Infections fall in countries using testing at airports

Analysis suggests that the Government’s reluctance to adopt measures at borders may be misplaced

COUNTRIES that have expanded testing of arrivals at airports have seen their national Covid-19 infection rates decline, analysis is showing.

The data, covering mid-August to this weekend, show Greece, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, Cyprus and Singapore all reduced their rates after intensifying border testing to let arrivals avoid a 14-day quarantine.

The disclosure challenges the Government’s contention that testing on arrival is ineffective and only catches seven per cent of cases – an argument deployed by both Boris Johnson and Grant Shapps on Friday.

But in support of Telegraph’s Test4Travel campaign, Paul Charles, chief executive of The PC Agency, which conducted the analysis, said the data demonstrated the value of airport testing in enabling travel while minimising the risk to public health.

Along with many in travel and aviation, Mr Charles advocated a two-test model, one on or before arrival and a second after five days of quarantine, reducing by nine days the time travellers must self-isolate. He said: “The seven per cent figure is spurious data, questioned by the whole travel industry as being out of date. It only relates to one test at the airport rather than two.”

Scientists at Collinson Group, which has a test facility at Heathrow, said the Government’s figure was based on Public Health England and Sage modelling rather than real-world data from existing airport testing regimes.

They cited the island of Jersey, whose airport tested all 20,000 inbound travellers on arrival since opening its borders in July. It detected 17 Covid cases and all were quarantined. In the same period, there were only four cases of “in community” infections unrelated to the border.

“If the PHE modelling had been correct, Jersey should have had a further 185 imported cases of Covid, and many dozens more cases of onward transmission. It experienced none,” said Collinson’s scientists in a paper submitted to the Government.

Iceland’s regime for a test upon arrival with a second five days later saw its Covid-19 rate fall from 16.5 to 11.5 per 100,000 people. “If the PHE modelling was correct, Iceland would have experienced over 1,000 additional cases of imported Covid, and many hundreds of cases on onward transmission. They have not,” said Collinson.

Greece, which conducts 9,000 tests a day at its ports of entry, has had its case rate per 100,000 reduce from 14.3 to 13.7, while Denmark, which uses fiveminute tests on arrivals, has fallen from 15.4 to 12.9. Germany has dropped from 10.1 to 9.0, Cyprus is down from 9.4 to 7.5 and Singapore is down from 10.4 to 5.8.

The Test4Travel campaign has won the backing of travel chiefs, airports and airlines and MPs including Jeremy Hunt and Chris Grayling, the former health and transport secretaries.

Today IATA, representing the world’s airlines, joins those publicly backing it. “The stop-start closing of Britain to the world is not a successful survival tactic for Covid-19,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA director general. “Jobs are being vaporised by quarantine and they may never come back,”

Meanwhile scientists have warned cases in Europe are “almost back” to the levels seen in March after countries started easing lockdowns, encouraging tourism and reopening businesses.

Spain came close to clocking half a million coronavirus cases on Friday but the new wave has been less deadly than earlier on in the outbreak.