Introducing testing in airports will avoid 14-day quarantine, says aviation expert

26 July 2020, 09:11

Aviation expert says 14 day isolation wouldn't be needed with testing

An expert in the aviation industry claimed that the UK is missing out on billions because we are quarantining people coming into the country.

Overnight the government announced that there will be a two week quarantine imposed on people arriving in the UK from Spain, after an increase in Covid-19 cases in the Mediterranean country.

Andrew Castle was discussing the news with Paul Charles, an aviation analyst for the PC agency, and he explained how the news will impact the industry. "For many airlines and tour operators this is the news they didn't want to hear at all," Mr Charles said, telling Andrew that many companies were trying to get the bulk of their business done in July and August before a potential second lockdown in Winter.

"The problem now is that this peak period has become a nightmare," Mr Charles said. He revealed to Andrew that there is an alternative to quarantine the government has completely overlooked and is doing serious damage to the economy by missing out.

"You need an alternative to that and that is an effective test and trace systems and testing.

"If they were in place at airports and the testing was world class as it's supposed to be then you wouldn't need to introduce these blanket quarantine measures which smack of panic."

Andrew was baffled by how this hasn't been thought of before and asked Mr Charles "how would that actually work...when a virus has an incubation period of fourteen days."

The aviation expert insisted that "other countries are doing it rather successfully," and noted that Austria, Greece and Iceland are just some of the countries that are testing on arrival which means "you quarantine for 24 hours instead of 14 days."

Mr Charles claimed that government have already begun to trial this but they must work faster. He said that "the government should be putting its money into that instead of the billions that are now going to be wasted and not put in to the UK economy," through people having to stay home for two weeks at a time we are trying to kickstart the economy.

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