Transparency data

Risk assessment data

Published 7 May 2021

The Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC), part of the UK Health Security Agency, in partnership with devolved administrations, has developed a dynamic risk assessment methodology to inform ministerial decisions on red, amber and green list countries and the associated border measures against the risks of importing cases of SARS-CoV-2 and its variants.

Available and relevant sources of information for each country or territory are used to provide an overall assessment on:

• genomic surveillance capability
• SARS-CoV-2 transmission risk
• variant of concern (VOC) transmission risk

Decisions are taken by ministers informed by evidence including JBC’s analysis as well as other relevant information about the risk of the spread of SAR-CoV-2 and its variants.

A summary of key data used by JBC to inform the latest round of assessments is shown in table 1.

Table 1: summary of data^{[footnote 1][footnote 2]}

Data to inform the latest round of assessments
Country/territory[footnote 3]	Risk assessment status (red, amber, green)[footnote 4]	Number of individuals tested[footnote 5][footnote 6]	Number of people testing positive [footnote 5] [footnote 7]	Traveller positivity [footnote 5] [footnote 8]	Number of positives sequenced[footnote 5] [footnote 9] [footnote 10]	Number of variants (VOC/VUIs) detected during sequencing[footnote 5] [footnote 11]	Variant (VOC/VUIs) detection rate[footnote 5] [footnote 12]	Total newly reported cases, per 100k[footnote 13]	Reported number of tests per 1000 population[footnote 14]	Test positivity, based upon reported number of tests and cases[footnote 14]	Total number of vaccination doses (single doses) administered per 100 people in the total population[footnote 15]	Total number of positive sequences uploaded to GISAID[footnote 16]
		26 Mar to 22 Apr	26 Mar to 22 Apr	26 Mar to 22 Apr	26 Mar to 22 Apr	26 Mar to 22 Apr	26 Mar to 22 Apr	22 Apr to 28 Apr	22 Apr to 28 Apr	22 Apr to 28 Apr	To 29 Apr	To 2 May
Australia	Green	341	*	*	*	*	*	0.7	10.8	0.1%	8.3	17,987
Brunei Darussalam	Green	46	*	*	*	*	*	0.0	4.0	0.0%	2.5	10
Faroe Islands	Green	*	*	*	*	*	*	0.0	51.2	0.0%	41.4	38
Gibraltar	Green	196	*	*	*	*	*	0.0	156.8	0.0%	206.4	762
Iceland	Green	31	*	*	*	*	*	27.2	45.5	0.6%	39.0	5,090
New Zealand	Green	269	*	*	*	*	*	0.3	5.3	0.1%	5.4	1,266
Singapore	Green	232	*	*	*	*	*	3.4	34.7	0.1%	37.8	2,340
Portugal	Green	501	3	0.6%	*	*	*	32.7	48.6	0.7%	31.4	6,292
Israel	Green	190	*	*	*	*	*	10.2	25.6	0.4%	120.7	7,291
The Falkland Islands	Green	179	*	*	*	*	*	29.7	2.9[footnote 16]	10.4%[footnote 17]	126.5	0
South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands	Green	*	*	*	*	*	*	-	-	-	-	0
St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha	Green	15	*	*	*	*	*	-	-	-	-	0
Turkey	Red	1,787	48	2.7%	27	*	*	390.7	24.3	16.1%	28.1	3,948[footnote 18]
Maldives	Red	222	*	*	*	*	*	361.8	43.0	8.4%	73.6	0
Nepal	Red	332	4	1.2%	*	*	*	71.2	2.5	28.5%	7.1	15

1. Any counts less than 3 are suppressed and represented by an asterisk in the table to avoid disclosure. Corresponding percentages are also suppressed and represented by an asterisk in the table. ↩

2. The data are up to date at the time of calculation and may be subject to revision in future releases. ↩

3. Currently, all international arrivals to England must quarantine for 10 days, unless they have a job that qualifies for an exemption. In this spreadsheet, the country the passenger returned from is self-reported. In cases where a travel destination has not been reported, this is classified as ‘unknown’. In cases where multiple travel destinations are reported, this is categorised as ‘multiple unknown’. ↩

4. A country/territory may be designated green, amber or red following a ministerial decision-making process. See details of the rules that apply to arrivals from each country/territory. ↩

5. This variable relates to individuals returning from the country/territory. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

6. The number of individuals tested is calculated as the number of first valid tests (for example, day 2 tests) taken in the time period. Private providers may provide tests for day 2 and day 8 testing for international arrivals travelling from countries/territories that do not have a travel ban (non ‘red list’ countries/territories). However these tests are not included in these totals. ↩

7. The number of people testing positive is calculated as follows: A person is categorised as ‘positive’ if they have tested positive at any time in their quarantine period. If they have never tested positive then they are assigned negative. ↩

8. Traveller positivity is calculated by dividing the number of people testing positive by the total number of people testing positive and negative. ↩

9. All positive samples are sent for whole genome sequencing to identify, monitor and limit the number of variants in the UK population. Not all positive samples are able to be sequenced, primarily due to the viral load contained within the samples. Note that this variable includes all positive samples that were successfully sequenced within the time period (relating to both day 2 and day 8 tests). ↩

10. In some cases, the number of positives sequenced may be larger than the number of people testing positive. This will occur where a person had their first valid test shortly before 26 March, but their subsequent test was positive within the reporting period and was sequenced. They will not be counted under the ‘number of people testing positive’ variable because their first test was before 26 March 26. However, the sequencing of their positive result will be counted under the ‘number of positives sequenced’ variable. ↩

11. Includes; VOC-20DEC-02 (variant first identified in South Africa), VOC-21JAN-01 (variant first detected in Japan in travellers from Brazil), VOC-21FEB-01 (variant first identified in Bristol, UK), VUI-21APR-01 (variant first identified in India), VOC-21APR-02 (variant first identified in India), VUI-21APR-03 (variant first identified in India) ↩

12. The proportion of sequences identified as either VOC-20DEC-02, VOC-21JAN-01, VOC-21FEB-01, VUI-21APR-01, VOC-21APR-02 or VUI-21APR-03 ↩

13. Open source data available via World Health Organisation Dashboard. Data from 28/04/2021. ↩

14. Publicly available data from countries, collated by PHE. ↩ ↩²

15. Open source data available on Our World in Data Dashboard. Data extracted 29/04/2021. ↩

16. Total number of sequences uploaded to GISAID database as of 02/05/2021 ↩ ↩²

17. Last reported 24/04/2021 ↩

18. Data extracted 06/05/2021 ↩