UK visitors to face 14-day quarantine
Anyone arriving in the UK, including British citizens, from early June will need to quarantine themselves for 14 days or pay a £1,000 fine if they fail to do so, as part of plans to prevent another wave of Covid-19. The move has been criticised by the airline and tourism industries.
Details of the quarantine plan are to be announced at the daily Downing Street briefing later on Friday, but cabinet minister Brandon Lewis said that travellers will be asked to fill in a form with contact information, and health officials will perform spot checks to ensure compliance.
Visitors from Ireland and the Channel Islands will be exempted, besides road hauliers and medical officials, under the plans to be announced by home secretary Priti Patel.
Lewis told TV channels, “We’re a country that welcomes people from all over the world. But it is appropriate that we say ‘if you’re coming to the United Kingdom, we need to protect your own health and the health of the people of the United Kingdom’.”
Airlines UK, the association of British airline companies, expressed “collective frustration” in a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The letter read, An open-ended quarantine, with no set end date, will make an already critical situation for UK aviation, and all the businesses we support, even worse.
As of Thursday’s cumulative Uk-wide figures, Covid-19 has claimed 36,042 lives and infected 250,098 people. London registered some of the lowest number of new cases in recent days, prompting easing of restrictions.