Quarantine for UK visitors considered
THE Welsh Government is considering imposing quarantine periods on people travelling from other parts of the UK.
Unlike in Wales, where people in areas in local lockdown are banned from leaving the county without a reasonable excuse, in England there are no such restrictions.
This means that people in the city of Manchester, which is in a local lockdown and had 495 cases per 100,000 people in the last week, are able to travel to Ceredigion or Pembrokeshire on holiday whereas people in Newport, Gwent, which has 50 cases for the same number of people, can not.
First Minister Mark Drakeford last week wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson asking him to restrict travel from areas of England in lockdown.
According to Health Minister Vaughan Gething they have had no response from the Prime Minister to the letter but have assumed, given com
ments made by Mr Johnson in the Commons and interviews, that he will not be imposing these restrictions.
Mr Gething said he was “disappointed” no response had been received but as the Prime Minister was “not minded” to introduce restrictions he was now “actively considering” bringing in travel restrictions to stop people in high prevalence areas in rest of UK travelling into Wales.
He said: “The picture we
see in all four nations of the UK is a much higher prevalence [of the virus], with some areas having high concentrations.
“The reason why the Welsh Government has asked the UK Government to introduce travel restrictions to areas of England with high prevalence is because we do know that travel brings with it additional risks.
“We know that if people from Liverpool come and are in the same pub and same environment as other people there is a risk
of there being a spreading event.”
He added that if the areas of England such as “the North East, North West and the West Midlands were other countries” we would have quarantine conditions for them to return to the UK.
He said he didn’t want to take a “whole nation approach” because there “was no good evidence” to stop somebody from Devon going to a prebooked holiday in Pembrokeshire. The Welsh Government already imposes a 14-day quarantine on travellers coming from countries with rates of the virus over 20 cases per 100,000 of population. The Health Minister said that the Welsh Government would now look at the possibility of also imposing this on people coming from parts of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland where cases are high. “We’re actively considering it,” he said. First Minister Mark Drakeford has previously said that he “doesn’t think it is right for us to institute a set of border controls trying to prevent people from elsewhere visiting Wales”. He added: “I think that would lead us into all sorts of anomalous and difficult territory.”
The reason why the Welsh Government has asked the UK Government to introduce travel restrictions to areas of England with high prevalence is because we do know that travel brings with it additional risks - Wales Health Minister Vaughan Gething