Travellers’ quarantine could be cut with more tests, Starmer says
CULTURE SECRETARY Oliver Dowden has said that there is “no viable alternative” to the UK’s quarantine policy for international arrivals.
The minister said testing passengers at airports is not a “silver bullet” allowing restrictions to be eased.
Meanwhile, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said arrivals from high-risk countries should be tested twice for coronavirus over a number of days to potentially reduce their quarantine period.
The boss of Heathrow Airport declared the UK “needs a passenger testing regime and fast”.
Britain reimposed the selfisolation requirement for people arriving from Spain on Sunday, making the announcement just five hours before the change in policy came into force.
Mr Dowden said: “There is a real risk here – the virus is spreading around the world, it’s rising rapidly around the world.”
The Minister added: “We need to ensure that the measures we’ve taken in the UK – which have been very difficult – to keep this virus under control, do not go to waste because we allow cases to come in from elsewhere.”
Speaking to reporters, Sir Keir pointed to evidence suggesting the duration of quarantine could be reduced with multiple tests.
He said: “There’s some evidence it could be shortened to 10 or nine days but that depends on really effective testing and that is why we have pushed the Government so hard on testing.
“There’s the capacity to test, the Government needs to use that to test on arrival and then after a short interval.
“If that period of 14 days can be brought down to eight, nine or 10 then obviously there’s a huge benefit in that,” Sir Keir added.
Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said that the airport is “ready to go in two weeks” if the Government allows tests to be used to ease restrictions.
He said: “We’ve started to mobilise on that so we can be ready as fast as possible. The speed really depends on the Government and them putting the legislation in place to allow people to come out of quarantine early if they have passed two tests.”