Test after five days could help cut quarantine

QUARANTINE could be cut to five days by Christmas under a new “test and release” strategy outlined by Grant Shapps.

The Transport Secretary claimed “good progress” had been made on a single test f i ve or seven days after arrival in the UK from “red list” countries. Passengers will be expected to pay costs of up to £150, but if negative, it would release the traveller from a 14-day quarantine.

He said the Government was working with other countries on a pre-departure testing regime that could reduce quarantine further.

He also raised the prospect of “quarantine-free” travel if the swab tests being trialled in Liverpool that give results in less than an hour can be adapted for use at airports. The proposals were prepared by the Global Travel Taskforce, chaired by Mr Shapps and Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, due to report to Boris Johnson this week.

In a speech to trade body the Airport Operators Association yesterday, Mr Shapps said: “We’ve been making very good progress on a test to release programme, to launch once we’re out of this lockdown. This will consist of a single test for arrivals into the UK provided by the private sector at a cost to the passenger, allowing us a much-reduced period of selfisolation.

“This should encourage more people to be able to book flights with confidence, knowing there is an option which allows them to shorten self-isolation if they’re going somewhere which isn’t in – or does become outside – a travel corridor.”

Business l eaders have written to the Prime Minister urging him to introduce the five-day tests by the start of next month to open up travel in time for Christmas. Leaders of organisations representing travel, tourism, small business, retail and hospitality said it was “vital” a testing regime was in place by the end of the second national lockdown, due on Dec 2. They warned that without it, the UK risked losing not only £121 billion in exports to the US and passenger traffic but its status as the third largest aviation market in the world.

They cited research by the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene that a fifth-day test detected 88 per cent of cases.