, members of the CCA recognise that we need to provide the community with as much certainty as possible about our “end game” plans. What I mean by that is when we can plan, as reasonably as possible, to further reduce or remove the remaining mitigations which the CCA has imposed for the purposes of dealing with this global public health emergency. Many within the community have asked whether the Bailiwick needs to continue relying on emergency powers to manage COVID-19 in the context of a highly vaccinated population. This is what we will consider next week.

"Whatever the CCA decides, I think it’s important for all of us to recognise that COVID is here to stay for the foreseeable future. That means that even in the absence of mandated restrictions, we will all need to continue living responsibly with the virus and that will mean continuing to do the right things – for example following any face-covering guidance, taking regular LFTs and staying at home when unwell. The single most powerful defence we have against the variants of COVID-19 in the Bailiwick right now is our booster programme, so I’ll take this opportunity to remind people over the age of 18 to please get their booster if they haven’t already done so."