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According to the figures, fewer than 300 people of the 18.1 million who entered the United Kingdom in the three months prior to the coronavirus blockade were formally quarantined.
Passengers on three flights from Wuhan, China, the source of the Covid-19 outbreak, and one flight from Tokyo, Japan, carrying passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, were taken to government-supported isolation facilities between 1 January and March 22.
The figures, provided by the government to the Labor MP and member of the Select Committee on Internal Affairs, Stephen Doughty, show that this totaled 273 people.
Additional data provided to the committee shows that there were 18.1 million arrivals at the UK border by air, land and sea in the same period.
Although that includes arrivals from all destinations, it is understood that the Home Office estimates would still put the number of potentially infected people entering the UK from countries affected by coronavirus in that period at tens of thousands.
Tracking contacts is one of the most basic tables of public health responses to a pandemic like coronavirus. It literally means tracking anyone with whom someone with an infection had contact in the days leading up to the illness. It was, and always will be, central in the fight against Ebola, for example. In West Africa in 2014/15, there were large teams of people tracking family members and knocking on doors of neighbors and friends to find anyone who might have become infected by touching the sick person.
Most people who receive Covid-19 will be infected by their friends, neighbors, family, or coworkers, making them first on the list. It is unlikely that someone will be infected by someone they do not know, passing through the street.
There is still supposed to be a reasonable exposure: Experts originally said that people would have to be together for 15 minutes, less than 2 meters away. Therefore, a contact tracker will want to know who the positive person met and spoke with for the two to three days before symptoms developed and became isolated.
South Korea has large teams of contact trackers and notably persecuted all contacts of a religious group, many of whose members became ill. That outbreak was efficiently removed by contact tracing and quarantine.
Singapore and Hong Kong have also advocated testing and contact tracing, as has Germany. All of these countries have had relatively low death rates so far. The World Health Organization says it should be the “backbone of the answer” in all countries.
Sarah Boseley Health editor
Doughty said: “The admission that only four flights from two locations, just a few hundred individuals, out of literally millions of arrivals, were formally quarantined while the pandemic was already raging at a number of locations it believed to be beggars.
“On what scientific basis were a handful of flights from Wuhan and one from Tokyo selected for their extreme attention? But not a single flight from northern Italy, Spain or the United States?
“The fact that many of these people likely arrived and traveled across the UK with little or no adherence to social estrangement, and with no border controls or protections, just a smell of hand sanitizer, is deeply disturbing. Much less the arrival of 3,000 fans from Madrid as the pandemic accelerated.
However, arrivals continue to this day, with no formal quarantine requirements. It is simply amazing. Who made these decisions? And on what basis?
On January 31, 83 passengers arrived in the UK on an evacuation flight organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from Wuhan and were transferred to a facility in Merseyside. On February 2, 11 other passengers arrived in the United Kingdom on a flight evacuation organized by France from Wuhan and were taken to the same site.
On February 9, 147 passengers arrived in the UK on a final evacuation flight from Wuhan and were taken to an isolation facility in Milton Keynes. And on February 22, 32 passengers arrived in the UK on an evacuation flight from Tokyo and were taken to the site in Merseyside.
The Government continues to allow entry into the United Kingdom without detection or forced quarantine, which, according to Home Secretary Priti Patel, was based on the advice of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage).
Patel told the committee that the number of air passengers decreased 99% year-over-year, while sea passengers decreased 88.7% and international rail travelers decreased 94%.
Total arrivals have plummeted to less than 10,000 per day, compared to as many as 300,000 in the months leading up to the crisis in Europe.
Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, said: “It was incredible that the home secretary was unable to answer clear questions from the selected committee regarding flight controls from areas experiencing extensive outbreaks of coronavirus. It appears that they missed crucial opportunities, which means that a significant number of people may have entered the country with coronavirus.
“This leaves urgent unanswered questions for the home secretary. More information needs to be made public about how decisions were made and on what scientific basis: it is vital that past mistakes are learned to help shape policy as we move to the next stages of managing this crisis. “
The Interior Ministry has been contacted for comment.
