Breaking COVID-19 travel rules could lead to extremely severe repercussions that could land in you in jail for up to 10 years and be hit with a fine that could go up to £10,000.
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Stricter travel rules imposed
With officials fearing the appearance of new coronavirus strains being brought to the UK, travelling has become nearly impossible. As of 15 February 2021, the hotel quarantine scheme will be put into place to dissuade the public from unnecessary travelling that could potentially bring mutated super-contagious variants of the virus into the UK.
All people traveling into the UK from red-listed countries will have to quarantine in government-approved facilities for 10 days costing them £1,750 per person. Travellers failing to quarantine in one of the designated hotels will automatically be sanctioned with a fine ranging from £5,000 to £10,000.
A £1,000 fine will be given to any international arrival that fails to provide a mandatory coronavirus test and this will double in price upon failure to provide a second test at which point quarantine will be extended from 10 to 14 days.
And possibly the most controversial of all consequences causing a stir among the public is a 10 year jail sentence for anyone that willfully provides false information on their passenger locator form.
Secretary of State for Health, Matt Hancock said about the new travel rules:
Anybody who has been in a red list country in the past 10 days must declare it in a passenger locator form. Nobody can come directly from a red list country anyway because those flights have been stopped. The virus doesn't treat people differently just because they are better off and might be able to fly to Dubai for the weekend.
Necessary steps to ensure safety for all
Although, many have commented on the harshness of the new travel rules, it is the consensus that these measures are necessary to ensure public safety.
Secretary of State for UK Transport, Grant Shapps expressed that:
I do think it is serious if people put others in danger by deliberately misleading and saying that you weren't in Brazil or South Africa, or one of the red list countries. It is a fact that right now it is illegal to leave your home to go on holiday…
