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POSTIES and lorry drivers are among the workers who are exempt from new quarantine rules in a bid to keep Britain moving during the pandemic.
The Home Secretary Priti Patel made the announcement in the Commons today as part of wider plans for restrictions for travellers.
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The majority of people arriving in the UK will be told to self-isolate for 14 days to prevent coronavirus cases being introduced from overseas.
Those who breach the self-isolation rules in England will be slapped with a £1,000 fine or face potential prosecution and an unlimited fine.
But some jobs require frequent travel so to keep the economy moving, the Government has eased restrictions for specific jobs to allow them to continue moving smoothly between countries.
These include lorry drivers, pilots and postal workers who’s job it is to transport international mail – see below for the full list of workers.
Who won’t need to quarantine?
YOU won’t need to quarantine when arriving in the UK from abroad if your job is one of the following:
- Road haulage and freight workers
- Medical and care professionals travelling to the UK to provide essential healthcare
- Those travelling to the UK to receive pre-arranged medical treatment
- Travellers in transit passing through an airport in England on their way to another country, as long as they don’t pass through border control
- Anyone arriving from the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands, or the Isle of Man
- Seasonal agricultural workers if they self-isolate at the property where they are working
- UK residents who ordinarily travel overseas at least once a week for work
- Workers with specialist technical skills, such as system operators, then are needed to carry out emergency work
- Merchant pilots and crew
- Seamen and masters
- Postal workers
- Essential workers for the BBC
- Diplomats and consulates
But if you’re not travelling for work and your job isn’t on this list then you will have to make sure that you quarantine for two weeks.
This is because the coronavirus has a two to 14 day incubation period where you may carry the disease but not show any symptoms.
Travellers who will have to quarantine are allowed to take public transport to get to where they will be staying.
Officials have also been given the powers to refuse entry to foreign travellers if they disobey UK authorities.
But removing travellers from the country will be considered “as a last resort” for foreign nationals who refuse to comply with the order to stay at a single residence.
Initially, the rules will only be in place for three weeks before the policy is reviewed and potentially extended.
That means the first review will fall on June 29.
Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are expected to outline their own enforcement action in the coming days.
The plans have been slammed by critics who claim it will cost the UK economy £650million a week and that it could even kill off the travel industry altogether.
As a result, some Tory MPs as well as travel industry chiefs calling for it to be abandoned.
Currently, there are no quarantine rules in place for those arriving in the UK – but they have to stick to the same restrictions in place for Brits to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
The Government has been criticised for not introducing the checks at borders during the height of the pandemic but today the Home Secretary defended the decision.
She said that they would have had a “very marginal” impact on the number of cases in the country.
She added that checks for symptoms of Covid-19 were brought in for passengers arriving from Wuhan on January 22, the whole of China on January 25, Japan on February 8 and Iran on February 25.
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