THE Scottish Government has hit back angrily at a suggestion from a UK minister that it moved too quickly to impose quarantine restrictions on holidaymakers returning from Greece.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps accused the Edinburgh administration of being premature over its decision to ask travellers entering Scotland to self-isolate for two weeks as a precaution to stop the spread of Covid-19.
Defending his government’s decision not to ask people returning from Greece to self-isolate, he claimed that Scotland had made decisions without looking at the Joint Biosecurity Centre’s data.
He said: “Now they did that because they had some particular concerns about cases which have returned to Scotland from Greece and we waited to see the Joint Biosecurity data this week on Greece and indeed it actually showed a small fall in the number of cases per hundred thousand.”
Responding, a Scottish Government spokeswoman said it had taken account of the scientific evidence. She then accused the UK Government of not looking at the most up-to-date data on Portugal.
The Scottish Government now requires travellers from Portugal to quarantine for two weeks while the UK Government does not.
“Our decisions on quarantine measures for travellers are based on the scientific evidence available,” she said.
“We have, for the most part, aligned closely with the approaches taken by the other three governments and regular discussions continue with them. But ultimately, we make judgements on how best to keep the people of Scotland safe and that sometimes means our decisions differ from those made by the other three governments.”
She added: “In the case of Greece, we had a worrying number of people in Scotland who tested positive for Covid-19 and who had returned from Greece within seven days of the onset of symptoms. The Scottish Government could not afford to ignore that growing threat to public health.
“In the case of Portugal, it was unfortunate that the UK Government announced their decision yesterday before ministers from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland met and before considering the latest Joint Biosecurity Centre data.
“This indicated a significant rise in both the prevalence of the virus in Portugal and in test positivity.
“As ministers have said repeatedly, we are in the midst of a global pandemic and the situation in many countries can change suddenly ... people should think very hard before committing to non-essential travel abroad.”
Shapps said he believed the different advice for quarantining when arriving from abroad in the devolved nations “creates confusion”.
He told Sky News: “I do realise it creates confusion for people not to have a single rule but we do have this devolved approach throughout the United Kingdom and I can only be responsible for the English part of that.”
He said Greece and Portugal were not added to England’s quarantine list because figures suggested cases were decreasing there. He added: “It’s led to no changes partly because the test positivity, for example in Portugal, actually came down on the last set of figures when we were making this choice and also on Greece the overall numbers came down.”
Shapps said Portugal was currently on the “borderline” for quarantine rules to be applied but did not justify quarantine this week.
Travellers into Scotland and Wales from Portugal and Greece must now isolate but not those arriving into England and Northern Ireland. Covid cases in Portugal have risen in the past week beyond the threshold at which ministers generally consider the isolation rule.
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