14 2GM Saturday September 5 2020 | the times
News
Boris Johnson has rejected calls for cor-
onavirus tests at airports, claiming that
screening all passengers would create a
“false sense of security”.
The prime minister said that airport
screening identified only 7 per cent of
asymptomatic cases. There was no way
to avoid the need for travellers who
arrived in Britain to undergo a period of
quarantine, he added.
During a visit to Solihull, West Mid-
lands, Mr Johnson said: “So 93 per cent
of the time you could have a real false
sense of security, a false sense of confi-
dence when you arrive and take a test.
“That’s why the quarantine system
that we have has got to be an important
part of our repertoire, of our toolbox, in
fighting Covid.”
Earlier, Grant Shapps, the transport
secretary, told Sky News that airport
testing was not a “silver bullet” solution
to the need for travellers to quarantine.
He claimed that the “vast majority” of
asymptomatic carriers would be missed
by such screening.
Some industry insiders have said that
this claim is based on old models and
does not take into account real data
gathered by countries that have intro-
duced airport testing.
Mr Shapps said a system that tests
arrivals at the airport and again at a
later date could reduce the quarantine
time from 14 days to seven or eight days.
Industry bodies, however, have pointed
to countries that have cut their quaran-
tine time to only five days.
In some countries, such as Germany,
travellers are tested at the airport on
arrival and are then asked to quaran-
tine before taking a second test five
days later. If both tests come back nega-
tive, they no longer need to quarantine.
In Britain, travellers coming from high-
risk zones must quarantine for 14 days.
A No 10 spokesman said yesterday
that testing at airports “does not work
to catch people who may go on to get
the virus”. Mr Shapps added: “I know
that airport testing is one of those
things that sounds so logical.”
He said that he was “working with
airports and the industry” on a way to
get around the issue of potential false
negatives. Several industry leaders
have joined Tory backbench MPs in
hoping that the government performs
another U-turn and backs tests for new
arrivals.
Labour has called for a “rapid review”
of the system to improve “chaotic quar-
antine arrangements that are losing
public confidence”. Nick Thomas-
Symonds, the shadow home secretary,
has written to his opposite number,
Priti Patel, calling for the introduction
of a “robust testing regime in airports
and related follow-up tests” to reduce
the 14-day quarantine time.
He said: “The government’s handling
of arrivals into the UK has lacked
urgency, coherence and clarity from
the outset, including being too slow toRussia’s most advanced vaccine candi-
date has successfully passed its early
stages of clinical trials, according to
preliminary results.
Initial findings from a small study of
76 people showed that there were no
severe side effects and the vaccine elic-
ited an antibody response.
Vladimir Putin has promised to roll
out the use of the country’s “Sputnik V”
vaccine before any other country,
claiming it as a victory in a global race
to escape the pandemic.
Three weeks ago Mr Putin told a gov-
ernment meeting, when announcing
the country was going to engage in
mass vaccination: “This morning, for
the first time in the world, a vaccine
against the new coronavirus was regis-
tered.”
He added, “I know that it is quite
effective, that it gives sustainable
immunity.” At the time there was no
published evidence of its efficacy.
The latest results, published in The
Lancet, confirm that like several other
vaccine candidates the Russian offering
has cleared the early hurdles of human
Airport testing for
all gives false sense
of safety, PM warns
implement controls at the onset of the
crisis.”
Paul Charles, the chief executive of a
travel agency, said: “I’m concerned that
the government is unaware of the rapid
progress being made in other countries.
“They seem to be firmly on the back
foot. Other countries are doing very
successful two-test solutions. The
transport secretary focused this morn-
ing on just one airport test but that’s not
what anyone is really calling for. The
sector is calling for a two-test solution.”
Airlines UK, the trade body, said that
testing was vital as part of a “wider
system” of safety measures. A spokes-
man said: “We know no one thing is a
silver bullet but testing can play a role in
bringing down the quarantine time
which is so damaging to us.”
He suggested that travellers from
high-risk areas could take two tests
while those from low-risk regions had
one. He claimed that countries such as
Iceland had systems that worked.
Bosses at Heathrow also expressed
dismay. A spokeswoman said: “Provi-
sion of two clear test results would al-
low the individual to leave quarantine
early and help increase passenger de-
mand to get the UK economy moving
again. This approach is being used in
many other countries with success.
Further failure from the government to
take action in this area will see them
turn this health pandemic into an un-
employment one.”
Collinson, which has developed a
Covid-19 airport testing facility, said
that the government was risking “the
destruction of a key UK industry”. A
spokesman added that the two-test
model was “backed by science”.
Mr Shapps conceded yesterday that
the different quarantine rules imposed
by the devolved nations created “confu-
sion”. He said: “I can only be responsible
for the English part of that.”
Letters, page 30Kaya Burgess
Grant Shapps said that screening
passengers was not a “silver bullet”D
ozens of British
holidaymakers have
returned from Zante
with coronavirus, but
that hadn’t put off young
tourists at the beach in the Laganas
resort yesterday (Tom Kington in
Zante and Lucy Bannerman write).
There was not a mask in sight,
despite a new rule that they are
compulsory outside.
Liam Denieffe, 22, a London
plumber, pointed to double
standards. “I can get on a packed
Tube train every day in London. It
is like it’s OK to work but not to
party,” he said.
“We are better off having it and
getting it out the way,” said Sean
Edwards, 22, a London project
manager.
“Brighton Beach is busier than
this,” said Henry, 22, a runner with
a media company from Hove who
flew to the island on Friday, despite
fears over contagion. “I have been
furloughed since March. I really
needed a break.”
“It’s not as bad as they make out,”
said Brittany Livens, 22, a law
student. She worked at a UK track
and trace centre for six months,
where she made only five phone
calls to possible positives. “I have
first-hand experience, which is why
I am so relaxed,” she said.In the afternoon, Laganas beach
was relaxed, with families playing
in the crystal-clear water, but
things change at midnight, when
bars close and crowds pour on to
the sand to party.
“It gets so crammed on the beach
there were fights last night,” said
Codie Dean, 26, a transport
company manager from
Canterbury. Matty Thomas, 18, a
trainee accountant from Hull, said:
“Everyone takes their drinks to the
beach. They forget the rules on
distancing — you just can’t be
bothered.”
One young Briton who was one of
six friends who tested positive for
Covid-19 after visiting Zante last
month admitted that it was “stupid”
going to crowded beach parties and
silent discos. “We were living like
Covid don’t exist. But it was a
cracking time, I’m not particularly
ill and I haven’t given it to my loved
ones so I don’t regret it at all.”
The authorities on Zante ordered
masks to be worn inside bars and
clubs this summer, fining offending
establishments before ordering
them to close at midnight from
August 15. At the end of last month
police cracked down harder,
ordering mask-wearing outdoors.
But despite the threat of €
(£134) fines for offenders, little hasWe’re partying like the
virus doesn’t exist, say
young Britons on Zante
News Coronavirus
Russian vaccine passes early trials
trials. The vaccine takes an approach
similar to that used by the team at Ox-
ford University, using a benign virus
known as an adenovirus to transport
coronavirus proteins into the body.
As with Oxford’s candidate, those
injected with it made antibodies that
attacked the coronavirus. However, it
has yet to be shown that they are effec-
tive protection.
Scientists cautioned that the findings
were far from confirmation that it
worked or was safe. Other vaccines that
reached a similar stage earlier, among
them the Oxford vaccine, are now en-
tering mass trials involving thousands
of people.
It is still not yet clear whether, despite
the promises of the Kremlin, Russia’s
wider rollout will in effect be a large
trial — with some receiving a placebo
and the results carefully monitored —
or whether it will genuinely be a stan-
dard vaccination programme. Re-
searchers said that it would be a mistake
to cut corners.
Eleanor Riley, from the University of
Edinburgh, said: “A vaccine should not
be used to short cut the implementa-
tion of public health interventions thatare already known to be safe and effec-
tive until the vaccine itself has been
shown to be safe and effective.”
She said a complication was that most
people in the trial were in their 20s and
30s, adding: “Populations at highest risk
of severe disease and death from Covid-
19 — the elderly and those with under-
lying health conditions — are also those
least likely to respond effectively to the
vaccine and any adverse effects asso-
ciated with vaccination may also be
more likely in these populations.”Tom Whipple Science Editor
6 People who recover from Covid-
develop a kind of immune system
“memory” that could help fight off
future infections, a study has shown.
The research, from the University of
Oxford, provides new insight into how
the virus stimulates an aspect of the
body’s defences known as T cells, in-
cluding T-cell memory. Roughly speak-
ing, long-lived memory T cells can re-
member an encounter with a specific
type of virus. If re-exposed to the same
pathogen they can mount a rapid re-
sponse, according to a study led by Tao
Dong, from the Medical Research
Council Human Immunology Unit,
and published in Nature Immunology.