Quarantine Hotels – An Overview of the British and Australian Systems

As of February 15th 2021, all international arrivals to Scotland are required to pay £1,750 and go into 10 days of quarantine in a hotel. The situation in the rest of the UK is similar but not quite so strict, with passengers required to quarantine at their own cost only if they have arrived from 33 ‘red list’ countries, mainly comprising of South American and African countries, though Portugal is included too. Passengers arriving in England (there are currently no direct international flights operating into Northern Ireland or Wales) from other countries not on the ‘red list’ still need to quarantine for 10 days but can do so from home. The concept of a quarantine hotel is nothing new, indeed the Australian government have been implementing a similar policy since late March 2020 – but it is new to Europe. Countries across Asia, such as Hong Kong, China and India have already implemented similar policies, with Hong Kong even requiring a 21 day quarantine period in a hotel. But what does the Australian system, lauded by many as one of the best quarantine programmes in place, actually look like and how would the British system differ?

While at first government funded, Australia began charging travellers in July last year. Their quarantine packages generally cost around $3000 which is roughly equivalent to £1,680. As in Britain, proof of a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of departure is required, however, unlike the new British system, one must quarantine for at least 14 days, rather than 10 and is tested on day two and day 12 of the stay.  In New South Wales, they are currently considering making tests on day 16 obligatory. In the past cases have occurred where passengers tested positive after the quarantine period was over, suggesting that transmission within the hotel programme is taking place. Staff in Victoria are now tested every day, including bus drivers who transport passengers from the airports to hotels after several incidences of COVID-19 leaking into the wider population through staff who were unknowingly infected.

When discussing the British policy, the first thing to be noted is that English rules differ from other parts of the UK, such as in Scotland where the test to release scheme for a test on day five does not apply and all international arrivals are required to quarantine in a hotel. As in Australia, passengers arriving in any part of the UK must show proof of a negative test taken within 72 hours of departure and all travellers must fill in their passenger locator form and self-isolate for 10 days. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, whether your self-isolation takes place at home or in a quarantine hotel depends on where you have arrived from.

Owing to the fact that the British quarantine is shorter than the Australian quarantine, travellers (both at home and in hotels) are required to get tested on day two and day eight, as opposed to day 12. If you are in a quarantine hotel, this is included in the sum of £1,750 but if you are self-isolating at home then you are required to pay the £210 fee. If you test positive you then have to continue self-isolating for another 10 days at home. For those quarantining in hotels a positive test would mean a further charge of £152 per day for ten days which effectively means another charge of £1,520. The government has commissioned 4,600 hotel rooms in England for the use of the 11-night quarantine programme. Travellers are escorted to their respective hotel rooms and are not allowed to leave their rooms for 10 days, except fresh air and limited exercise but not to smoke, and only with pre-arranged permission from security.

Travellers arriving into Scotland or from a ‘red list’ country into England must have a negative test and a pre-arranged quarantine package, as well as a passenger locator form stating where you have been. Failing to do so will result in a fine which could amount to as much as £10,000 plus the cost of the quarantine itself. Being untruthful on a passenger locator form is also a finable and imprisonable offense. In addition to this, ‘red list’ passengers have been warned by Heathrow that long queues at the border and flight cancellations should be expected, while all non-British nationals from the ‘red list’ countries have been refused entry.

The Scottish aspect of the policy does however contain a rather large loophole. While all international arrivals to Scotland are required purchase a quarantine package, you are not required to self-isolate when arriving from the rest of the Common Travel Area. The result is that if you arrive first into England from a country which is not on the ‘red list’, you are allowed to travel up to Scotland and quarantine at home instead, following the English policy rather than Scotland’s blanket quarantine. This is just one reason that the Labour Party opposition has said that the new policy, while welcome, is not comprehensive enough for the effective prevention of imported COVID-19 cases.

While stricter than the English policy, the Australian system has been by no means fool-proof, although it has been hailed as ‘world class’. Transmission of the virus to hotel staff lead to an outbreak in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne, Victoria, with the latter requiring a severe lockdown of several months. Several states have banned employees from working second jobs after it was discovered that some personnel were working both in quarantine hotels and in care homes. Another aspect of the Australian system which has proven to be unpopular is the limit states have put on the number of passengers who may enter the country. This has left 40,000 Australians unable to return home. In addition to this, Australian nationals are forbidden from leaving the country without permission and foreigners are refused entry, without a specific dispensation acquired in advance.

Lawyers for the firm PGMBM are launching a case against the new quarantine policy in Britain, stating that it contravenes Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 5, which focuses on a person’s right to liberty and security, does allow for the detention of people for the prevention of spreading infectious disease but the firm argues that the detention of passengers who have shown no evidence of illness is unlawful. They have put a team together to “take a stand and ensure that the government, which has shown scant regard for parliamentary scrutiny of COVID-19 legislation and regulations, is held to account.”  

Quarantine is an unfortunate though necessary fact of life in these times. As we can see by looking to the Antipodes, a strict adherence to quarantine is very effective in reducing coronavirus cases and yet it remains a flawed and costly system. As Europe suffers under a second wave of lockdowns, travelling without a pressing reason is in many countries illegal. There are people who left the Britain in December, long before this policy was introduced, who were waiting on flights which were repeatedly cancelled and who now cannot come back. The cost of the quarantine hotels is prohibitive and much like the 40,000 Australians stranded across the globe there are now Britons all over the world who are unable to afford the costs of returning to a country where they are legally resident and to a nation of which they are a citizen.

Image courtesy of MX. Granger via Wikimedia. Public Domain, 2020.