Government considers hotel quarantines to tackle spread

NEW ZEALAND’S policy of placing new arrivals in hotels to complete their quarantine is being looked at by UK officials as an option to control the spread of new coronavirus variants.

Ministers have instructed staff to study a wide range of policies to crack down on quarantine breaches, reports last night suggested, with facial-recognition technology and GPS to check that people are staying in isolation also reportedly under consideration.

The Government has already issued travel bans on arrivals from South America, Portugal and Cape Verde due to the emergence of a coronavirus variant in Brazil.

According to The Sunday Times, officials were last week ordered to study New Zealand’s policy of “directed isolation”, where everyone arriving is charged for a stay at an airport hotel and forced to remain in isolation for two weeks.

A No 10 source said the report was “speculation” and that the Government was often looking at other countries’ approaches in tackling the pandemic.

In Australia, travellers are charged between £1,500 and £2,500 to isolate for between 14 and 24 days.

Reports last night revealed the UK Government was only considering a system where visitors pay the costs themselves. Other schemes civil servants will examine include Poland’s method of “enhanced monitoring” for those told to isolate. Each person is contacted once a day and told to send a photograph of themselves at the location where they are confined.

These are cross-referenced using GPS data and facial-recognition software, with police visiting anyone who does not comply within 20 minutes.

Both ideas were said to have been discussed at a ministers meeting on Thursday with a senior government source telling The Sunday Times that such technology would not be used on those selfisolating within Britain.

From tomorrow, the Government plans to scrap all travel corridors that exempt people arriving from certain destinations from quarantine requirements.

The new policy means arrivals from every destination will need to self-isolate for 10 days or receive a negative Covid-19 test result at least five days after entering the UK.

Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, warned the Government against lifting the restrictions too quickly. He said: “We need to be careful about saying that just because people have been vaccinated the spread won’t happen.”