Covid: Tougher quarantine rules for travellers arriving in Scotland
- Published
Tougher quarantine restrictions will be extended to all travellers arriving directly into Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced.
The four UK nations have already agreed that people arriving from high risk countries on a "red list", external will have to quarantine in hotels.
But Ms Sturgeon said the measure "does not go far enough".
The Scottish government now plans to introduce a "much more comprehensive" approach to "managed quarantine".
"I can therefore confirm today that we intend to introduce a managed quarantine requirement for anyone who arrives directly into Scotland, regardless of which country they have come from," she said.
More details on how and when the changes to quarantine would come into effect would be set out and put into operation as soon as possible.
The first minister said the stricter rules were to "guard against" the importation of new variants.
She said that the approach agreed across the UK only included countries where new variants had already been identified.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said more details would be announced soon
Ms Sturgeon said this was "too reactive" because a new variant will often have spread across borders by the time it has been identified through genomic sequencing.
While the Scottish government cannot "unilaterally" implement managed quarantine for people arriving in other parts of the UK before travelling to Scotland, it will urge the UK government to adopt the stricter approach.
"If they do not wish to do so... we will ask them to work with us to reduce the risk amongst people travelling to Scotland via ports elsewhere in the UK," she said.
Ms Sturgeon told MSPs that Covid had almost been eliminated in Scotland last summer - before it was "re-seeded from overseas travel".
Asked about strengthening checks on those travelling between Scotland and England, Ms Sturgeon said she would continue to speak to Police Scotland about enforcement.
All overseas travellers - including British nationals - are already expected self-isolate for 10 days upon arrival in the UK, even with a recent negative test result.
The UK has now placed 33 high-risk countries where new Covid variants have been identified on a so-called "red list".
Plans have been announced to make anyone travelling to England from a red-list country quarantine in a hotel.
Arrivals will be met at the airport or point of entry and taken to the hotel so that self-isolation can be enforced "without exception".
International flights into Scotland have fallen sharply during the pandemic. For example, the only overseas flights landing in Scotland on Wednesday are from Norway to Aberdeen.
Today's new rules make it almost impossible to fly from Scotland for a foreign holiday or for any other reason, without facing quarantine on your return.
And very tight restrictions now apply to anyone coming here from abroad.
This clampdown makes life even tougher for Scotland's airports and travel industry, which are reeling after almost a year of disruption. Nicola Sturgeon said she'd work with the UK government to give them the support they need.
How long will this last? Will foreign holidays be impossible this summer?
That's unclear. But the first minister said efforts to eliminate Covid here last summer had been thwarted after the virus was "re-seeded [in Scotland] from overseas travel".
So what's crystal clear is she wants to avoid a wave of foreign holidays this summer causing another wave of Covid and lockdown in the autumn.
A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport said there was an urgent need to reach agreement on how the aviation industry would recover from the pandemic.
"We still don't know how this is expected to work, when it is being enacted and what it means for airports and our industry, so yet again we ask the Scottish government to talk to us," he said.
"We understand restrictions are required but we're now coming up for a year of little to no passengers without direct industry support."
Derek Provan, chief executive of AGS Airports, which includes Glasgow Airport, said it was the third significant announcement which had been made on travel restrictions in as many weeks without any consultation.
"We understand the need for short-term emergency measures, and we all want to see this virus brought under control as quickly as possible," he said.
"However, it's imperative government engages with industry on developing a recovery plan."
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