A UK government minister has said that introducing hotel quarantine for all arrivals into the country would be “unfeasible” and “not necessarily effective” even after scientists advising the government said "reactive, geographically targeted... [travel bans] cannot be relied upon to stop importation of new variants".
Speaking on the BBC this morning, universities minister Michelle Donelan was asked whether the UK should make hotel quarantine regulations stricter, as has been suggested by Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon.
“A blanket policy that Nicola Sturgeon is proposing wouldn’t necessarily be as effective as what we are suggesting, and it’s much more doable,” Doneland told BBC Breakfast. The current plan would see arrivals from more than 30 countries on the UK's red list required to quarantine in a government-designated facility for ten days.
Extending the scheme to all arrivals into Scotland is being debated by the Scottish government later today.
Donelan said that the UK government’s policy would continually evolve and that health minister Matt Hancock would announce further details of the hotel quarantine scheme some time this week.
Meanwhile, Labour shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds has said the government’s hotel quarantine policy is “irresponsible”.
He said, “We’re in a race against time and ministers are missing a vital chance to help shut the door on virus mutations that could have a devastating impact on people’s lives and the economy.”
Speaking on Sky News this morning, Thomas-Symonds said, “There should be a comprehensive policy of hotel quarantine for arrivals. The threat now to all the progress that has been made because of the sacrifice of the British people to the vaccine rollout would be for a mutant strain for the virus that emerged from abroad that affected the efficacy of the vaccines. We cannot take that risk.”