Check-Ing

China tests every airline passenger who arrives there then puts them into 2 weeks’ quarantine.. we don’t in UK

- Tom Parry

Pressure is increasing on the government to introduce stricter checks on airline passengers who continue to arrive in Britain despite a nationwide lockdown.

Yesterday it emerged flights from the worst affected countries such as Italy and Spain are still landing here.

While other countries are forcing arrivals to go into quarantine, Britain is simply requesting those from abroad to follow self-isolation guidelines.

There are no extra restrictions stopping people who could have travelled from the most infected cities in the world from getting straight on to public transport.

In China, where the virus originated, all airline passengers from abroad are put in enforced quarantine, and foreigners have been banned from midnight on Friday.

Even though airlines have cancelled the majority of flights, there were still two direct flights from both of Spain’s biggest cities, Madrid and Barcelona, into London yesterday.

The planes landed as the Covid-19 death toll in Spain rose by a record 838 cases overnight to 6,528. Spain is second to Italy in terms of the number of virus patients who are dying, and the number of cases is still climbing steeply.

On Saturday there were four scheduled f l ights landing at London Heathrow from Rome with the Italian carrier Alitalia.