The possibility of the UK imposing COVID-19 checks on visitors from China is still “under review,” a senior Cabinet minister has said.
Asked about the government’s position on the issue, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said on Dec. 29: “The government is looking at that, it’s under review.”
He noted that the UK authorities had “noticed” the new restrictions imposed by countries such as the United States and India following the COVID-19 surge in China.
He added: “I think the Department of Transport will take medical advice, talk to the Department of Health and they’ll come to some decisions depending on what we see coming out of China, but at the moment it’s under review.”
Health minister Will Quince later reiterated the same, adding the “key threat” will be whether there is any new COVID-19 variant from China and “there’s no evidence at this point” of one.
He said that Health Secretary Steve Barclay had me with the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency and the chief medical officer, and that “it’s being taken incredibly seriously by the government.”
The UK government appears to have backtracked on its earlier suggestion that travellers from China will not be screened for the virus.
Entry Curbs
The curbs were in response to the massive COVID-19 wave sweeping the country on the heels of the Chinese regime’s abrupt lifting of stringent zero-COVID restrictions earlier this month without adequate preparation.The U.S. government announced on Dec. 28 that, starting on Jan. 5, all travellers from China will be required to take a COVID-19 test no more than two days before travel and provide a negative test before getting on their flight.
U.S. officials said that the Chinese regime’s lack of transparency during the current outbreak was a key factor for the imposition of the new travel restrictions.
The U.S. entry curbs followed in the footsteps of China’s neighboring nations and regions such as India, Malaysia, Japan, and Taiwan.
Italy and Spain have also made COVID-19 testing mandatory for people arriving from China.
Mixed Opinions
British politicians and scientists have expressed different views on whether similar restrictions should be adopted in the UK.Former health ministers Lord Bethell and Steve Brine were among those who placed pressure on the government to introduce tests for arrivals from China.
Lord Bethell, who was in post during the pandemic, urged ministers to follow the “sensible” approach of Italy by screening travellers for the virus on arrival.
“What the Italians are doing is post-flight surveillance of arrivals in Italy in order to understand whether there are any emerging variants and … the impact of the virus on the Italian health system,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“That is a sensible thing to do and something the British government should be seriously looking at.”
Former Conservative minister Steve Brine echoed Lord Bethell’s concerns, warning that the National Health Service (NHS) would not be able to cope if travellers from China brought over a new variant.
“Now, let’s just say that lots and lots of Chinese nationals want to come and visit this country with a poor vaccine, they end up getting sick. And then the NHS has frankly got enough on its plate right now without any emergency admissions, which it would of course have to deal with,” he told Times Radio.
But Professor Andrew Pollard, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said that screening China arrivals for COVID-19 is unlikely to prevent new variants from reaching the UK.
“Trying to ban a virus by adjusting what we do with travel has already been shown not to work very well. We have seen that with the bans on travel from various countries during the pandemic,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Dec. 30.
“The important thing is that we have surveillance that when a virus is spreading within our population here in the UK or Europe we are able to pick that up and predict what might happen with the health systems and particularly the more vulnerable in the population.”
