Welsh Government concerned that scrapping travellers’ PCR tests still risky
FIRST Minister Mark Drakeford has once again raised concerns about plans by the UK Government to scrap PCR tests for people returning from aboard.
Changes to the rules on coronavirus tests travellers have to take when returning to the UK will be in place by the end of the month, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said.
He announced on Thursday that 47 countries would be removed from England’s red list to make it “easier for families and loved ones to reunite”. And the Government minister also said those coming into the UK would soon no longer have to take sometimes expensive PCR tests, instead being able to use cheaper lateral flow tests to show whether or not they had coronavirus.
The Welsh Government has followed the red list decision, but Mr Drakeford has made his concerns about the scrapping of tests very public.
He also criticised the UK Government for the lack of information about what the plan was and how it was going to work.
“I am very concerned,” he told the press briefing on Friday. “When you take a PCR test, the result gets automatically fed into the patient’s record, and we are able here in Wales to have some of the best genetic sequencing capacity anywhere in the world.
“It means they can check those results for new variants that may be emerging in other parts of the world. It is not clear to me at all how lateral flow tests can be used in the same way.
“The UK Government created a market for PCR tests, and it turned out very quickly that a large number of companies were providing a product that wasn’t reliable. More than 90 suppliers had to be removed. Is there going to be a new market in lateral flow devices, and how confident can we be that they are reliable?
“There are a lot of unanswered questions. Everyone seem to think they are a risk. It is very difficult for us not to follow what the UK Government does in international travel.”
Explaining how it would be
difficult to have different rules in Wales, he said earlier: “If there was a different regime in place it would be very complicated. The reason we have PCR tests is because you can then analyse those to see if there are new variants emerging and being brought back.
“You can’t do that with a lateral flow test. We have been urging the UK Government to take a more cautionary approach.”
He said they would look closely at the plans before deciding what to do in Wales.
After the change to the red list was announced on Thursday, Wales Health Minister Eluned Morgan issued a statement.
She said: “We have consistently urged the UK Government to take a more precautionary approach towards international travel to prevent coronavirus being re-imported into the UK, especially new and emerging variants which may not respond to the vaccines.
“As most people travelling overseas will do so from English airports and ports and, as Wales shares an open border with England, although we are concerned about the risks related to travel, it is not practical to develop our own border health policy in isolation from the other nations of the UK.
“I have therefore agreed that Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, Peru and Venezuela should remain on the red list with a further 47 countries removed.”