The Home Secretary is to probe claims made by a passenger who said she walked through Heathrow unchecked after arriving from South Africa.
Sharon Feinstein, who lives in Islington, north London, claims she walked through the terminal following a trip to Johannesburg, where the mutant strain is rife.
Ms Feinstein landed yesterday after visiting her mother, and had documents to prove she’d had a negative test result – but claims she was ushered through passport control.
Matt Hancock told the Commons today that Priti Patel ‘is looking into this individual case’.
This comes as it emerged travellers who lie about whether they have been to mutant coronavirus hotspots face up to ten years in prison, under a brutal crackdown unveiled by Matt Hancock today.
In more coronavirus news today, it emerged:
- Matt Hancock says over-70s no longer need to wait for Covid vaccine invite from the NHS and they can book their own jabs online;
- Covid deaths hit a six-week low as UK records 333 more victims and 14,104 infections on Monday;
- Unions push back at plan to extend school summer term by two weeks as Boris Johnson vows to go ‘flat out’ to help children catch up after Covid;
- Coronavirus patients treated with a experimental hepatitis drug were four times more likely to have cleared the infection within seven days, study finds;
- An extra 10,000 people will be tested for Covid in Manchester after four cases of new Kent strain are found in the city;
- Boris Johnson refuses to rule out making lockdown longer if South African variant continues to spread.
Sharon Feinstein, from Islington, north London, claims she walked through Heathrow following a trip to Johannesburg
All international arrivals into the UK will be forced to take two tests as the government is set to implement stricter measures to stop new strains of Covid arriving in the country
Ms Feinstein told the Daily Express: ‘I could have had Covid, they don’t know where I am staying, they didn’t ask.
‘As a country we’re messing up.’
Ms Feinstein said the Covid strain in South Africa was ‘rife’, but travellers were made to have tests after five days and again 14 days after arriving.
She said: ‘Why can a third-world country get it right and we can’t?’
Ms Feinstein, a freelance journalist who is now self-isolating at her home, said it took her 10 minutes to get through airport control.
She told Good Morning Britain today: ‘I was shocked. I fully expected to take around a hour.
‘I had my negative Covid test, I had my passenger locator form, I had various other forms.
‘We were all queuing up, then I was ushered towards the electronic booth.
‘I was literally through there in 10 minutes. Nobody was there. I was looking around for someone to show my test to.’
Yvette Cooper, Labour chairwoman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, said today: ‘Yesterday the Home Secretary told me in Parliament that 100% compliance checks were now taking place at the border.
‘Yet one passenger arriving at Heathrow yesterday from South Africa via Qatar has reported having no checks on her forms or tests and being sent on her way through passport e-gates.’
Responding, Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the Commons: ‘The Home Secretary is looking into this individual case and the measures that we announced today further strengthen the enforcement to make sure that the rules that are currently in place are enforced more strongly and indeed that we have brought in a new system of rules to strengthen the safeguards at our border yet further.’
Meanwhile travellers who lie about whether they have been to mutant coronavirus hotspots face up to ten years in prison, it emerged today.
The Health Secretary said he made ‘no apologies’ for incredibly harsh measures, warning that protecting the UK from variant strains that can potentially evade vaccines is ‘mission critical’ – and hinting they might need to be in place until the Autumn.
He revealed the government is creating a new criminal offence of hiding from the authorities that you have visited one of the countries on the UK’s ‘red list’.
The draconian step came as he confirmed that from Monday all arrivals will have to take three coronavirus tests – one pre-departure and two during their isolation period. Those who fail to get the checks could be hit with thousands of pounds in fines.
Mr Hancock also declared that 4,600 rooms have now been secured by the government from 16 hotels so the ‘quarantine hotel’ system can get up and running as planned on Monday, although the Department of Health refused to name them.
All incomers from ‘red list’ countries must stay in the rooms for 10 days, costing £1,750 each.
Arrivals from dozens of high-risk countries on the ‘red list’ will have to test negative 72 hours before travelling, and then be screened again twice, on day two and day eight.
Failure to stick to the hotel quarantine will be punishable with a fine of up to £10,000, Mr Hancock said.
Meanwhile, all other travellers will also have to show a negative result before coming to the UK, and then face two more tests while isolating at home or in other private accommodation.
However, they should be able to use the existing test and release scheme so they can take escape restrictions five days after arrival.
Mr Hancock said failure to take tests – which must be booked in advance through a government portal – will be punishable with a £1,000 fine on the first occasion, and £2,000 on the second.
And he said people who lie about whether they have been to ‘red list’ countries could be hit with a jail sentence of up to 10 years under a new law.
The maximum punishment puts the offence in a category with some of the most serious, alongside things such as carrying a firearm with intent. Sentences for rape can be shorter than 10 years, although the maximum for that level of crime is life.
The tests required are the ‘gold standard’ PCR variety rather than the quicker and cheaper lateral flow.
Travellers from all countries are already obliged to prove they have tested negative in the previous 72 hours, and isolate for 10 days, but there are concerns about low compliance.
Setting out the new health measures at the border – which will come into force on Monday – Mr Hancock said: ‘The new measures build on the tough action that we’ve already taken.’
He added: ‘Every passenger must demonstrate a negative test result 72 hours before they travel to the UK and every passenger must quarantine for 10 days.
‘Arriving in this country involves a two-week process for all.’
On the 33 red list countries, Mr Hancock continued: ‘But even with these tough measures in place we must strengthen our defences yet further.
‘I appreciate what a significant challenge this is.’
Spelling out the extraordinary new system, Mr Hancock said he made ‘no apologies’ for how tough they are.
‘People who flout these rules are putting us all at risk,’ he said.
‘Passenger carriers will have a duty in law to make sure that passengers have signed up for these new arrangements before they travel, and will be fined if they don’t, and we will be putting in place tough fines for people who don’t comply.
‘This includes a £1,000 penalty for any international arrival who fails to take a mandatory test, a £2,000 penalty for any international arrival who fails to take the second mandatory test, as well as automatically extending their quarantine period to 14 days, and a £5,000 fixed penalty notice – rising to £10,000 – for arrivals who fail to quarantine in a designated hotel.’
He added: ‘Anyone who lies on the passenger locator form and tries to conceal that they’ve been in a country on the red list in the 10 days before arrival here will face a prison sentence of up to 10 years.’
Mr Hancock said the measures will be put into law this week and more resources will be available to enforce them, adding: ‘I make no apologies for the strength of these measures because we’re dealing with one of the strongest threats to our public health that we’ve faced as a nation.’
Mr Hancock said: ‘From Monday, all international arrivals, whether under home quarantine or hotel quarantine, will be required by law to take further PCR tests on day two and day eight of that quarantine.
‘Passengers will have to book these tests through our online booking portal before they travel. Anyone planning to travel to the UK from Monday needs to book these tests and the online portal will go live on Thursday.
‘If either of these post-arrival tests comes back positive, they’ll have to quarantine for a further 10 days from the date of the test and will of course be offered any NHS treatment that’s necessary.
‘Any positive test will automatically undergo genomic sequencing to confirm whether they have a variant of concern.’
Mr Hancock said responding to new variants is ‘mission critical’.
He told the Commons: ‘Coronavirus, just like flu and all other viruses, mutates over time and so responding to new variants as soon as they arise is mission critical to protect ourselves for the long term.’
Outlining the Government’s four-part strategy to do this, Mr Hancock said: ‘First, the lower the case numbers here, the fewer new variants we get – so the work to lower case numbers domestically is crucial.
‘Second, as I set out to the House last week, is enhanced contact tracing, surge testing and genomic sequencing.
‘Third is the work on vaccines to tackle variants as set out yesterday by Professor Van-Tam.
‘And fourth, health protection at the border to increase our security against new variants of concern arriving from abroad.’
Travel from ‘red list’ countries to the UK is already banned for everyone apart from Britons and a few other exceptions.
And Mr Hancock said that those arriving from those 33 countries – and potentially more in future if the roster expands – will now have to quarantine in an assigned hotel room.
He told the Commons: ‘We’re setting up a new system of hotel quarantine for UK and Irish residents who’ve been in red list countries in the last 10 days.
‘In short, this means that any returning residents from these countries will have to quarantine in an assigned hotel room for 10 days from the time of arrival.
‘Before they travel, they’ll have to book through an online platform and pay for a quarantine package costing £1,750 for an individual travelling alone which includes the hotel, transport and testing.
This booking system will go live on Thursday when we’ll also publish the full detailed guidance.
‘Passengers will only be able to enter the UK through a small number of ports that currently account for the vast majority of passenger arrivals.
‘When they arrive, they’ll be escorted to a designated hotel which will be closed to guests who aren’t quarantining, for 10 days or for longer if they test positive for Covid-19 during their stay.
‘We’ve contracted 16 hotels for an initial 4,600 rooms and we will secure more as they are needed.
‘People will need to remain in their rooms and of course will not be allowed to mix with other guests and there will be visible security in place to ensure compliance alongside necessary support, so even as we protect public health we can look after the people in our care.’
A deserted Terminal 5 as the aviation industry continues to be badly hit by the Covid crisis
The ‘more elaborate’ your summer holiday plans, the more likely that you will have to CANCEL them, Prof Van Tam warns Britons
By Katie Feehan for MailOnline
England’s deputy chief medical officer has warned against organising elaborate holidays this year as it is still too soon to say when restrictions will be relaxed.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam was asked about holidays and said he could not give a proper answer as the data is not yet available.
Speaking at the No 10 news briefing, he explained: ‘The more elaborate your plans are for summer holidays, in terms of crossing borders, in terms of household mixing, given where we are now, I think we just have to say the more you are stepping into making guesses about the unknown. I can’t give people a proper answer at this point because we don’t yet have the data. It’s just too early.’
He said any easing of lockdown restrictions in England would have to take place ‘gradually’ and that contemplating what will happen in summer is stepping into the realm of a guessing game.
Prof Van-Tam also added: ‘Public health counter measures, non-pharmaceutical interventions, social distancing restrictions, they will have to be released gradually.
‘How quickly they can be released will depend upon three things – the virus, the vaccine and the extent to which the public obey the rules that are in place, which thankfully the vast majority always do.’
Prof Van-Tam added: ‘The key with this coronavirus is again through vaccination, to take the whole curve and shift it to the left, so the vast majority of the illness is an illness that is manageable in the community – as opposed to causing enormous pressure on our hospitals.
‘And we can do that through vaccination, and if we do that we open up a whole way of living normally – much more normally – again in the future.’
It comes as Department of Health figures show another 333 Covid victims were recorded today, the lowest 24-hour toll since December 27 and a drop of 18 per cent on the 406 last Monday.
Another 14,104 infections were also added to the official tally. The daily figure has dropped by a quarter week-on-week, with today’s number lower than at any time since December 8.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer for England, has warned Britons against making elaborate holiday plans as it is too soon to tell what will be allowed this year
Professor Van Tam said restrictions on crossing borders and mixing households could still be in place this summer as he said it is too soon to advise Britain on summer holiday possibilities
Meanwhile, Matt Hancock said that all over-70s in England who haven’t yet had a Covid vaccine should book their own online.
The Health Secretary last night trumpeted the success of the roll-out so far, confirming the NHS is on track to hit its target of immunising the 15million most vulnerable Brits by next Monday.
Almost 12.5million people have already received their first dose of vaccine and the health service is administering 450,000 every day, on average, putting the country well on track to hit the milestone next Monday.
Previously, over-70s were told to wait until they were contacted — through a letter, email, text or phone call — to ensure all over-80s, care home residents and patients with serious underlying health conditions had first access.
People in that age group can now schedule an appointment using the NHS booking service or those unable to get online can phone 119.
Mr Hancock said take-up of the vaccines has so far been ‘significantly better than we hoped for’, claiming it has hit a staggering 95 per cent in people in their late 70s, 91 per cent of over-80s and almost three quarters of people in their early 70s. He said the Government had been expecting approximately 75 per cent.
Analysis shows infection rates are lower than at any time since before Christmas in all four nations of the UK.
While the big picture shows infections are falling in most parts of the country, the decline is slow and positive tests were still rising in 17 areas in the week ending February 3.
One of those areas was Rutland in the Midlands, where new infections more than doubled from 180 per 100,000 people to 386.
And in another glimmer of hope that Britain could be freed from lockdown restrictions within weeks, another 278,988 people got their first dose of a vaccine yesterday.
Despite being one of the slowest days of the rollout so far, it means 12.3million Britons have now been immunised.
Meanwhile, Britain’s hotel quarantine scheme came under fresh criticism on Sunday when it emerged 35 countries where mutant coronavirus strains have been found are not on the list.
Last week, the Government confirmed that all passengers from 33 ‘red list’ countries would have to quarantine for ten days in a hotel from February 15.
But an analysis carried out by the World Health Organisation has found dozens of countries where the highly-infectious South African and Brazilian variants have been found are not on the list.
They include Austria, Denmark, France, Greece, Japan, Kenya, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada and the United States.
Labour Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds reacted with fury at the news, branding the Government’s quarantine measures ‘dangerously inadequate’.
Scientists also said the oversight was ‘not good enough’, adding that the virus ‘spreads like wildfire’.
The WHO analysis, which was reported by the Sunday Times, also found that the Brazilian Covid strain has been found in ten nations, six of which have not been added to the UK red list.
As well as South Africa and Brazil, nations which are also on the list include Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Rwanda and Botswana.
But of the 41 countries which the WHO’s report said the South African strain had spread to, 29 of them do not feature on Britain’s red list.
Overall, it means arrivals from 35 counties were more infectious strains which could beat or limit the effect of the available coronavirus vaccines will be free to avoid the hotel scheme when they land in Britain.
Instead, they will be trusted to quarantine at home for ten days.
In other news, thousands more people in Manchester will be tested for coronavirus after four new cases of the Kent variant were detected there.
‘Surge testing’ has been ordered in several areas to tackle the South African and Kent variant of coronavirus
A local resident hands over their completed coronavirus test kit as part of surge testing for the South African variant of Covid-19, in West Ealing, west London
Some 10,000 extra tests will be rolled out in the region from Tuesday, after four people from two unconnected households were found to be infected with the mutation, Manchester City Council has said.
This follows similar surges in testing in Worcestershire WR3, an area in Sefton PR9, and areas in Bristol and South Gloucestershire, after variants were found in these locations.
Extra testing sites will be set up, and volunteers will be offering doorstep swabs to anyone aged over 16 who is living, working or studying in the affected areas – which includes postcodes in Hulme, Moss Side, Whalley Range and Fallowfield.
Those who have been vaccinated should also take a test, the council has said.
The rollout will use PCR swabs, which take a few days to return results, and anyone who tests positive will be asked to self-isolate and pass on details of their contacts to NHS Test and Trace.
Manchester City Council said it is working with Public Health England and NHS Test and Trace to investigate the spread further and take action to limit the number of people exposed.
David Regan, public health director at Manchester City Council, said: ‘We all know that the virus will change over time and it’s important that we investigate new strains to understand how they might spread.
‘This is exactly what we’re doing with the intensive testing in parts of Manchester, with local testing units and people going door to door to offer people tests.’
Those living or working in postcodes M14 4, M14 7, M15 5, M15 6, M16 7, M16 8 should check the council’s website for more information.
Last Tuesday, extra coronavirus testing was deployed into certain neighbourhoods in Woking in Surrey, Walsall in the West Midlands, as well as parts of London, Kent, Hertfordshire and Lancashire.
A few days later, ‘surge testing’ was also announced in Worcestershire.
Over the weekend, a million people in the North West of England were told to take a Covid test if they have a runny nose, as part of a clampdown on a mutated virus detected in the region.
Residents in the Liverpool city region, Preston and Lancashire were urged by health bosses to get swabbed if they have even the slightest suspicion they are ill.
It comes after more than 40 cases of an altered strain of the original virus, which carries a mutation experts fear makes vaccines less potent, was spotted in the three areas.
Despite the frantic bid to try and stop the mutated variants spreading in Britain, scientists have warned the cases identified so far are likely just the ‘tip of the iceberg’.
Door-to-door and mobile testing began in Britain at the start of the month as part of urgent efforts to swab 80,000 people.
This came after 11 cases of the variant were identified in people who had no links to travel – suggesting it may be spreading in communities.