Daily Passengers Into Heathrow

[retrocop]

The Nigel Farage show is on LBC. They were discussing the fact that 15,000 people a day arriving at Heathrow. Tuscany,one of the hardest hit regions for the virus was mentioned as the origin of some of these flights. I don't believe they are all bound to pick radishes and lettuce in our Green and Pleasant land or to provide profession aid to our Health Service.
It would appear,according to a ITV news report last night, that incoming are not checked at all at Heathrow by HM Border Service for (a) Security reasons or (b) Health Checks.
The Border Force officer who was a whistleblower as he was in fear of his job said they were issued with some hand gel and gloves and nothing else. Most of the officers are now in self isolation and the others fear approaching the incomers.
Is our government attempting to curtail the spread or not? Why not lockdown for non essential flights and more importantly these passengers must be checked over thoroughly if they are to leave airside. Matt Hancock was asked this question and skated around it with lots of errs and ums. Who are these people, anyone know?

[Buenchico]

Tuscany has two airports, Pisa and Florence. The only scheduled flights from Pisa to Heathrow are BA's daily services BA 0605 and BA 0613, all of which are currently cancelled. There are no scheduled flights betwen Florence and Heathrow.

So I find it hard to see how Heathrow can be flooded with travellers from Tuscany!

[237SJ]

Most incomers are on repatriation flights where they have been stuck abroad since the lockdown. Quite a lot coming in from India which closed it's borders quickly leaving a lot of people stranded.

[retrocop]

Chris
Tuscany was one of the regions that was mentioned on the show this afternoon. I do not know from where the flights took off but it seems that someone, without doing any checks, has decided the manifest contained Tuscans?

[retrocop]

Thanks 237SJ
I was rather hoping for your input. Surely even repatriated passengers from wherever in the world should face checks or quarantine at the moment. It appears to me that the security has lapsed somewhat with this regard.

[237SJ]

A lot of the flights have no passengers on them either - they are freighters.

[douglas9401]

Plant a story about incoming passengers carry too many fags or too much bevvy.

That gets things moving by the book.

[fiction-factory]

Hopefully we are letting a similar number leave here to return home as we are bringing back in. I recall the reason being given was that the infection rates in the areas they are coming from is no different to that here. But I can see a case for saying why take the risk as maybe 5% will be infected so put them in quarantine or test them (if spare tests are available). I'm not sure we have the facilities to quarantine them and enforce it though (lock in an empty hotel room?)

[retrocop]

This is the link behind this news. I still fail to see the logic here. If WE are supposed to comply with the lockdown rules to protect our NHS workers and hopefully assist this virus to diminish then, considering we are fumbling in the dark, I would of thought every possible avenue should be used to minimise the import of more potential carriers. If 10 or 20 amid the 105,000 unchecked passengers may carry this virus then we are back to square one. If we can't test them or quarantine them then they should not be allowed back into the country.IMO

[retrocop]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If the Sun is not to your liking then you can find similar in The Times.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11417314/15000-people-a-day-into-uk-without-coronavirus-testing/

[mushroom25]

heathrow is also one of the most important hubs in western Europe; a proportion of those arriving just get on a forwarding flight without leaving the airport.

[237SJ]

The vast amount of people who are coming into the country are coming from lockdown areas anyway (that's why they were stuck there)

[237SJ]

*majority* not amount

[Zacs-Master]

I’ve been saying this for weeks.

[Buenchico]

Aunty Beeb seems to have answered your question:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52319575