Latest News
The Times today leads with the story that the Government is planning to quarantine all travellers coming to Britain for two weeks. Under the new measures, likely to come into force in early June, travellers will be asked to provide an address at which they'll self-isolate for 14 days, with spot checks and fines of up to £1,000 for those who don't comply. Needless to say, the aviation industry isn't happy abut this and nor is the travel industry. Airlines UK, which represents British Airways, EasyJet and others, says the proposal will “effectively kill international travel to and from the UK, and cause immeasurable damage to the aviation industry and wider UK economy”. It added: “Nobody is going to go on holiday if they’re not able to resume normal life for 14 days, and business travel would be severely restricted.” Isn't this a case of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted? According to Sir Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government, 6.6 million Brits might already be infected. Screening arrivals into British airports and ports, and quarantining those with a temperature, would have made much more sense back in January. Similar policies were adopted in those Southeast Asian countries that are the success stories of this pandemic, such as Thailand, which introduced airport temperature screenings ...