Labour has called on the Government to reintroduce pre-departure
Covid tests for anyone travelling to the UK.
In a letter to the Home Secretary and Health Secretary, MP, Shadow Home Secretary,
and , Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary, have
urged the Government to strengthen Covid border measures in
response to the new Omicron Covid variant.
The letter states:
“Currently it is possible for people to travel to the UK on
crowded planes, stand in crowded departure halls, get on crowded
tubes, buses and trains home to rejoin family or housemates
without taking a test at any point along the way - not even a
lateral flow test at the airport before they get on a plane.
“Given that more than a million people travel through our
airports into the UK each week, in the week since Omicron was
identified, large numbers of people will have arrived without
even being tested before they travelled. Given that Omicron has
now been identified in 19 different countries, this basic testing
is an urgent requirement.
“We urge you to undertake a full review of all the border Covid
measures and to ensure that strong action is taken at the border
now to contain the spread of Omicron while scientists learn more
about the threat it poses.”
Ends
Full text of the letter
Dear Secretaries of State,
We are writing to urge you to immediately strengthen Covid border
measures to contain the importation and spread of the Omicron
variant in the UK, and in particular to immediately re-introduce
pre-departure Covid tests for anyone travelling to the UK.
You have rightly said that it is important to prevent more cases
of Omicron arriving in the country on a precautionary basis. It
is therefore very welcome that the Government has introduced
travel restrictions from countries in Southern Africa, and
re-instated Day 2 PCR tests.
However this is wholly insufficient to identify or prevent
growing numbers of arriving cases of Omicron spreading in the
community. We are extremely worried that there are currently
major gaps in the Government’s Covid surveillance arrangements at
our borders that mean it is easier for Omicron to spread in the
UK, and we are urging the Government to urgently learn the
lessons from the previous waves of the pandemic to ensure the
same mistakes are not made again.
Currently it is possible for people to travel to the UK on
crowded planes, stand in crowded departure halls, get on crowded
tubes, buses and trains home to rejoin family or housemates
without taking a test at any point along the way - not even a
lateral flow test at the airport before they get on a plane.
Even once they take their Day 2 PCR test, the result may not be
available until day 3 or day 4. The Government has not yet said
how many of the PCR travel test labs can detect the relevant S
gene, and sequencing can take several more days to identify an
Omicron case.
As a consequence, by the time an Omicron case is identified, all
the other people that person was travelling with have also spread
across the country, potentially spreading the new variant too.
The Government does still require unvaccinated passengers to take
a Covid test before travelling to the UK. However, given that the
Chief Medical Officer warned last week that, due to mutations on
the Omicron variant’s spike gene, there is a reasonable chance of
at least some level of vaccine escape, all incoming travellers
should be required to take a pre-departure test regardless of
their vaccine status.
Given that more than a million people travel through our airports
into the UK each week, in the week since Omicron was identified,
large numbers of people will have arrived without even being
tested before they travelled. Given that Omicron has now been
identified in 19 different countries, this basic testing is an
urgent requirement.
As you will be aware in the first Covid wave in Spring 2020, the
pandemic accelerated rapidly as a result of the number of new
cases arriving in the UK. It is estimated that up to 10,000 cases
arrived in the UK from Spain, France and Italy in early March
2020, rapidly accelerating the pace and scale of the pandemic.
Sir Patrick Valance said last year: “early in March the UK got
many, many different imports of virus from many different
countries…. there was a very rapid escalation of numbers in
March, partly for the reasons I’ve just described and the
doubling time suddenly became very much quicker.”
Similarly the initial Delta wave of the pandemic last spring
accelerated because of the sheer number of new cases arriving. Dr
Jeffrey Barrett said in June that “the UK got the intensity of
importation over a period of a few weeks that set us on this
trajectory”.
Both times, the Government failed to prevent substantial numbers
of new cases arriving in the country and accelerating the
pandemic. We urge you to learn the lessons from those failures
and to take a much more rigorous and vigilant approach this time.
We urge you to undertake a full review of all the border Covid
measures and to ensure that strong action is taken at the border
now to contain the spread of Omicron while scientists learn more
about the threat it poses. The Government has had 18 month to
learn these lessons. It must not repeat the same mistakes again.
Yours sincerely,
MP
Shadow Home
Secretary
Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
