Don’t f ly home to the UK without getting PCR test
Fury at latest travel rule that industry calls ‘hammer blow’
ALL travellers to the UK will have to take predeparture Covid tests, Ministers ruled yesterday as they reacted to the Omicron variant, sparking fury in the travel industry.
The regulation will apply to everyone over 12 arriving in Britain, regardless of vaccination status, and will add a further cost to holidays.
The decision, taken at a Covid committee meeting, came a day after Transport Secretary Grant Shapps assured travellers pre-departure tests would not be introduced because he did not want to ‘kill off the travel sector’.
Ministers are expecting a breakthrough in tests of the Omicron variant by the end of this week.
Two senior sources told The Mail on Sunday that the timeframe in which the Government’s Porton Down laboratory would be able to assess whether Omicron was a mild variant or posed a serious threat has been cut from an initial ‘fourto-six weeks’.
Martin Chalk, general secretary of the pilots’ union Balpa, said: ‘The new costs and stress of travel seem designed to destroy confidence in air travel, and the idea of families being confident in booking to reunite over the holidays is now a cruel joke.’ Clive Wratten, chief executive of the Business Travel Association, said pre-departure testing is ‘a hammer blow’.
Meanwhile, Ministers hope the Delta variant will prevent Omicron taking hold. A Cabinet source said the face-off was like ‘rock-paperscissors’ in which one overcomes the other, adding: ‘Delta has to date defeated all other variants.’
Virgin Atlantic boss Shai Weiss urged Ministers to remove the latest travel restrictions ‘immediately’ if it became clear the Omicron variant was not as severe as other Covid strains. The new testing measures, which Ministers insisted were temporary, come into force from 4am on Tuesday.
The Government already requires all UK arrivals to take a PCR test on or before the second day following their arrival in the country. Travellers must self-isolate until they test negative.
Last night, the Scottish Government confirmed that people arriving from abroad will need to take pre-departure Covid tests. International travellers must provide a negative pre-departure test taken two days before travelling, and a negative PCR test on or before day two after arrival, under measures agreed on a four-nations basis.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the new requirement was ‘unfortunate’ for those who have travel plans. He said: ‘We want to remove them as soon as we possibly can.’
The pre-departure tests will be reviewed along with rules on compulsory masks in shops and on public transport on December 18.
A Government source said positive news from Porton Down would mean the pre-departure test would be dropped, adding that early clinical evidence on Omicron showed a short period between becoming infected and being infectious. This suggests that people will develop symptoms faster, shortening the window in which they could unknowingly pass the virus on.
‘We want to remove them as soon as we can’