"HIGH-VALUE" business travellers, sports stars and performing arts professionals will be exempt from England’s quarantine requirement for international arrivals from tomorrow.
Journalists and TV production staff will also benefit from the new policy announced by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.
Exemptions will be “subject to specific criteria being met”, the Cabinet minister said. These include trips that create or preserve at least 50 UK jobs.
Individuals will only be exempt when undertaking specific business activity and will only be permitted to meet with others as required by that, the Department for Transport (DfT) said in a statement.
Further information will be issued once the new rules come into force at 4am tomorrow.
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The DfT said sectors such as media and elite sport were also selected for exemption from quarantine as they “require specific, high-talent individuals who rely on international connections”.
It added: “PHE [Public Health England] do not anticipate these changes will raise the risk of domestic transmission, due to the protocols being put in place around these exemptions, however all exemptions will remain under review.”
Currently, nearly all people arriving in the UK from destinations not believed to be at low risk of coronavirus are required to self-isolate for 14 days.
The UK Government decision has now sparked a backlash.
Labour MP Richard Burgon was furious: “’High value’ business travellers are going to be exempted from quarantine.
"High value" business travellers are going to be exempted from quarantine.
— Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) December 3, 2020
Absolutely unbelievable.
It really is one rule for the rich and another for everyone else with this government.
“Absolutely unbelievable.
“It really is one rule for the rich and another for everyone else with this government.”
Trisha Greenhalgh, a professor of primary care at Oxford, added: “Have I got this right?
“If you're a UK high value business traveller (= rich person), you get to follow a less stringent set of Covid-19 quarantine rules.
“The virus will be told not to infect you cos you're posh.”
Writer Gavin Esler also questioned how he could get involved. “How does one become a ‘high value’ business traveller? Does it involve marrying a Conservative MP or donating to the party or running a pub near a Cabinet minister’s home?” he wrote on Twitter.
Professor Devi Sridhar (above), who advises the Scottish Government on its Covid-19 response, was also critical – suggesting the public may need to pay for this kind of policy with further lockdowns in the future.
"Paying for summer holidays with winter lockdowns. Will we all be paying for Xmas gatherings & 'elite'/high-value open travel too into 2021?"
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