Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 8
8
Paragraph: 39
We recognise the difficulties faced by the Government in considering temperature checks, screening or testing...
Conclusion
We recognise the difficulties faced by the Government in considering temperature checks, screening or testing at the border, and we also recognise the limited UK testing capacity at that time. However, given the success of targeted COVID-19 testing on arrivals demonstrated by South Korea during early March, more should have been done to assess the feasibility of such approaches in the UK even if they could not immediately be introduced. The lack of existing testing capacity should not have prevented proper analysis of the options and a strategy to develop and expand testing as part of border measures.
Paragraph Reference:
39
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
The Government has not yet endorsed the use of testing for passengers arriving in the UK as a means to avoid the 14-day self-isolation period. This is due to the long incubation period of the virus, which means there is a significant risk of false negative results when testing asymptomatic people without any isolation period. Measures including temperature screening, health validation forms and medical certificates have been proposed, considered and discounted on the basis that they are not effective or reliable in accurately identifying or rapidly screening for COVID-19. There is no clear single screening measure which could differentiate travellers with COVID-19 likely to transmit diseases within the UK. For example, temperature screening would lead to high ‘false positive’ and ‘false negative’ rates and would not detect those who are asymptomatic, nor those who are symptomatic but do not have a fever (30% of confirmed cases do not have a fever on admission to hospital and occurrence of fever in community patients is often <10%). Furthermore, screening at a single point in time is ineffective, even in those who do have a fever, but may not have one at the time they go through airport security. This is especially the case when paracetamol or other anti-pyretic drugs are used. However, we continue to keep all measures under review, and, as we have done to date, we are working across Government to consider whether testing could form part of future health measures at the border, including reducing the number of days that a traveller would have to self-isolate as announced by the Global Travel Taskforce on 7th October 2020.