Close to a third of people arriving in England and Northern Ireland between the months March and May are believed to have broken quarantine rules, but the Government can’t say exactly how many cases have been proved. BBC News has the story.
More than 300,000 cases were passed to investigators between March and May, according to figures seen by the BBC.
The Government was not able to say how many of these were found to have broken the rules or could not be traced.
The Home Office has said it aims to pay home visits to all travellers suspected of not following the rules. …
From March 17th to May 31st more than a million people arrived in England and Northern Ireland from ‘Amber List’ countries.
Figures for this period obtained under Freedom of Information laws show a total of 301,076 cases were referred to investigators for checks on whether they were self-isolating.
During this time, the highly contagious Delta variant of coronavirus – first detected in India – was spreading rapidly through the country.
Call handlers employed by the Department of Health and Social Care were tasked with contacting arrivals to check they were obeying the self-isolation and testing rules.
Cases where the contact ended the call, refused to co-operate, indicated they would break the quarantine or testing rules, or could not be contacted after three attempts were referred to investigators at the Border Force Criminal Justice Unit and the police.
Officers would then attempt to visit the contact at home to check they were following the rules.
After April 26th, the Home Office hired private contractor Mitie to carry out home visits to international travellers required to isolate, from contacts supplied by NHS Test and Trace.
“We visit over 99% of the cases referred to this service by NHS Test and Trace,” a Government spokesman said. …
Lucy Moreton, of the Immigration Services Union, said the quarantine system “very much relied on the honesty of people to do the right thing, rather than any type of meaningful enforcement”.
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