The Liberal Party believes steps to reduce and delay the spread of coronavirus variants should be taken in a proportionate way.
We note that Italy has introduced testing and quarantine measures for visitors from China. Almost half of the arrivals to Milan on Monday this week, tested positive for COVID-19.
As China is soon to relax overseas travel restrictions, we believe that the UK Government should immediately introduce testing and quarantine measures for visits from China and Hong Kong (or insist on negative pre-departure testing).
A review in a month’s time can analyse the infection rate data from visitors from China and Hong Kong. This would be comparable to measures already taken by India, Italy, and the USA.
Not to do so would ignore the unique surge of COVID-19 infections in China and leave the UK vulnerable to unknown strains of the coronavirus.
Practically it would be impossible to test all those arrivals and ensure quarantine measures followed.
Cllr Steve Radford
Leader of The Liberal Party