A 14-DAY SELF-ISOLATION ON ARRIVAL

The UK government has announced new measures at its borders to guard against imported cases of the coronavirus infections as the transmission rate in the country falls, and the number of travelers arriving in the UK begins to increase in the coming months.

While passengers arriving in the UK will be required to self-isolate for 14 days, the government has moved further to provide a very limited exemption list for travelers who qualify as “critical” workers.

The data infrastructure sector in the UK did not just appear on the exemption list but had 3 items dedicated to the services offered by its workers which include the following:

  • a person involved in essential maintenance and repair of data infrastructure required to reduce and resolve outages, or in the provision of goods and services to support these activities
  • an information technology or telecommunications professional whose expertise is required to provide an essential or emergency response to threats and incidents relating to the security of any network and information system and ensure the continued operation of any network and information system
  • a person who is engaged in urgent or essential work on electronic communications networks

“The scientific advice so far has been clear: while there has been significant community transmission of the virus within the UK the impact of putting in place additional border restrictions would have been negligible to the spread of the virus,” said Professor John Aston, Home Office Chief Scientific Adviser.

 “However, the spread of the virus within the UK is now lessening. We have been successful in getting the reproduction number R – the average number of new people infected by one infected person – below 1. As the number of infections within the UK drops, we must now manage the risk of transmissions being reintroduced from elsewhere.”

On a general note, all arriving passengers will be required to fill the Contact locator form to provide contact and travel information to public health authorities, so that they can be contacted if they, or someone they may have been in contact with is infected with the coronavirus.

The UK government further announced that the new border regulations are due to come into effect on 8 June.