Plan for a 14-day quarantine of UK arrivals to be set out this week

Charles Hymas

Anna Mikhailova

A 14-DAY quarantine for arrivals to Britain is expected to be announced this week, and could be in place until an airport test for Covid-19 is available.

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, is due to set out plans for borders in the next two days, with the quarantine expected to be time-limited so ministers could review it after a set period. This would permit the introduction of an alternative coronavirus test at airports and ports at some point in the future if officials establish that it is feasible.

Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister who has been leading on the quarantine plans, is understood to be keen for coronavirus testing in airports so passengers can avoid having to be quarantined for a fortnight. However, sources said it was unlikely this could be put in place in time for this week’s expected quarantine announcement.

“You would need 10,000-plus a day for it to work,” said one Whitehall source. “It is a prick test that tells if you are positive for coronavirus, and it’s possible it could be delivered in four to six weeks. Michael [Gove] has got officials to look into it.”

The fingerprick test is one of “a lot of suggestions and ideas being looked at” as part of cross-government work on how to manage borders in relation to infection risk, a government source said yesterday, adding that a quick onsite test which could be appropriate for such use is not yet available.

The quarantine is expected to cover all arrivals apart from passengers from the common travel area, including Ireland, Guernsey and Jersey. Moves to exempt France were ditched last week.

There will be a “limited” range of job-specific exemptions, to primarily include “frontier workers”, covering freight drivers who will be allowed in to drop off their loads before leaving.

The majority of those exempt from self-isolating upon arrival to Britain are expected to be hauliers. Other exemptions are expected to include some business people, doctors and scientists.

Ministers have been warned that any quarantine for UK arrivals must be as short as possible to help the British economy recover.

Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, directorgeneral of the Confederation of British Industry, called for an “international standard” to be established for border policies. “You’ve got different countries doing different things, and that is very bad for global trade,” she said.

“We do ask the Government to think very carefully about how this is introduced, so it doesn’t put the brakes on our economy in this fragile recovery.”

John Holland-kaye, the chief executive of Heathrow airport, said: “If the UK Government were to get together with the EU and the US, between them, they have the heft and the global, diplomatic and economic power to set that international standard. I think the approach to take is the risk-based approach where if two countries are very low-risk, there should be a free flow of passengers between those countries.”

He welcomed the idea of “immunity passports” but said: “It’s no good the UK having a health passport if another country has an entirely different system. We need that commonality between markets so we know your health passport is accepted in the country you’re going to.”

The Heathrow boss told Sky News: “The quarantine cannot be in place for more than a relatively short period of time if we’re going to get the economy moving again.”

Heathrow is to start using temperature checks within days. Mr Hollandkaye said: “We are working with Public Health England to see if that could be part of the solution to health screening at airports.”