UK refuses to exclude mariners from new quarantine regulations
All travellers entering Britain from “red list” countries after 15th February will be required to quarantine for 10 days.
The UK’s Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, has announced that all travellers entering the UK after 15th February will need to place themselves in quarantine for 10 days in specially designated hotels.
Those affected have to meet the costs themselves, with an online “quarantine package” costing up to £1,750 per person. The package which includes room, board, transport, and testing has to be booked before any travel is undertaken.
The new measures have been brought into place to help combat emerging strains of the Coronavirus, but so far Westminster has refused to rule out applying the new rules to UK-resident seafarers, even after intense lobbying by mariners’ rights groups and the seafarers’ union, Nautilus International.
Nautilus general secretary, Mark Dickinson, said: “Dismayed that the government had not followed its own policy of recognising the essential role that seafarers play in keeping supply chains open. Quite how the UK expects other countries to respect our seafarers as key workers is beyond me.”
