HOTEL quarantine for overseas travellers coming into Northern Ireland has been requested by Health Minister Robin Swann to suppress the deadly new Covid strains.
Correspondence seen by The Irish News reveals Mr Swann wrote to the first and deputy first ministers on Sunday seeking the “urgent” creation of a cross-departmental group to “consider options” for “enhanced quarantine” for international arrivals.
Airport hotels where isolation of international visitors is “supervised” are among the suggestions he makes in a bid to reduce the chances of more infectious coronavirus variants from South Africa and Brazil spreading.
Countries including New Zealand and Australia introduced mandatory quarantine measures much earlier in the pandemic – with armed guards on some ‘isolation’hotels – with both countries recording huge success in driving down infection rates and death tolls.
The leaked letter reveals Mr Swann’s concern about previous “reactive” travel bans on certain countries, which he says “cannot be relied upon to stop importation of new variants, due to the lag between the emergence and identification of variants of concern”.
Stormont Executive ministers as well as the attorney general also received a copy of Mr Swann’s letter, which was issued on the day 77 cases of the new South African variant and nine of Brazilian strain were discovered in the UK – with all linked to international travel.
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The minister states: “Given the associated economic, societal, health and wider political implications, I am of the firm view that the Covid-19 taskforce should now urgently move to establish a cross-departmental working group... to consider options for enhanced quarantine for all international travellers into Northern Ireland, including options for quarantine hotels and enhanced monitoring, surveillance and enforcement.
“While no intervention other than a complete, preemptive closure of borders, or the mandatory quarantine of all visitors upon arrival in designated facilities, irrespective of travel history or testing strategy, can get close to fully preventing the importation of cases or new variants, I believe it is incumbent on the executive to urgently explore all options.
”In the Republic last night, a meeting of the Cabinet sub-committee on Covid-19 decided a mandatory quarantine of 14 days will be enforced for international travellers who arrive in the country without a negative PCR test taken in the previous 72-hours.
Passengers from Brazil and South Africa, where new variants of Covid-19 have emerged, will also be subject to quarantine, according to government sources in the Republic.
Further proposals are expected to be signed off at a full meeting of the Cabinet today.
Meanwhile, British prime minister Boris Johnson is also expected to announce a border crackdown today with the introduction of supervised quarantine controls due to the limited impact of existing testing and 10-day self-isolation restrictions.
International travellers currently need a negative Covid-19 test before coming to Northern Ireland.
However, public health experts say single tests at the time of departure don’t go far enough as they fail to detect people incubating the virus.
Mr Swann said any new approach is “highly dependent”on the “level of adherence” to quarantine, isolation and testing protocols.
He added: “There should be consideration of measures such as monitored quarantine [for example airport hotels] which could reduce the risks associated with non-adherence. Hotel quarantine would also reduce the risk of onward transmission within households.”
And he said it should be recognised the controls will help delay the importation of the new variant, rather than “prevent their spread altogether”.
“As I have indicated, any form of intervention in Northern Ireland will have significant cross-cutting societal, economic and political implications which will need to be considered alongside consideration of the impact on our health response to the pandemic on which my officials will continue to provide input.”
