Police can use force to make sure travellers are isolating

POLICE will be allowed to use force to return travellers to their quarantine address, measures published last night revealed.

The legislation sets out how travellers must hand over up to 30 pieces of information before coming to the UK. It shows police and other officials can use ‘reasonable force’ to transfer someone who has come back to the UK from abroad to the location where they are supposed to be self-isolating. This mirrors the laws which introduced the ‘stay at home’ measures at the start of lockdown, which also allowed police to use force.

The measures also move to close the so-called ‘Dublin dodge’ by which anyone coming to the UK could have avoided quarantine by travelling through Ireland. Anyone who has been outside the UK and Ireland in the 14 days before they reach British soil will now be subject to the rules.

But only half of people may follow the rules. A review by King’s College London of 14 studies looked at behaviour during outbreaks including SARS and swine flu. In two Australian studies on families quarantined by swine flu, only around half of people managed to quarantine for up to two weeks.

The review, led by Professor James Rubin, concludes: ‘Where information is unclear and open to interpretation, this can lead to people creating their own, possibly ineffective, rules.’

The studies also show that when it is believed others are breaking the rules – as in the case of Boris Johnson’s adviser Dominic Cummings – people are more likely to follow suit.