Passengers arriving at Heathrow airport from “red list” countries like the US will be able to pay for COVID-19 tests to beat quarantine, under a pilot scheme expected to be backed by the UK Transport Department, reports The Daily Telegraph. Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, has signalled his support for COVID-19 testing as a way to revive flying after it was decimated by the pandemic and is seeking to agree international standards that could allow quarantine-free air travel.
The Daily Telegraph has established that 21 countries including Austria, Iceland, Jersey, Madeira, Thailand, Singapore, Barbados, Jamaica and Japan have already introduced airport tests that can allow some passengers to avoid quarantine if they are negative for COVID-19.
Under the plan, arrivals at Heathrow would have to pay £150 for the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) based swab tests, as used by the NHS and administered in a clinic airside at the airport. The 90-second test, which takes swabs from throat and nose, produces results in between seven and 24 hours and has a 100% accuracy rate, according to medical trials. They would be expected to quarantine until they got their results, which, provided they were negative, would then exempt them from self-isolating for the remainder of the 14 days.
Only arrivals taking the tests and getting an all-clear would be exempt. The companies behind the scheme, Swissports, a ground-handling company, and Collinson Group, which provides medical and security services, are seeking a change in the COVID-19 regulations to exempt those declared free of the disease from quarantine, in order to launch the pilot.
Shapps told MPs that he was considering introducing testing at airports and promised an update by the next review of the quarantine regulations at the end of July. “We do believe it is important to be able to provide international standards that will include specific types of testing,” he said.
Sources said testing was the next step after agreeing 74 “low risk” countries and destinations where returning holidaymakers and passengers could enter the UK without the 14-day quarantine.
Dr Simon Worrell, global medical director of Collinson Group, said: “It’s the right thing for the right time. When sufficient numbers of people are vaccinated, then we can all breathe a sigh of relief. This is an interim industry-led measure to get people flying and increase trade and tourism.”
[link url="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/06/passengers-arriving-heathrow-red-list-could-pay-avoid-quarantine/?WT.mc_id=e_DM1263906&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_FAM_New_ES-B&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Edi_FAM_New_ES-B20200707&utm_campaign=DM1263906"]Full report in The Daily Telegraph[/link]