COVID-19: Britain now requires 14-day quarantine for overseas arrivals from 8 June 2020

If you arrive in the United Kingdom from 8 June you will need to supply personal contact details, including an address for self-isolation. If you are caught breaching the 14 day quarantine period, then you will need to pony up for a £1,000 (AUS$1860 ish) fine.

Priti Patel the Home Secretary who made the announcement, has not ruled out an exception for Australia in the future, but there is no such exception now.

Leaving Australia

So if you did want to travel from Australia to Britain, you would first need to get an exemption from the ban on international travel to leave Australia. To do that you need to meet at least one of the following conditions:

• your travel is as part of the response to the COVID-19 outbreak, including the provision of aid 
• your travel is essential for the conduct of critical industries and business (including export and import industries)
• you are travelling to receive urgent medical treatment that is not available in Australia
• you are travelling on urgent and unavoidable personal business
• you are travelling on compassionate or humanitarian grounds 
• your travel is in the national interest.

And if you meet one of those criteria, you need to supply evidence which may include:

• passport/s
• marriage certificate/s
• birth certificate/s
• death certificate/s
• proof of relationship (for example, shared tenancy agreement, joint bank account etc.)
• visa status
• proof that you are moving to another country on a long term basis such as leases, job offers and evidence your goods are being transported
• your current visa status, including in Australia and/or overseas
• letter from a doctor or hospital about any medical treatment/condition with statements on why travel is necessary
• letter from an employer showing why the travel is necessary or that the work undertaken by you is critical
• statement or evidence to show when you wish to return to Australia
• any other proof you may have to support your claims.

Arrival in Britain

On arrival, you need to provide contact details and an address where you will be quarantining yourself for 2 weeks. If you don’t have an address, then the UK government will supply you with digs. But don’t expect a five-star hotel like back in Australia

Arriving back in Australia

OK – on returning to Australia, you will be made to quarantine for a further 2 weeks at a hotel provided by the Australian Government at your port of arrival. If you then travel on to another state or territory then there may be further restrictions. Here is a helpful list from the Australian Health Department‘s website:

• Australian Capital Territory: ACT Government travel advice
• New South Wales: NSW Government travel and transport advice
• Northern Territory: Northern Territory Government remote work and travel
• Queensland: Queensland Government travel advice
• South Australia: Government of South Australia cross-border travel
• Tasmania: Tasmanian Government travellers and visitors
• Victoria: Victoria State Government Health and Human Services
• Western Australia: Government of Western Australia travel advice
• Norfolk Island: Norfolk Island Regional Council COVID-19 advice
• Indian Ocean Territories: Advice from the Administrator of Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands

You could well have to spend another 2 weeks in quarantine, depending which state you travel on to, making your total time in quarantine in Australia and the UK, 6 weeks!

2PAXfly Takeout

This is another timely reminder to wear your seatbelt when seated. Holding you close to your seat will protect you from the sort of injuries sustained on this flight, when unsecured passengers flew to the ceiling of the aircraft, and then came crashing down once the ‘drop’ ceased.

The hope will be that this is an anomaly – a ‘freak accident’ in casual parlance. If it is a systemic error either mechanical or electronic, then this is a larger concern for the airlines that fly Boeing Dreamliner 787 aircraft. Let’s hope it isn’t. If it is, it will pile on the woes to Boeing’s existing stack.

You will be spending a month in Quarantine at least, and up to 6 weeks: 2 weeks in the UK; 2 weeks in Australia and possibly another two weeks in a state or territory. If you want to visit the United Kingdom, you will need to be visiting for an approved reason to get around the international travel ban in Australia.

Returning to Australia, your quarantine is government run, and you will be taken to your place of quarantine directly from the airport in officially arranged transport.

In Britain, you will need to arrange your own transport – so that might well be public – which seems to undermine the whole purpose of going into quarantine.

Oh Boris, Boris. How can we not be smug when we have such low transmission rates here in Australia (cross fingers that this continues), and you keep devising deeply flawed quarantine procedures.