Extra Covid tests for passengers returning to the UK condemned

Extra Covid tests for passengers returning to the UK have been condemned by the travel industry.

The controversial reintroduction of pre-departure coronavirus tests comes into force on Tuesday, December 7. Before heading home travellers will have to provide a negative result.

Brits abroad are expected to be scrambling to get hold of a test to allow them to head home. A government adviser has said that the new measures could be “a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.”

Paul Charles is a travel expert. He has spoken out regarding Brits trying to get tests quickly to return home. He commented: “People who are overseas are finding it difficult to obtain tests. It’s a weekend, lots of places are closed and these people had no reason to think about the need to get a test to come home.

“People will effectively be stranded because they can’t get the tests that are now required.”

He went on to add: “Tens of thousands of travel industry jobs are threatened. It is beyond belief that no support measures have been announced. That just indicates how knee-jerk these policies are.”

Speaking to BBC’s Andrew Marr Show Sage adviser Professor Mark Woolhouse explained: “I think that may be a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted”

“If Omicron is here in the UK, and it certainly is, if there’s community transmission in the UK, and it certainly looks that way, then it’s that community transmission that will drive a next wave. It’s too late to make a material difference to the course of the Omicron wave, if we’re going to have one.”

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