Plan to let ‘red list’ Heathrow arrivals avoid quarantine by paying £150 for Covid test
PASSENGERS arriving at Heathrow airport from “red list” countries like the US will be able to pay for Covid-19 tests to beat quarantine, under a pilot expected to be backed by the Department for Transport.
Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, has signalled his support for
Covid-19 testing as a way to revive flying after it was decimated by the pandemic and is seeking to agree international standards that could allow quarantine-free air travel.
The Daily Telegraph has established that 21 countries – including Austria, Iceland, Jersey, Madeira, Thailand, Singapore, Barbados, Jamaica and Japan – have already introduced airport tests that can allow some passengers to avoid quarantine if they are negative for Covid-19.
Under the plan, arrivals at Heathrow would have to pay £150 for the Polymerase Chain Reaction-based swab tests, as used by the NHS, and administered at a clinic on the airside of the airport. The 90-second test, which takes swabs from throat and nose, produces results in between seven and 24 hours and has a 100 per cent accuracy rate, according to medical trials.
They would be expected to quarantine until they got their results, which, if negative, would then exempt them from self-isolating for the remainder of the 14 days. Only arrivals taking the tests and getting an all-clear would be exempt.
The companies behind the scheme, Swissports, a ground-handling company, and Collinson Group, which provides medical and security services, are seeking a change in the Covid-19 regulations to exempt those declared free of the disease from quarantine, in order to launch the pilot.
Mr Shapps told MPS that he was considering introducing testing at airports and promised an update by the next review of the quarantine regulations at the end of July. “We do believe it is important to be able to provide international standards that will include specific types of testing,” he said.
Sources said testing was the next step after agreeing 74 “low risk” countries and destinations where returning holidaymakers and passengers could enter the UK without the 14-day quarantine.
It could offer a route to open up travel to “red list’’ countries like the US, despite its surging rates of coronavirus. Last year the US accounted for 11 per cent of all visitors to the UK.
It is proposed the Heathrow trial would last for around a fortnight, with approximately 500 people tested a day. Once complete, the testing programme could be rolled out to other UK airports.
The move came as Greece announced that UK holidaymakers will be able to fly directly to the country from July 15.