UK residents are aghast at a plan to introduce an Australia-style measure in an effort to contain its out-of-control COVID-19 outbreak.
Ministers are set to introduce a rule that is already standard practice in countries including Australian and New Zealand, requiring incoming travellers to isolate in hotels after their arrival.
Travellers may have to pay 1500 pounds ($2660) to quarantine for ten days at one of the designated hotels, where meals will be served in rooms and isolation supervised by private security guards.
The UK has one of the world’s highest death rates and has almost reached the grim milestone of 100,000 COVID-19 deaths, propelled by a highly contagious mutant strain.
Yet the plan was met with outrage from some quarters.
Airport Operators Association Chief Executive Karen Dee and Airlines UK Chief Executive Tim Alderslade said in a joint statement that the UK now had among the “highest levels of restrictions in the world”.
“The impact of further measures would be catastrophic,” the statement read. “They will impact vital freight and PPE supplies and jeopardise tens of thousands of jobs and the many businesses that depend on aviation.”
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The UK only abandoned its “travel corridors” with countries with lower case numbers earlier this month, and now asks arrivals to show negative COVID-19 tests and then self-isolate at home.
Many claimed that Australia and New Zealand could not be compared to the UK because of their distance from other countries.
“Where is the evidence for Quarantine Hotels working in countries where the numbers of cases already in the community is as high as ours?” tweeted TV star Kirstie Allsopp, adding that the measures would not help with the fact that 10,000 trucks arrive in and leave the UK daily by ferries and trains each day.
But some social media users replied saying that Australia is highly connected to countries like China, and simply “got on top of this early” while the UK failed on border control, track and trace and adequate lockdowns.
‘DEEPLY TRAUMATIC’
Telegraph UK columnist Zoe Strimpel tweeted: “For many, ten days spent under lock and key in a quarantine hotel room would be deeply traumatic.”
Law firm PGMBM claimed hotel quarantine could violate basic human rights under the European Convention of Human Rights, the Telegraph reported.
“These proposals of a blanket imposition of hotel quarantine, at travellers’ own expense, raise fundamental questions about the denial of liberty of those subjected to it,” said Tom Goodhead, Barrister and Managing Partner of PGMBM.
“Article 5 of the ECHR specifically states that no one shall be unduly deprived of their liberty. Whilst there is a provision that may allow the denial of that liberty to prevent the spread of infectious disease, under these proposals inbound travellers would be detained even if they did not test positive for COVID-19.”
Rupert Longsdon, founder of The Oxford Ski Company, told the paper the rule would be “a final nail in the coffin for the ski industry this winter and an absolute catastrophe for the travel sector as a whole,” adding: “The damage this could cause is immeasurable.”
Financial Times’ journalist Sebastian Payne said the logistics would be complicated, with around 8000 people a day coming into the UK and only 10,000 beds near Heathrow, which would be filled within a day and half.
“One option is to introduce a cap on arrivals, as has been done in Australia,” he wrote. “Sydney allows just 1,505 arrivals a week, other cities are in the hundreds.”
But he said this had “created an economic and human crisis in Oz. Flight prices have soared.”
Others said the move to introduce hotel quarantine in the UK was long overdue.
“308 days after New Zealand… 311 days after Australia… 360 days after the first UK Covid case… The UK finally closes its borders immediately… in about 3 weeks time,” tweeted actor David Schneider.
