World / COVID-19 travel rule-breakers could face up to 10 yrs in jail: UK

London: Passengers traveling to England will face tougher quarantine rules, including enforced stays in hotels, repeated tests and even the threat of jail for lying, as authorities seek to get a grip on the coronavirus pandemic.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock outlined details of quarantine restrictions coming into force from Feb. 15 in an attempt to prevent dangerous new virus strains entering the country.

Each traveler arriving in England from 33 nations on the government’s “red list" will be forced to pay as much as 1,750 pounds ($2,410) to isolate in a hotel for 10 days.

The government has signed contracts with 16 hotels near London’s Gatwick and Heathrow airports, and Birmingham in central England, to provide 4,600 rooms so far. More rooms will be booked as needed, Hancock said.

The government is in contact with authorities in Scotland and Ireland, and measures will apply to British and Irish residents returning home from virus hot spots. “We must strengthen our defenses yet further," Hancock said. “People who flout these rules are putting us all at risk."

Under the plans for tighter border rules:

All passengers arriving in England will be required by law to take further coronavirus tests on day 2 and day 8 of their quarantine

Arrivals failing to take tests will face 1,000-pound fines, while those arriving from hot spot countries who breach their hotel quarantine will be fined as much as 10,000 pounds

Anyone caught lying on the passenger forms and trying to conceal they have been in a country on the red list in the 10 days before arrival will face a prison sentence of as long as 10 years

Police and border officials will conduct checks to ensure compliance

The government is taking tougher steps at the border to protect the country’s success at rolling out vaccines faster than almost anywhere else in the world.

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But opposition politicians and others criticized ministers for taking too long to close border loopholes for travelers.

The new policy will come into force almost three weeks after it was announced and the number of hotel rooms secured so far falls well short of the 28,000 reported to be the government’s target.

British officials have spoken to their Australian and New Zealand counterparts for advice about how to quarantine travelers in hotels. Both nations have had mandatory quarantine for months. More than 112,000 people in the U.K. have died from coronavirus, compared with 909 in Australia.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is still resisting a blanket hotel quarantine policy in an effort to minimize disruption to vital supplies and essential travel.

But the Confederation of British Industry lobby group said travel and aviation businesses need more support to help the U.K. economy recover in the months ahead.

“Immediate support is now essential to protect companies and jobs in the aviation sector and its supply chains," said Matthew Fell, chief U.K. policy director at the CBI. “These new quarantine rules and testing requirements are a further reminder of just how challenging the situation is for the international travel sector right now."

In Parliament, Mark Harper, a Conservative former minister, urged Hancock to spell out when the rules will be lifted. Hancock replied that the rules will be replaced “over time" once the population has been vaccinated.