Travel rules ‘a chaotic mess’
Borders expert hits out at strategy after watchlist U-turn
A leading expert on international travel during the coronavirus pandemic has described the UK government’s strategy as “a big chaotic policy mess”.
Professor Kelley Lee, Canada research chair in Global Health Governance at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia,
told The Independent: “From a public health risk assessment and mitigation perspective, I would say it is not ‘fit for purpose’.” In June the prime minister claimed in the Commons: “We have the toughest border measures anywhere in the world.”
Professor Lee said: “I find this puzzling. Over the past 18 months, the UK has been among the poorer performing countries when it comes to identifying travellers infected with Sars-CoV-2 and preventing infected travellers from reaching the wider population and causing onward transmission. “The government was slow to act, introduced testing at borders very late and for the wrong reasons [to reduce quarantine requirements], and has exempted huge numbers of travellers from existing measures.”
The criticism comes after more chaotic scenes in Westminster with the idea of an “amber watchlist” for countries at risk of being moved into the red category being ditched following ministerial infighting, Tory backbench opposition and criticism from the travel industry.
Whitehall sources blamed transport secretary Grant Shapps for the fiasco, while Labour accused the government of being responsible for “reckless U-turns and confusion”.
“The Department for Transport came up with this policy, briefed it, briefed against it, then blamed the prime minister,” a Whitehall source told The Times.
The confusion over the government’s traffic-light system has been ongoing throughout the summer with British holiday makers having to rush back from the Balearic Islands before they joined the UK’s amber list in July after only two weeks on the green list.
Many Britons were also caught up in last-minute rule changes to France’s amber list status when barely 48 hours before new travel rules were due to begin, ministers announced then nation would not be part of the scheme.
Professor Lee, who has provided expert testimony to the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: “There are several reasons why
the UK is on so many countries’ ‘red’ list and poor use of border measures is one. “Boris Johnson is thus essentially awarding himself a gold medal when, in reality, the UK is not even on the podium on this issue.”
Professor Lee said that effective management of travel-related risks will be “critical over the next 12-18 months, particularly given slow progress on achieving global equity in access to vaccines”.
She said: “If you are going to get rid of quarantine requirements for some fully vaccinated people, you need to make sure that you put into place sufficient testing capacity to identify any breakthrough infections.
“This is because there is now evidence from around the world that shows that pre-departure testing helps but arriving passengers are still testing positive, for example in Singapore, Australia and China.
Professor Lee also recommends better staffing at border posts. “The increase in travel volumes can potentially overwhelm ports of entry, leading to mixing of populations of varying risk, ineffective application of testing, and poor infection control.”
Speaking on Sky News, the skills minister Gillian Keegan defended the UK government’s travel policies.
“Obviously we’re exploring more options and every option,” she said. “But the reality is we’re trying to tread this careful balance, and it is a careful balance, between opening up travel when we know that there are variants and they’re popping up in different ways in different countries, and we know obviously there’s different case rates in different countries as well.
Canada is planning to open up to all fully vaccinated international travellers on 7 September, but Professor Lee described the plans of the government in Ottawa as “highly flawed”.
She said border measures have two purposes: to identify travellers who are infected, and to prevent those infected
travellers from reaching the wider population and potentially transmitting the virus, through quarantine and contact tracing.
“Good testing means quarantine can be used more selectively. Thus, the current plan to reopen to fully vaccinated international visitors is not the problem. It is the planned system of testing (or lack thereof) that is highly concerning.”
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