UK reintroduces compulsory PCR tests for arrivals – must isolate until results arrive

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• Justin says:

  27 Nov27 November 19:00

  The government website has not had any update re these new rules. It’s ridiculous that Boris is telling us everyone has to test – but no official rules follow.
  I would assume arrivals in the morning are fine – and any are until there is an updated government policy.

  • NvT1115 says:

    27 Nov27 November 19:10

    Hi Justin – yes it is very frustrating. Arriving into Heathrow tomorrow afternoon and still unsure whether my existing PLF is valid. Will I need PCR or not. On the basis red list changes come it 4am / 36 hrs later but who knows…

    • CS says:

      27 Nov27 November 19:46

      Same here

  • NvT1115 says:

    27 Nov27 November 20:03

    Euronews Travel reporting that change to day 2 pcr test from 29th Nov but cannot verify elsewhere yet. If so I will be ok tomorrow.

    • CS says:

      27 Nov27 November 20:20

      I just found the website about it. Again, there is no news from the gov.uk but only from other news agency.

  • Marina says:

    28 Nov28 November 09:08

    4am on Tuesday

• Ian M says:

  27 Nov27 November 19:01

  Moronic… is an anagram of Omicron

  • Kuno says:

    28 Nov28 November 02:29

    Love this

• Anna says:

  27 Nov27 November 19:02

  Why on earth don’t they have a 2/3 week circuit breaker now instead of “re-evaluating” the week before Xmas?!!

  • Ian M says:

    27 Nov27 November 19:09

    Probably because there’s no need for one?

  • Mart says:

    27 Nov27 November 19:10

    3 week lockdown after UK 2 incidences? That would be a difficult sell tbf

    • James says:

      27 Nov27 November 19:13

      Getting in to Australia/NZ territory if we start doing things like that. Everyone whipping up a panic yet again

      • Anna says:

        27 Nov27 November 19:17

        Better than cancelling Xmas again. Even if it was only going back to remote learning for schools for the rest of term it would break the cycle of transmission among that age group. One of my son’s friends has tested positive, then so did his mum, (who is an NHS nurse) and I’m sure that’s being replicated up and down the country.

        • Mr(s) Entitled says:

          27 Nov27 November 19:22

          As a parent of two school aged kids, who have suffered enough the past 18mths, I would rather they ‘cancelled’ Christmas than once again ask the kids to disrupt their education once again. Given their very low risk perhaps those who are older, and worried, can take their own actions to protect themselves.

        • Anna says:

          27 Nov27 November 19:34

          It was asymptomatic teenagers transmitting delta which made that variant become dominant.

        • stevenhp1987 says:

          27 Nov27 November 19:37

          How is closing all shops, depriving people from employment etc. an acceptable solution when there are 2 known cases and deaths etc. are going down?

          It’s not.

        • Anna says:

          27 Nov27 November 19:38

          @Mr(s) Entitled, schools should have remote learning perfected by now, I’d rather have a couple more weeks of it than not be able to finally meet up with family members I haven’t seen for 2 years over the holidays.

        • Anna says:

          27 Nov27 November 19:39

          @stevenhp1987, I said a circuit breaker, not lockdown. Measures like returning to working and learning from home would make a difference without having to close businesses.

        • Mr(s) Entitled says:

          27 Nov27 November 19:46

          @Anna: Not all children do well out of school. Not all have access to online learning. Not all have access to food. Not all have a safe home.

          But from your comments on this site I know that you are reasoned enough to know this and compassionate enough to understand.

        • stevenhp1987 says:

          27 Nov27 November 19:47

          @Anna

          But deaths are still going down. The science doesn’t support such restrictions. They even said this looks like a milder variant. That’s a good thing no?

          Spreading it amongst children isn’t much different to spreading chicken pox. Very unlikely to die and helps build immunity.

        • The Savage Squirrel says:

          27 Nov27 November 21:25

          “It was asymptomatic teenagers transmitting delta which made that variant become dominant.”
          Sorry, but that’s absolutely wrong.
          Delta has become the dominant strain in every single location it has arrived at – it outcompetes other variants as it is a more efficient replicator and spreader. That’s just natural selection in action. Teenagers have no unique role here. It would still have become the dominant UK strain even if you’d executed every single teenager in the UK on the day it was discovered.

        • GM says:

          28 Nov28 November 04:37

          This. They’ve brought in some half-assed weird measures that won’t actually do much in isolation (should have been wearing masks all along) while avoiding WFH or doing anything at all to reduce school infections. Thought they were mandating PCR to sequence more of them, but not even sure what percentage they’ll do that with

      • James says:

        27 Nov27 November 19:28

        Hard to know how this plays out at the moment could still amount to not much

  • Char Char says:

    27 Nov27 November 19:26

    Lockdowns are meant to take stress away from the NHS, the current levels are 25% case to hospitalisation/intensive care ratios previously seen in Jan so clearly not as bad hospital wise

    • Will says:

      27 Nov27 November 20:51

      But we don’t know what this variant will bring, if it does bring hospitalisation then once you see them it’s too late and it’s already out there.

      Act as if it can completely defeat the vaccine, until you know it can’t or that it’s mild otherwise your assuming that its not a potential problem, and if it’s not a potential problem why is it even a story?

    • Will says:

      27 Nov27 November 21:46

      @Anna either you don’t have young children, or you had a very fortunate experience of home schooling, because I’d rather take my chances with ebola than put my family through any more home schooling. Perhaps more importantly though, none of this has anything to do with the topic.

  • Margaret says:

    28 Nov28 November 10:06

    I caught covid during the last circuit breaker, as did our whole family. I was critically vulnerable and shielding at the time, but my daughter’s teacher didn’t wear one and infected several students.

• TB says:

  27 Nov27 November 19:13

  Does this include Jersey?

  • Rob says:

    27 Nov27 November 19:17

    Probably not as Common Travel Area.

• Andrew says:

  27 Nov27 November 19:17

  Balls. Away with the kids for a long weekend and back on the Eurostar on Monday evening.

  At least Collinson St Pancras has Day 2 PCR availability for 20 mins after we arrive so we have booked that on the basis we can cancel for a refund 3 hours beforehand if the new rules aren’t in by then (in which case we will take the lateral flow tests we’ve already bought). £220 for the four of us and that’s with 20% off!

  It was always a gamble and this time it might not have paid off. Especially if we are back to home schooling until we get a PCR result 😣

  Win some / lose some!

• Mr(s) Entitled says:

  27 Nov27 November 19:18

  Sorry, despite being certain that this has been asked before I am useless at searching previous comments and now seems like a good time to ask again…

  Does Amex Platinum Insurance cover travel cancelled for Covid reasons, either a border closed post booking or a positive test?

  I’ve trawled the Insurance FAQ’s and my reading is it provides for cancellations if a) booked on the Platinum card itself and b) if not cancellable/recoverable elsewhere.

  I can’t find anything specifically to Covid however so I assume they aren’t exempting it away but figure someone here will know.

  • JDB says:

    27 Nov27 November 19:22

    You need to look at your policy to see how it applies to your personal/travel circumstances. Read particularly the general exclusions at 1.9.

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:

      27 Nov27 November 19:38

      Thanks for the pointer.

      I read 1.9 and the the list of exclusions which includes “Any claim resulting from travel restrictions imposed by Governmental Offices relating to Trips booked
      after the World Health Organisation declaring a pandemic or known event.”

      As an aside, the website summary includes, and I quote, “circumstances unknown at the time of booking”. It should obviously read as known as it does in the T&Cs. Seriously, publishing this is someone’s job. How can they be so inept and still be employed?

    • Muhammad iqrash Ashraf kanwal says:

      29 Nov29 November 20:01

      If i’m travelling from spain to uk can i need pcr test.

      • Rob says:

        29 Nov29 November 21:39

        Not before you fly home, but you must now take one when you land, yes.

• voiceofreason says:

  27 Nov27 November 19:22

  We’re flying into the maelstrom tomorrow and am I bovvered?

  Omicron is milder than previous variants, we should praise it, not hope to bury it.

  • Char Char says:

    27 Nov27 November 19:30

    Yes but the scaremongers, going to scare regardless!

    • David says:

      27 Nov27 November 21:24

      And the trolls are going to keep on trolling, regardless.

  • Ian M says:

    27 Nov27 November 19:30

    There’s also the new symptomless variant which is a cause for concern..

    • Roger says:

      27 Nov27 November 19:46

      But if no death or severe disease?
      Time will tell …

  • Lady London says:

    27 Nov27 November 20:12

    Ah… another pussycat virus
    Still sensible to tighten up till we know

    • Polly says:

      28 Nov28 November 07:38

      Ours probably have kept masks going anyway, like France. Seems to have no problems complying w masks everywhere there. Let’s see how it pans out. Luckily hadn’t yet bought our day 2 tests. Will do one on arrival and hope it comes back in around 12 hours.

  • Jonathan says:

    27 Nov27 November 20:21

    Any evidence to show its lower virulence?!

    It’s far too early to make any conclusions beyond Omicron possessing many more significant mutations than other variants.

    Enforcing mask wearing & a PCR that you can take on arrival at most major international airports, stations etc is hardly a huge burden whilst we wait for more definitive data.

    • Will says:

      27 Nov27 November 20:52

      Certainly not a huge burden, but likewise probably also not really that effective in preventing its transmission.

• Tara says:

  27 Nov27 November 19:24

  Hi all – am due to go to America next weekend and absolutely no clue whether I should scrap the whole trip given everything that’s going on. Any opinions/views welcome 🙁

  • Rob says:

    27 Nov27 November 19:37

    As long as you don’t mind paying for a PCR on your return (and potentially missing a day or so of work waiting for the result) I’d go for it.

  • Anna says:

    27 Nov27 November 19:44

    If it’s a longish trip, I would go, maybe not if it’s only a few days and easy to cancel or postpone.
    If I didn’t have commitments I’d probably look at heading off somewhere warm for a few weeks where I could spend most of the time outdoors and observe how things develop over here!

    • meta says:

      27 Nov27 November 20:19

      But day 2 test is anything up to day 2, so you can do it somewhere that gives you 24hr result, so miss maybe 1 day.

      • meta says:

        27 Nov27 November 20:20

        Or even do the 3hr one.

  • Bodkins says:

    27 Nov27 November 22:56

    Might be worth going now while you can, and (if for work) packing in as much as possible, in case things tighten up more in the future. A PCR test and self-isolation isn’t a big deal.

    • Tara says:

      27 Nov27 November 23:15

      Thank you all for your replies! I’m keen to go, and the isolation/PCR are fine but now I guess I’m just a bit worried that Biden might shut the borders again or block Brits from coming in, like Israel have just done!

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.