Scientists warn new Covid variants will continue to enter UK with the reopening of international travel

SCIENTISTS have warned that new Covid variants will continue to enter the UK with the reopening of international travel as there are 'flaws' in the government’s system.

Members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) are concerned that the government’s traffic light system is not based on evidence about the risks of the spread of variants, reported The Guardian.

Last week, ministers said that some international travel could resume from 17 May, with travellers from England allowed to return from 'green list' destinations without needing to quarantine.

Portugal and Israel are on the list, along with South Georgia, the Faroe Islands and the Falklands.

The concerns are shared by scientists such as Professor Martin Hibberd, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

More testing was necessary before international travel should be allowed to reopen. With the current approach, it was inevitable that new variants would enter the country, he told the Observer.

“For many countries infections are likely to come in waves for at least another year and perhaps longer. As a result, imports are likely to become an increasingly important part of new transmissions circulating within the UK. We should develop an effective strategy to cope with the competing desires to allow international travel, while keeping circulating virus in the UK to a minimum," said Prof Hibberd.

“From my infectious disease perspective, for travel, I would like to see more testing, preferably with professionally taken swabs, and more support for quarantining, at home when it is possible – and which can be verified for compliance – together with an effective tracing programme.”

Another LSHTM expert, Martin McKee, professor of European public health said that if a person from England go to a Portuguese resort, it is likely he would be mixing with people from other places.

“The criterion you should be looking at is not the infection rate and vaccination rate in the host country, but among the people who you’re likely to be mixing with. It’s an obvious flaw. And if you’re going to be transiting through any airport, you’re going to be mixing with people who are going to be coming from other places," he said.

Gurch Randhawa, professor of diversity in public health at the University of Bedfordshire, said people should only take holidays in the UK at present.

“Permitting overseas holidays without universal quarantine measures for all countries is not a risk we should take. Without strict measures we will have more Covid-19 deaths in the coming months because of imported variants, as vaccines have reduced efficacy against some of these different strains," he told The Guardian.

These warnings were made as travel firms hailed their best day for holiday sales in months.

However, Clive Dix, who recently stood down as interim head of the British vaccine taskforce, has said that there would be 'no circulating virus in the UK' by August.

Due to the UK vaccination programme, the country would be 'safe over the coming winter', he predicted.