UK MULLS HOTEL QUARANTINE FOR ALL TRAVELLERS

FACIAL RECOGNITION CAMERAS TO CHECK ON TRAVELLERS

Britain said it is looking at requiring all incoming travellers to isolate in hotels, expanding on new restrictions entering into force in the coming hours |

Britain’s government yesterday said it is looking at requiring all incoming travellers to isolate in hotels, expanding on new coronavirus restrictions entering into force in the coming hours.

All arrivals to the UK will have to quarantine and show negative tests for Covid-19 from today, after the government scrapped “travel corridors” from countries with lower caseloads following the emergence of new strains.

Emulating other countries

The Sunday Times said the government planned to go further, emulating countries such as Australia and New Zealand in requiring travellers to self-isolate in hotels at their own charge, using GPS and facial-recognition technology to check they are staying put. “There is a challenge of its workability, its deliverability, but we need to look at that very carefully based on the experience of other countries,” foreign secretary Dominic Raab told BBC television.

“There will be checks at home, there will be checks at the border. I think that is the most effective measure that we can take at this point in time,” he said. “Obviously we’ll keep other potential measures under review. But they’ve got to be workable.”

The measures taking effect today come after Britain banned all arrivals from South America and Portugal on Friday over fears of importing a new coronavirus variant from Brazil.

All travellers including returning Britons must show a negative test on arrival and must then quarantine. But for now, the choice of where they self-isolate is up to them, and critics say many passengers have been flouting the quarantine restrictions already. Faced with surging infection rates, all of Britain is under tough lockdown restrictions and people are supposed to stay at home except for reasons such as work, childcare and exercise.

It is banking on a mass vaccination programme to get the pandemic under control, and Raab indicated that all UK adults would be offered a first dose by September.

Another 1,295 deaths related to Covid-19 were reported on Saturday, the third-highest daily total since the pandemic.

AP Travellers walk towards the Covid-19 testing centre at Heathrow Airport in London. The UK will close all travel corridors from today to protect against the coronavirus pandemic.