Government brings in security firms to help manage hotel quarantine arrivals
The Government was on Friday forced to bring in security firms to help manage arrivals from "red list" countries in a bid to stop its hotel quarantine plan collapsing into chaos.
Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, held emergency meetings at Heathrow on Friday after being told by the airports that they did not have the staff to take "high risk" passengers from planes to their hotel buses.
"Staff have been furloughed or axed, and the Government did not want us to bring them off furlough," said an airport source. "It was a big ask for staff with no training to deal with high risk or non-compliant passengers. The Government's communication on this to industry has been appalling."
The Department of Health was forced to hire security firms G4S and Mitie with just 36 hours notice as the only companies that had staff with airside passes. "Bringing people in without any training is a recipe for chaos," said a source.
Border Force officials responsible for enforcing the mandatory quarantine have not even been briefed on the basics about how the system will work little more than 48 hours before it begins on Monday, according to their union.
The Immigration Services Union (ISU) said staff had not been told whether they were expected to check for arrivals who had not properly declared their status, or when and how those quarantining would be taken to hotels. "They've had no information at all," said Lucy Moreton, the ISU professional officer.
The Government's quarantine hotel booking website remained down until lunchtime on Friday, 24 hours after crashing. It only came back online after one of the airports, Farnborough, was ditched – leaving English passengers a choice of just Heathrow, Gatwick, London City and Birmingham airports.
The Unite union warned that its members working in quarantine hotels could withdraw their labour unless the Government tightened the rules to prevent them being put at risk of contracting Covid.
It came after a top Australian epidemiologist warned that Britain's hotel quarantine system, which allows self-isolating passengers to leave their rooms for exercise or to smoke, was "very risky".
Prof Mike Toole, the deputy director of Melbourne's Burnet Institute, said such concessions could lead to an outbreak through transmission of the virus via tiny aerosol particles. He added that Australia had learned to restrict all quarantining passengers to their rooms 24/7 after an outbreak when a guest opened their door and a "fog of virus" spread down a corridor and infected hotel staff.
Under the UK rules, passengers will be allowed out of their rooms for exercise or to smoke "with special permission from hotel staff or security". Prof Toole said Britain's lack of daily Covid tests on hotel staff, and their inferior personal protective equipment, increased the risk.
"If improvements are not made immediately, Unite will advise our members of their legal right to withdraw their labour if their health is being placed in immediate danger," said Bryan Simpson, a Unite organiser.
The UK Government is reserving 28,000 hotel rooms for an estimated 1,425 arrivals a day who will have to pay up to £1,750 per person for accommodation, three meals a day, transport and two tests on day two and day eight.
