Testing travellers one week after they arrive in the UK could catch 94% of coronavirus cases, says study

Testing travellers a week after they have arrived in the UK could catch 94 per cent of coronavirus cases, according to a new study.

Travellers returning to the UK from Spain now have to self-isolate for two weeks after the Government removed the European country from its safe countries list.

Holidaymakers have questioned the Government's move and leading airline figures are calling on the Prime Minister to consider changes to the new quarantine restrictions.

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) has carried out modelling which shows quarantining people for seven days and then testing them could catch 94 per cent of Covid-19 infections from high risk countries.

The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, used mathematical modelling to simulate different quarantine strategies.

A two week quarantine is still the most effective strategy as it can catch 99 per cent of cases if every traveller follows the rules, the researchers found.

But a period of self-isolation for seven days followed by a negative test could reduce imported infections to between zero and three a week in total, according to the modelling.

Conservative MP David Davis backed calls from Heathrow for the Government to consider swabbing travellers on arrival at airports.

"Heathrow boss is right to call for airport testing to replace hard quarantines," he said. "Vienna has been doing this for months. I don’t understand why we haven’t.

"Nothing is perfect, you are as likely to catch the virus on the London underground back home as you are on the plane or on holiday.

"On a 14 day holiday there is an 80 per cent chance someone infected will manifest symptoms at the airport. If this is the case everyone on the plane should be quarantined. US companies like Cepheid can turnaround a test in 30 minutes."

But experts at LSHTM warned that swabs at airports could see thousands of infected people enter the country unnoticed as it can take a number of days from infection before tests register coronavirus.

Prof Steven Evans, from LSHTM told the BBC people testing negative might need a second test a few days later to be sure they were still negative.

Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Oliver Dowden also addressed the calls to introduce testing at airports.

“The challenge we have here is that it’s not the case you can simply test somebody and be sure that they don’t have the disease," Mr Dowden told BBC Breakfast.

“It can incubate over a period of time, so there’s not a silver bullet of just testing immediately at the border.”

It comes after Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he “cannot rule out” that other countries could be included under the UK’s quarantine measures.

He told reporters on his return to the UK from Spain that the decision to require travellers arriving in the UK from Spain to isolate for 14 days was the “right thing to do”.

He said: “We absolutely have to act the moment we get the information and that’s exactly what happened with Spain as we saw and as we’ve seen over the weekend where there was over 6,100 cases – the highest since the peak in March over there.

“It was the right thing to do and it’s why the whole of the UK did (it) at the same time.

“I can’t therefore rule out other countries having to go into the quarantine as well.”

Read more

Hospital deaths up by 19 as second wave fears mount- LIVE

Which European countries are currently the safest to travel to?

Quarantine 'to be cut to 10 days for travellers returning from Spain'

Shapps to return home from holiday in Spain after air bridge scrapped