Covid travel restrictions are back. From 5 January, every traveller flying from mainland China to England will need to provide a negative test result before being allowed on the plane. It is not clear what kinds of tests will be acceptable, but the previous policy was to allow lateral flow/rapid antigen tests as well as more reliable and expensive PCR tests.
In addition travellers flying direct from China may be selected for a second test on arrival. The government says as many as 20 per cent of arriving passengers will be checked.
The government announced the measures on Friday night – a day after saying there were no plans to reintroduce Covid testing.
What exactly is the government proposing – and why?
Passengers arriving from mainland China, not including Hong Kong, to England from 5 January will need to take a Covid-19 test no more than two days before departure and show the negative result to airline staff at check-in.
Most flights from mainland China currently arrive at London Heathrow (with a weekly Beijing-Manchester flight on Hainan Airlines), but the intention is to apply the restrictions UK-wide.
After they land, passengers may be randomly selected for a second test, “to enhance existing measures to monitor for new variants”.
Since China abandoned its “zero Covid” policy, the virus has spread extremely fast through the People’s Republic. Beijing plans to ease border restrictions next week, allowing more citizens to leave.
The UK government fears the sudden changes increase the risk of a dangerous variant arriving. That concern is shared by Italy, the US, Japan and an increasing number of other countries that have introduced testing requirements.
Weren’t we told that Covid restrictions were over?
Yes. Last March, the-then transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said the UK was “leading the world in removing all remaining Covid travel restrictions” and thereby “keeping international travel moving”.
The government said it would “maintain a range of contingency measures in reserve” but deploy them only “in extreme circumstances” to delay any future harmful variants of Covid entering the UK should the need arise.
On Thursday, the government told me emphatically: “There are no plans to re-introduce Covid testing or additional requirements for arrivals into the UK.”
But now Mark Harper, the transport…
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