Airport quarantine plan requires enforcement – The Yorkshire Post says

However the time it has taken to finalise the new hotel quarantine arrangements unveiled by Health Secretary Matt Hancock are an indicator of the issue’s complexity.

And they certainly have the potential to complement the vaccine programme, and community testing, as the number of new Covid infections begins to fall.

However the key issue – and Mr Hancock repeatedly referred to it during his Commons statement – is one of enforcement.

For, while it should, in theory, be straightforward to keep tabs on new UK and Ireland residents arriving from 30 so-called ‘red list’ countries who will be required to stay in hotels for 10 days, the greater test will be applying the new protocols to those allowed to self-isolate at home.

Mr Hancock was at pains to point out that enforcement is crucial if progress suppressing the virus is to be maintained while the testing procedures will help to identify potentially lethal new variants of Covid and, just as significantly, how they can be best treated.

He clearly hopes the threat of jail sentence of up to 10 years will concentrate the minds of those new arrivals thinking of falsifying their details in order to beat the system.

But the reason that some misguided individuals will choose to ignore these rules – or other Covid regulations for that matter – is an arrogant assumption that they will not be caught by the authorities.

And this trend, as the public’s patience over restrictions begins to fray after nearly a year, will regrettably continue unless the Government, police and others start making a far greater example of lockdown rulebreakers – if only to deter others from behaving so selfishly, stupidly and without due regard for others.

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