The Government has announced its long awaited border controls in its fight to protect the country from new variants of the Covid virus.
From next Monday, people arriving in England from abroad and need hotel quarantine will need to pay £1,750 per individual for the hotel, transport and testing.
Arrivals will be taken to a designated hotel. The government has contracted with 16 hotels, for 4,600 rooms initially.
They will have to stay in their rooms and will not be allowed to mix with other guests. They will have to quarantine for 10 days, or longer if they test positive.There will be “visible security” in place to ensure people comply.
Anyone arriving in the UK from Monday will need to get PCR tests on days two and eight when they isolate on arrival, in addition to the pre-flight tests already required.They will have to book these tests online on a portal going live on Thursday.And if they test positive, they will have to quarantine for a further 10 days.
People who arrive and fail to take a test will be subject to a £1,000 fine, and a £2,000 fine if they fail to take a second test, he says.People who fail to quarantine in a designated hotel could be fined £10,000.
Alsoanyone who provides false information on a passenger location form, or who lies about having been in a “red list” country 10 days before their arrival in the UK, could face a prison sentence of up to 10 years.
The new international strategy is “one part of the four conditions set out” by Boris Johnson to lift lockdown, the others being the rollout of the vaccine, a fall in hospitalisations and deaths, the Health Secretary said.
“This strategy to tackle the new variants is crucial and the number of cases is factor because it determines the number of new variants,” he adds, urging people to stick to the rules “now so we can all get out”.
The shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth , told MPs that the government’s plans did not go far enough because half the countries where the South African variant has been identified are not included on the “red list
These are the countries currently on the Red List
Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Burundi, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Eswatini, French Guiana, Guyana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Rwanda, Seychelles, South Africa, Suriname, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
