TRAVELLER TALE EXAMPLES

DAY 2 AND DAY 8 TESTING PACKAGE

Traveller Tom is flying back to the UK from an amber country. He has to quarantine and show proof that he has pre-purchased Day 2 and Day 8 tests (a requirement of boarding his flight back and gaining entry at the UK border).

He arrives on a Monday morning (Day 0). Day 1 starts on Tuesday morning. He can conduct his Day 2 test either on Day 0, Day 1 or Day 2 and is mildly interested to know the result, although it doesn’t make much difference to his life since he is quarantining anyway.

It’s a different story with the Day 8 test. This is the one that, when he gets his negative result, will allow him to leave quarantine. For obvious reasons, this cannot be taken before Day 8, and many providers ensure you don’t by not delivering it until Day 8. That means often you don’t get it until the afternoon of Day 8.

For Traveller Tom, Day 8 is the Tuesday of the following week. He conducts the test, jots down the tracking number on the package and catches the last post.

He then tracks the parcel. It will take, probably, at least 24 hours to get to the laboratory, and that’s if nothing goes wrong. If it doesn’t arrive at the lab until the Wednesday evening and is then processed on the Thursday, the result may not arrive until the following Monday, 14 days after he landed. By which time, he’ll be annoyed and wishing he did the Day 5 Test to Release test…

DAY 5 TEST TO RELEASE

The Test to Release option comes at an extra cost sometimes £99 on top of the £199 for the Day 2 and Day 8 package (to use testing provider Qured as an example). Remember that you will need to have paid for – and be conducting – the Day 2 and Day 8 tests before being allowed to do the Day 5 Test to Release. You can’t, for instance, simply pay for a Day 2 PCR test and then buy a Day 5 Test to Release. (Keeping up?)

Taking the same set of circumstances as above, Day 5 for Traveller Tom, who landed on a Monday morning, is Saturday, so you see the problem. In a best-case scenario he won’t be getting his test result until the Tuesday afternoon, so in fact that means getting out at the end of Day 8. And there you have the current reality of travel.