French travellers to UK ‘on brink’ of quarantine as new cases soar
FRANCE was “on the brink” of being removed from quarantine-free travel last night.
The Government’s “Covid Cabinet” met yesterday to discuss implementing a mandatory 14-day quarantine on travellers arriving from the country.
Sources said the decision was on a “knife edge” after a week of fluctuating cases. Yesterday the French health ministry reported 2,524 new Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, the country’s highest level since lockdown. Since Monday, new cases have come close to doubling every day, putting pressure on the UK Government to act.
One travel industry source said the latest figures from France were “very damaging”, but insisted the decision was still “a close-run thing”. A government source said data were under “constant review”, with a decision expected to be formally made today.
Meanwhile, pressure also mounted on the Government to strike Malta from the “green list” of quarantine-free countries, as Norway and Belgium imposed new restrictions on the island.
Malta has seen a steep increase in cases and on Tuesday registered 440 new ones. A travel industry source said its fate was “all but sealed” after a failure to bring numbers under control. Malta’s rate of 46.7 per 100,000 people is more than double the base rate used by the Government to assess risk.
Other nations that look likely to face quarantine rules include Poland, Iceland, Cyprus and the Netherlands. Gibraltar, Monaco, San Marino, the Faroe Islands, Turks and Caicos and Aruba are also at a high risk of being removed from the safe list.
The potentially large number of nations facing restrictions has led the travel industry to issue a renewed plea for a regional approach to quarantine.
“The blanket approach has been fairly devastating,” an aviation industry source said.
Other countries such as Germany have asked citizens to quarantine only after travel to particular hotspots.
Noel Josephides, a director at travel association AITO, said Germany’s “sensible and logical thinking” contrasted with the UK’S “swift panic response”.
He said: “The Government, despite many approaches from the industry, chooses to ignore us and not to seek our input. This is patently foolish and explains to a large degree [the] Government’s apparent stabs in the dark.”
Aviation sources said power in decisions on which countries to quarantine and how rested too heavily with Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, and Prof Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer. A source said: “Any view voiced by the Chief Medical Officer and others in the ‘health space’ seems to always outweigh anything else.”