Coronavirus: After 34,000 dead, UK to finally shut borders

The British government is to slam shut its borders this week and ­impose a 14-day quarantine for new arrivals.

People feeding parakeets in Hyde Park in London on Sunday. Picture: AP

The British government is to slam shut its borders this week and ­impose a 14-day quarantine for new arrivals that threatens to squeeze the last air out of a gasping economy.

Until now, Britain’s borders have been open for all, with 95,000 arrivals in April and 18.1 million ­arrivals between January 1 and March 23.

Heavy restrictions have been introduced, with all shops closed except supermarkets and chemists, and only construction and manufacturing workers being urged to get back to work.

The confusing tightening of measures for arrivals, to be ­announced within days, comes as the public is hopeful of some further easing of lockdown measures by the beginning of June.

The secretive Scientific ­Advisory Group for Emergencies has refused to detail to parliament its reasoning for introducing ­border closures now. Britain has recorded 34,000 deaths but infections have peaked.

On Sunday, 170 deaths were ­reported, the lowest total since lockdown.

SAGE estimates 0.5 per cent of cases have come from overseas, without detailing how that figure was arrived at.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson signalled the border closures ­earlier this month.

The warning allowed farmers time to fly in seasonal crop pickers from eastern Europe and gave pharmaceutical companies time to bolster stock levels, with many having factories on the continent.

Mr Johnson said “the first ­careful steps” would involve a two-week quarantine to help contain the virus.

Britain is still experiencing 3500 new cases a day, although many of these are mild or asymptomatic cases that do not require hospitalisation and are ­captured in a broader testing ­regime.

The UK has been the only country in the world not to implement any checks on arrivals over the past two months.

Appearing before the House of Commons science and technology committee, John Aston, who is the chief scientific adviser at the Home Office, said if tougher ­restrictions had been introduced at the border when the virus emerged, the peak might have been delayed.

“An estimate was made about what the effect of putting further restrictions on the border would be,” Professor Aston said.

“It would delay the epidemic by a small amount of time and therefore it was deemed that wasn’t a sensible thing to do.”

Over the past few days, there has been confusion on whether the new border rules will include rail travel from France.

Earlier this month, Downing Street said no quarantine measures would apply to travellers from France, but the government reversed that last Friday when the EU threatened legal action unless the rules were applied to all EU ­nationals.

Differing border restrictions have put the brakes on efforts by some European countries to open up in time for the August holiday season and get their economies moving again.

France and Spain have imposed 14-day quarantine on arrivals even from the Schengen common area.

Denmark will reopen its border with Sweden on June 1.

The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have ­allowed free travel between their countries.