Use tests to allow tourists to get around ‘clunky’ quarantine measures, says Shapps

‘Go with your eyes open this year, because coronavirus is just a fact of life – and we’re having to live with it’

QUARANTINE is “clunky”, Grant Shapps has admitted, as he revealed the Government is considering a double test for travellers that could reduce self-isolation in the UK to five days.

The Transport Secretary called quarantine a “blunt instrument” to combat the spread of coronavirus, as British holidaymakers raced to return to the UK from Croatia, Austria, and Trinidad and Tobago, destinations for which quarantine was reimposed at four o’clock this morning.

Instead, he said he wanted to see systems in place that would enable travellers from “red list” countries to sidestep the full 14-day quarantine if they tested negative for coronavirus.

Double testing is where a traveller is swabbed and tested either before arrival or upon arrival in the UK, and is then tested a second time five or eight days later. If the result is negative, they are freed from quarantine.

A single test on arrival can miss up to 90 per cent of asymptomatic passengers, according to Sage, the Government’s scientific advisers.

The double-test model has also been proposed by Heathrow Airport, which has its own coronavirus testing centre at Terminal Two, with plans for one at Terminal Five.

Mr Shapps said one option was for a traveller to be tested several days before arrival, provided the country’s testing regime could be trusted, then five days after entering the UK, allowing them to avoid nine days of self-isolation. But, he cautioned: “You have to be sure you’re testing the right person that second time round.

“Are you going to just send the kit to the house or are you going to require the person, perhaps, to drive to a test centre?

“It’s a bit more complicated than is sometimes suggested.”

A Cabinet committee comprising Mr Shapps; Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary; Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary; and Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office Minister, is next week expected to consider three options – the status quo, double testing, or a single test after a period of quarantine.

Mr Shapps warned holidaymakers travelling to Portugal, which had its travel ban lifted this week, and other countries, that they needed to “go with your eyes open this year because coronavirus is just a fact of life – and we’re having to live with it”.