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The decision on plans to introduce Covid-19 testing for international arrivals to reduce quarantine times will not be made until next month at the earliest, and Downing Street will establish a global travel task force to analyze the proposals, as understood by The Guardian.
After months of lobbying by the beleaguered aviation industry, which has been crippled by two-week quarantine restrictions, it was widely expected that the UK government would introduce tests for arrivals from at-risk countries this week.
Transportation Secretary Grant Shapps had indicated an imminent change, telling the Conservative party virtual conference Monday that he would be saying more shortly.
However, in a blow to the aviation industry, instead of announcing the start of testing for international arrivals, The Guardian learned that the government plans to announce the launch on Thursday of the task force, jointly chaired by Shapps and the secretary of health, Matt. Hancock, which was created at the request of Boris Johnson.
Part of its mission, which is to find ways to revitalize travel abroad, will be to explore options to implement a testing regime for international arrivals to reduce quarantine times from 14 days. It is not due to report until mid-November, which means that a decision on testing to reduce quarantine times would not come before next month at the earliest.
A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation insisted that there were no delays in the plans, adding: “As we have made clear, we are working with doctors and health experts on the practicalities of using tests to reduce the period of self-isolation for international arrivals “.
In recent weeks, cabinet ministers are understood to have been considering whether travelers should be tested once after five to eight days after arriving from countries at risk, allowing them to come out of isolation before the current requirement of 14 days. The two options are believed to have been presented by officials in mid-September to the Covid-19 operations committee chaired by Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove.
Either measure would mean that the aviation industry’s initial proposals for a two-test system, whereby travelers are screened at the airport upon arrival from at-risk countries and again five to eight days later, with results negatives that allow them to escape isolation sooner. it would be overlooked in favor of a single test approach.
Another option presented to the government was for travelers to undergo a test 48 hours before leaving an at-risk country, followed by a test on the fifth day after arrival, which also allowed them to come out of isolation earlier.
Shapps told the Conservative Party conference on Monday: “The next stage is to enable testing, which sometimes people mistakenly think is very simple: ‘Why don’t you test people at the airport? If you know they are clear, let people in, job done.
“The answer is that in someone who is asymptomatic, who does not show any symptoms, that will not find a large proportion of cases. In fact, studies show that if you check someone out on the first day of their arrival, you will probably find 7% of people who actually have the virus.
“So we have to be a little smarter than that. The way to do it is to still have a quarantine period, but also to try and release people. I’ll talk more about that shortly. “
Shapps has also stressed that any proof for international arrivals must be paid for privately. “If you are a tourist, you don’t want to take an NHS exam because you have flown somewhere, which is discretionary,” he told the i newspaper. “Anything we do with airport testing or testing a week later has to be done through private capacity.”
General quarantine rules went into effect in early June, forcing international arrivals and returning passengers to spend 14 days in self-isolation.
The waivers were introduced a month later with the creation of “travel corridors” for destinations with low Covid-19 fares. However, flights and travel were thrown into chaos by sudden changes in the state of major tourist destinations, such as Spain and France, during the summer season. Since last Friday, people arriving from abroad who violate Covid-19 quarantine restrictions in England face stiffer fines of up to £ 10,000.
The aviation industry has been widely rejected in calls to the government for a special package of assistance for the sector. The Treasury has limited its aid to the Bank of England’s broader Covid-19 licensing and loan scheme, while tens of thousands of jobs have been lost at airlines and airports.
Ministers announced the creation of a special aviation “Restart, Recovery and Participation Unit” in early May, but Commons’ select committee on transportation expressed concern about the lack of timing or detail of any action. Five weeks ago, the government responded that the unit would report in the fall.
