Is airport testing really the best way to get Britain flying again?
BUSINESS chiefs have asked for Covid testing at our borders. The suggestion is that passengers should be tested on arrival and again a few days later to reduce the 14-day quarantine period. Why not go further and invite travellers to take a test five days before returning from holiday and again on arrival in the UK? This could identify 85 per cent of coronavirus cases. Holidaymakers would have to self-isolate for just three days, which would pick up 96 per cent of cases. It could be financed by high-risk countries desperate to support their tourism trade.
J. FORD, Kenilworth, Warks.
I SUGGEST the Government studies the entry requirements of the Caribbean island of Aruba. If a small nation with thousands of visitors can implement Covid tests at the airport with follow-up testing and government insurance covering isolation and coronavirus treatment, why can’t we? The problem is we have rip-off insurance firms. MARGARET FORSTER,
Skipton, N. Yorks.
I’VE just come back from Poland where passengers have their temperature taken at the airport. On the flight out, we filled in a form with our contact details, which was collected by cabin crew. It was very different when we returned to England. After going through passport control, I asked what we should do with the UK forms. I was told: ‘We don’t need them because we’ve reached the quota for today.’
LYNDA PEGG, Hinckley, Leics.
WHEN I flew to Inverness from Bristol, there was no social distancing on the plane. I sat in a row where all three seats were occupied, yet those on the other side of the aisle were empty. Why was there no effort to spread out the passengers? It would help if the Government paid for 30 per cent of seats to aid airlines and our economy.
R. C. R. CROWLEY, Bovey Tracey, Devon.
INSTEAD of following the science, follow best practice, which means testing at points of entry to the UK. Another suggestion would be to have testing kits on aircraft so passengers can be swabbed in their seats. This would mean that when airport testing is introduced, passengers will suffer little inconvenience. Otherwise, how long would it take to swab 400 passengers on an airliner on arrival?
ROGER I. SHENTON, York.
WHY wait to test passengers upon arrival after they have been able to infect others on the plane? Travellers should be required to have documents proving they have had a negative Covid test within 72 hours of travelling, as is the case with passengers flying to Hawaii from mainland U.S. K. HART-LEVERTON, Temecula, California.
IF AVIATION reaches pre-Covid levels, it will only make matters worse for the economy. Far more Britons fly out than tourists come in. It is unfortunate for those who will lose jobs, but aviation imposes its noisy, climate-changing activity on the many who do not fly.
JOHN DAVIS, Harpenden, Herts.