Just over a week ago all UK residents and those with residence rights arriving here from the 33 countries included in the UK’s ‘red list’ have been required to quarantine in a government-approved hotel for ten days.
Travellers are required to book a quarantine hotel package prior to their arrival, which costs £1750 and includes accommodation, food and drinks, security and two COVID-19 tests on their 2nd and 8th day.
Days after the UK government announced their quarantine hotel plans in January, travellers raised questions about how the system would work, and what exactly they could expect in the way of food and being allowed to go out to smoke.
London City Airport is part of the scheme but Rising East was unable to get an East London hotel to speak to us so instead we managed to get some details over the phone from the Radisson Blue Edwardian, a 464-room hotel near Heathrow.
The first of the ten days of quarantine is the one after the visitor arrives. Guests will have immediate access to Wi-Fi, TV and TV Bluetooth to watch Netflix, YouTube or any other streaming app.
The COVID tests will take place on the second and eighth day of their stay, and the samples will be taken by medical professionals.
For food and drinks, guests will have a menu to choose from in order to vary their meals during their stay. On their last day they will only be provided breakfast.
For those who smoke, we were told that they can contact reception and security will accompany them outside to make sure they follow quarantine rules. The same arrangement applies to those who need a quick 15-minute walk or fresh air.
Professor Michael Toole from the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, Victoria compared this approach to a strict ‘stay-indoors’ policy in Australia and told the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme: “We’ve learnt that that is a very risky procedure.”
All in all the UK system has proved unpopular with many, as the first two posts below show. On Twitter the End Quarantine Hotels hashtag only has 86 followwr,s but sees the hotels as prisons.
The post below echoes a lot of the criticism onliine which argues that quarantining away from home is inhumane.
But many think quarantine is the safest option, and that the cost of it is the fault of the traveller, for deciding to travel!
What’s possible is that the government does not see the hefty cost of the hotels as an unfourtunate side effect of keeping the nation safe from imported infections, but as a deterrent to stop people tracvlling in the first place.