After discussing this on Facebook recently, I was disappointed to see that it looks like government policy will soon be to quarantine anyone who flies into the UK. To me, this is an example of muddled thinking and may actually be counterproductive.
There is, or rather was, a time when this may have made sense. Britain is an island. If the UK had no COVID-19 present, then taking extreme steps to prevent its arrival would be helpful. Had the government done this back in, say, early Feburary then perhaps we would be having a different discussion.
Instead we are now in a position where the UK is amongst the most affected nations in the world (though I accept the data issues). And this is nub of the matter. Say we pick a random person in the UK and a random visitor from the rest of the world. Then, unless that person is from Belgium, Spain or Italy, the odds are the person in the UK is more likely to have the virus. Actually, given the person is well enough to travel and is probably a bit better off, the odds are likely to be much better for the visitor.
So what’s the point of quarantining?
I have no good answer to this. It won’t keep the virus out of the country. COVID-19 is here, and will be endemic for some time. Even if someone arrives with it, they step into our current social distancing arrangements and the population isn’t really worse off than it was before. To my mind, it only makes sense if we get close to eliminating COVID-19 from the UK. Without that, this measure will not save lives or even flatten the curve.
The reasoning must be political. The government is seen to be doing something. It plays to people’s prejudices, the fear of foreigners. It diverts from any issues over their handling of it. And, to me, this is the problem.
This will not save lives, but by seeming to be doing something it may distract from the real measures that need to be done. Like sorting out testing. And ensuring adequate PPE for everyone who needs it.
Even worse, it has obvious downsides. Airlines are struggling. Airports are struggling. We need to sort out how to make these safe for travellers. But this action doesn’t help – it just puts up a bigger barrier and aggravates their problems. Moreover, it hurts other businesses. The loss of air freight capacity is problematic. Video conferencing can’t replace all travel. Returning to normal means getting air travel back.
It may also stoke fear of foreigners and encourage other countries to raise barriers too. To my mind this sounds like saying “social distancing is fine for us Brits, but Johnny Foreigner needs quarantined”. Its rubbish of course, but it feeds the trolls. These may be second order effects, but doesn’t mean they should be ignored.
The open question
Public transport as a whole has a big issue. Trains, boats, planes, buses: it is hard to socially distance on any of them unless they are run at well under capacity. Until this is sorted out there is a risk on any of them. Unlike the others, planes at least have filters that improve air quality. WHO suggest the chances of transmitting something airborne on a plane is remote. Most of the others can’t claim that.
To my mind, if you are going to enforce quarantine after air travel, then you should enforce it for using the others too. And that isn’t going to happen!