Covid in Scotland: Travellers need to show negative test
- Published
International travellers will soon be required to show a negative Covid test result to get into Scotland.
People arriving by plane, train or boat will have to take a test up to 72 hours before leaving the country they are in.
No start date for the policy has been announced but Nicola Sturgeon has suggested it will come into effect from the end of next week.
The measures will be in addition to quarantine rules and there are some exemptions, such as for hauliers.
Travel to and from other UK nations and Ireland is not affected by the change but is already covered by laws which prevent journeys for all but "essential purposes".
Risks 'particularly acute'
The first minister said the change was coming because "risks of international travel are particularly acute at the moment" with new strains of Covid.
She added: "People travelling to Scotland from overseas will be required to present a negative Covid test result, before they embark upon their journey.
"The tests will require to be highly reliable - in terms of their specificity and sensitivity - and so in practice they are likely to be PCR tests and they will need to be taken, no more than 72 hours before people start travelling to Scotland."
Ms Sturgeon said the tests "are in addition to quarantine requirements" so people travelling to Scotland from countries not on an exemption list will still have to isolate for 10 days after they arrive.
Full details for testing arrivals into Scotland have still to be released but the UK government has announced , externalthat anyone who arrives in England - including UK nationals - and has not got proof of a negative test could face an immediate £500 fine.
But there will be exemptions for:
children under 11
hauliers
those travelling from countries without the infrastructure to deliver tests - although details of those have not been released yet
arrivals from the Common Travel Area with Ireland.
It is likely Scotland will have similar measures.
People arriving by plane, train or boat will have to take a test up to 72 hours before leaving the country they are in
Prof Linda Bauld, of Edinburgh University, said the move to test international arrivals was long overdue as the UK had "really struggled from the beginning" with limiting the impact of international travel on the pandemic.
She said: "Most of us have been looking for this for a while to be frank, we are one of the last countries, certainly in Europe, to actually introduce this."
Ms Bauld added the "principle of supervised quarantine is something we should be actively considering" given the low numbers of spot checks on travellers in quarantine.
Public Health Scotland figures show that 7,528 people arriving in the country were required to quarantine in the week to 3 January, with 2,119 of them then contacted by public health officials.
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