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Boris Johnson’s government said Friday it would impose a 14-day quarantine on all travelers entering the U.K. beginning June 8, with a system of spot checks and £1,000 fines for people who fail to self-isolate.
U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel detailed the plan during the government’s daily coronavirus briefing, and said the measure was motivated by the risk that imported coronavirus cases might trigger a second wave of the outbreak, which she said would “pose a bigger threat” now that the number of cases within the U.K. is receding.
Patel said that travelers to the United Kingdom would be asked to provide their contact details and travel plans, and added that those who refused would be refused entry. The policy will be reviewed every three weeks, she said.
Travelers from Ireland, which forms a “common travel area” with the U.K., will not have to quarantine. But arrivals from France, who at some point had been rumored to be exempt from the measure, will be subjected to the same restrictions as others, although the French police and border forces will not.
The plan is likely to be met with vocal opposition from travel-related industries, which fear suffering further damage if demand, already compromised by fear of the coronavirus pandemic, is reduced further by the reluctance of tourists and other travelers to stay in quarantine for two weeks on arrival.
Patel said that the government is aware that the plan will be “hard for the leisure and travel sectors” and promised that it would do everything to help these industries resume their activities.
The Confederation of British Industry, the business body, said in a release that “quarantine will have a significant impact across a number of sectors, so it’s welcome that the government will keep the policy under regular review.”
The plans are “idiotic and unimplementable” and “without medical or scientific basis,” the chairman of low-cost budget airline Ryanair RYAAY, -1.09% RYA, +0.23%, Michael O’Leary, said last week after the government first announced that it was working on the measure.
The U.K. joins the list of other governments, from New Zealand to the U.S., that have implemented similar measures, but they remain rare in Europe, where only Spain has a similar system.
However, contrary to other countries that used quarantine as a tool to fight the outbreak, the U.K. is implementing the measure even as it is trying to gradually relax the domestic lockdown on households and businesses.
