Wales 'actively considering' quarantine restrictions for UK areas with high coronavirus rates

"We’re having to consider how we use our power to protect lower-prevalence areas of Wales"
Imogen Braddick5 October 2020

The Welsh Government is "actively considering" imposing quarantine restrictions on people travelling into Wales from areas of the UK with high levels of coronavirus.

First Minister Mark Drakeford had previously called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to introduce travel restrictions for people in areas of England under local lockdown.

In Wales, people must not enter or leave an area subjected to such restrictions without a reasonable excuse – which does not include travelling for a holiday.

Health Minister Vaughan Gething told a press conference on Monday: "We’re actively considering what we should do and I’ve discussed it this morning with the First Minister.

"We have quarantine regulations for international travel.

"So for some of the hotspot areas in the north of England, the North East and North West, and the West Midlands, if they were other countries or territories, we would have quarantine regulations for them to return to the UK.”

Mr Gething said any potential quarantine restrictions would apply to people from "high incidence areas across the UK".

"We’re having to consider how we use our power to protect lower-prevalence areas of Wales but at the same time, we don’t want to take a whole-nation approach,” Mr Gething said.

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"There’s no good reason to prevent someone from Devon, at this point in time, coming to visit a pre-booked holiday or trip to Pembrokeshire.

"So we are thinking about how we use something that is proportionate and deals with the reality of the threat that we face."

Mr Gething said the Welsh Government will need to take advice from scientific and medical advisers, before considering whether "this is the right course of action".

"Because the measures we’ve introduced in Wales are about isolating areas with a higher prevalence of coronavirus and protecting lower prevalence areas too," he said.

"It’s consistent with the approach that all four UK nations have taken to international travel and quarantine restrictions, where we recognise that higher prevalence areas in other parts of the world represent a risk to coronavirus being reimported or having an opportunity to spread further within the UK."

Mr Gething said it was "disappointing" that the Prime Minister had not responded to a letter from Mr Drakeford asking for travel restrictions to apply to areas of England under local lockdown.

In an interview with BBC Wales, Mr Johnson said he did not want to impose such restrictions within the UK.

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