UK Covid live: compulsory tests set to be announced for arrivals during quarantine

Good morning. Ministers have been under pressure to toughen up border controls, significantly within the gentle of issues concerning the South African variant of coronavirus, and as we speak Matt Hancock, the well being secretary, is predicted to make an announcement to MPs saying passengers arriving within the UK could have to get examined whereas they’re self-isolating.

The authorities already requires individuals coming to the UK to have a unfavorable Covid check 72 hours earlier than they begin their journey. The new tests – that are anticipated to be required on day two and day eight of isolation interval on arrival – will be an additional requirement, not another one.

And they are going to apply to all arrivals, not simply individuals having to quarantine in motels as a result of they’re coming from high-risk nations underneath the brand new preparations coming into pressure subsequent week.

George Eustice, the surroundings secretary, confirmed that new testing necessities have been being launched for arrivals in his morning interviews, though he declined to give particulars, saying it was for Hancock to set these out later. But Eustice advised the Today programme:

Introducing testing during that quarantine interval is a further method of maintaining monitor of the place individuals are, and monitoring the event of the virus, for those that have it, as they arrive.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Boris Johnson chairs a digital assembly of cupboard.

9.30am: The ONS publishes its weekly dying figures for England and Wales.

12pm: Downing Street is predicted to maintain its each day foyer briefing.

12.15pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, and Jason Leitch, Scotland’s nationwide medical director, maintain a coronavirus briefing.

12.30pm: Matt Hancock, the well being secretary, makes an announcement to MPs about Covid and the plans for lodge quarantine.

12pm: The Department for Education releases its newest faculty attendance figures.

After 2pm: The Scottish parliament hears a ministerial assertion on Covid.

Afternoon: MPs debate a Lords amendment to the trade bill giving the excessive court docket the ability to determine if a rustic is committing genocide.

4.30pm: Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, and Lord Frost, who was the federal government’s Brexit negotiator, give proof to the Lords EU committee.

Politics Live is now doubling up because the UK coronavirus dwell weblog and, given the best way the Covid disaster eclipses all the pieces, it will proceed for the foreseeable future. But we’ll be overlaying non-Covid political tales too, and once they appear extra vital or extra fascinating, they are going to take priority.

Here is our world coronavirus dwell weblog.

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