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LONDON, May 22 (Reuters) - The United Kingdom will later on
Friday spell out details of its plans for a COVID-19 quarantine
for travellers arriving from overseas, a measure that airlines
have warned will devastate their industry.
The government is expected to announce that all
international arrivals, including returning Britons, will be
required to self-isolate for 14 days and provide details of
where they will be staying to the authorities.
The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that those who
breached the quarantine would be fined 1,000 pounds with health
and border officials carrying out spot checks.
"I can't say just yet how long this quarantine will last
for," Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis told BBC TV. "It
is something we will be reviewing every three weeks or so."
The government has indicated that only those arriving from
the Irish Republic would be exempt from the quarantine along
with those in a number of specific jobs, such as freight
drivers.
Transport minister Grant Shapps has also suggested the
government would seek to negotiate "air bridges" for travellers
coming from countries with low virus infection rates.
Lewis said full details of the plan, which aims to try to
prevent a second peak of the coronavirus pandemic, would be
outlined by the interior minister, Priti Patel, later.
Unlike many other countries across the world, Britain has
carried out few tests and checks on visitors, with quarantine
limited only to arrivals from China at the start of the
outbreak.
That has led to accusations that Prime Minister Boris
Johnson's government had been far too slow to act, but it now
also faces criticism over plans to bring in the quarantine.
Airline bosses have said the measures would have severe
repercussions, with Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive,
saying they would be "unenforceable and unpoliceable" and would
be ignored.
Some lawmakers in Johnson's Conservative party have also
queried the need to bring in a quarantine now, saying it would
damage the economy when it has already taken a massive hit from
a lockdown.
"The government needs to rethink this quickly and not go
into quarantine," Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative
leader, told the Daily Telegraph. "If they got their testing
level up, then anyone coming in would be tested and put on the
tracking app."
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton; editing by
Michael Holden)
