No 10 studies plan to test all UK arrivals after 8 days to boost flights
Tory grandee warns quarantine rules risk ‘self-strangulation’ of economy
BORIS Johnson is considering plans to get Britain back in the air by dramatically slashing quarantine restrictions at UK airports.
Officials are looking at the option of testing people eight days after they land, the Mail on Sunday understands.
The move would throw a lifeline to the nation’s airline companies and tourism industry by nearly halving the existing 14-day self-isolation rules.
It would also put the Scottish and UK Governments at loggerheads again, with Nicola Sturgeon having ruled out a similar move north of the Border. UK Government sources stressed that no decisions had yet been taken.
But we can reveal Mr Johnson has raised hopes of a breakthrough ‘infectiousness test’ which could reveal that some people who tested positive for Covid-19 were no longer a danger as they did not transmit the disease.
That would potentially transform the Government’s drive to get as many people as possible back to work in their offices where it was safe to do so. The reports came after experts warned that the main test used to detect Covid was so sensitive it could be picking up dead virus from old infections.
A cross-party coalition of grandees – including Tony Blair, David Davis and former Transport
Secretaries – has demanded a rethink on the hugely controversial 14-day quarantine policy.
In articles for this newspaper, former Tory Brexit Secretary Mr Davis issued a dire warning that the current approach ‘risked self-strangulation of our economy’.
Labour ex-Prime Minister Mr Blair also claimed the ‘current travel nightmare’ was doing ‘untold harm to the airline industry’.
Sir Patrick McLoughlin, who served as David Cameron’s transport chief, said it was ‘vital’ for the nation’s jobs to move as soon as possible to more testing at airports. However, Scots airports and travellers currently look unlikely to benefit from a similar move.
Last week, Ms Sturgeon said: ‘We continue to look at these things, we continue to have appropriate discussions with the UK Government, but right now I am afraid the advice is clear – quarantine for 14 days is the most effective way of mitigating the risk of positive cases coming into the country.’
Airport chiefs have warned that grounded flights were causing more job losses than the decline of the coal industry in the 1980s.
Tens of thousands of redundancies have been announced as giant firms have seen profits wiped out by the collapse of air travel.
The pain is also being felt by manufacturing firms which have stopped making parts for planes, baggage handling companies whose staff are not needed in terminals and travel agents who are not selling holiday packages. Rolls-Royce, which makes engines for planes, is cutting 3,000 jobs, tour operator Tui has warned 8,000 globally could face the axe and airport services firm Swissport has announced 4,500 redundancies – half its UK workforce.
It comes as:
Derek Provan, chief executive of AGS Airports, which runs Aberdeen, Glasgow and Southampton, said the cull would be worse than the coal mining jobs bloodbath three decades ago.
Ministers have ignored for months the key finding of an official report showing testing of passengers upon arrival and then five days later detects 85 per cent of those infected. The Scientific Advisory
Group for Emergencies (Sage) published its findings in June. But Mr Johnson has chosen to focus on another disputed finding, that a single test upon arrival picks up only 7 per cent of cases.
The Prime Minister surprised Tory MPs at last week’s meeting of the party’s 1922 Committee of party backbenchers last week by evoking the possibility of a so-called ‘infectiousness test’.
Sources said Mr Johnson raised hopes that there could be a way of distinguishing between Covidpositive individuals who were capable of spreading the disease and those who were not, even if they still had traces of the virus.
In Scotland, there is growing concern about the number of spot checks carried out to ensure people required to quarantine are following the rules.
Only 8.7 per cent of the 9,223 people ordered to quarantine during the week ending August 30 were contacted to make sure they were obeying the law, according to Public Health Scotland. That rate has fallen dramatically compared with 14 per cent of the 8,453 returning holidaymakers, in the eight days leading to August 16. Willie Rennie, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, said: ‘It’s ridiculous that despite my weeks of questioning the blatant failings with the spot check system haven’t been ironed out.’
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: ‘We originally committed to Public Health Scotland making contact with around 20 per cent of travellers, up to a maximum of 450 per week. The percentage figure will fluctuate week by week, depending on the number of people requiring to quarantine.’
‘Blatant failings of the spot check system not ironed out’