The United Kingdom to belatedly quarantine international arrivals over coronavirus

Currently international arrivals at UK airports can just enter the country without any coronavirus-related health checks

After repeated accusations the government has been mishandling the coronavirus crisis, finally senior Tory leaders appear to be heeding public concerns.

One of the main accusations thrown at the government is that it has failed to properly screen arrivals at British airports.

But the government is apparently considering tougher measures at ports of entry to the UK, including adopting the international standard of forcing arrivals to self-quarantine for two weeks.

The plans have been tentatively confirmed by stand-in Prime Minister, Dominic Raab, whose main job is foreign secretary.

Speaking on Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday program, Raab appeared to confirm contents of a report in the Sunday Telegraph that all travelers coming into the UK will be obliged to fill out a landing card with details about their health, as well as the address they will self-isolate at.   

However, despite appearing to be adopting a new policy, Raab still denied that the current lack of temperature checks, or telling people to quarantine when they arrive into Britain, was problematic because the virus is “already spreading so much across the country”.

"The advice so far is that it would make almost no impact on the spread of the virus because of the decrease in the number of people travelling and the fact that the transmission rate within the UK is high”, Raab added.

Raab’s conflicting statements on this important issue is unlikely to assuage the government’s critics who have consistently accused Boris Johnson’s Tory administration of mismanaging the crisis.