Hotel quarantine confusion continues as red list travellers ‘abscond’ without permission

Exclusive: Numerous travellers at the Gatwick Sofitel have left the hotel without completing the full 11 nights of quarantine

Red alert: the queue for hotel quarantine at London Heathrow Airport (Simon Calder)

Ministers and officials have pleaded with people still in hotel quarantine to remain there even though the red list has ended.

On Tuesday afternoon the health secretary, Sajid Javid, announced that all 11 nations on the red list – from which hotel quarantine was obligatory – would be removed at 4am on Wednesday.

Mr Javid was not able to say what arrangements would be made for an estimated 5,000 people already in hotel quarantine.

Later a government minister, Steve Barclay, said that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) had decided such individuals should be able to leave their hotels.

But work on reversing the Statutory Instrument prescribing hotel quarantine had not been carried out ahead of the announcement.

Overnight, travellers in hotel quarantine were given a letter asking them to “remain in quarantine for the time being until we are able to facilitate an early release from quarantine in line with public health guidelines”.

It was signed by Tracy Cottis, deputy director of operate of the Managed Quarantine Service at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

Numerous travellers at the Gatwick Sofitel left the hotel without completing the full 11 nights of quarantine, saying they believed they were entitled to leave.

On BBC Breakfast, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said: “I know that Sajid Javid, the health secretary, who actually runs that hotel quarantine system, is going to provide more detail on what’s going to happen now, now that the mandatory hotel quarantine is being wound down.”

The presenter, Dan Walker, asked: “So if someone’s watching this this morning, they need to stay in that hotel quarantine?”

Mr Shapps said: “Just a little bit of patience.

“They [the Department of Health] run the facility and they’ll say more about it today.

“Obviously it is the case that since we’re no longer going to be using hotel quarantine, in fact we’ll have no red list countries, there’s no point now it’s established, omicron, in this country, of having that system as well.

“That will be wound down and the health secretary will explain how.

“He’ll be coming to say more later today.”

Louise Fox, who is in hotel quarantine at Gatwick, said: “There are people walking out. I rang down and they said that they are ‘absconding’ and will be charged accordingly.”

Later, at a Transport Select Committee hearing, MPs questioned Jonathan Mogford – senior responsible officer for Borders and Managed Quarantine Service, UK Health Security Agency.

He said: “The advice at the moment is: we are asking people to remain until we can confirm the exact arrangements for the departure, we are looking to do today.

“We’ve notified those that are Covid-positive that they need to remain in the hotels.”

Mr Mogford said that 5 per cent of arrivals from red list countries had tested positive for Covid-19, and estimated that between one and three per cent of the total were carrying the omicron variant.

The DHSC is said to be “working urgently to make arrangements for individuals’ early release from managed quarantine” and is expected to make an announcement later today.