The stars were out and the crickets were chattering away. Our glasses of red wine were by our sides, untouched for 30 minutes. Then a church bell tolled somewhere in the distance, which could only mean one thing. It was time to go indoors and shove a swab up our noses.
If you have travelled overseas in recent months, you will be familiar with this process. If you haven’t – in brief, to return to our fair isle you must take a Covid-19 test 72 hours before boarding your flight home, and then a PCR test two days after arrival home (and then another on day eight, if you are travelling from an amber destination and are not fully vaccinated. Are you following?).
This could all be about to change. This week, the travel industry waits with bated breath as rumours circulate that the day two PCR test will be replaced with a cheaper lateral flow test. But, arguably even more promisingly, there are whispers that fully vaccinated travellers could be exempt from taking a test 72 hours before travelling home, something which a source tells the Telegraph is “an option on the table”. With a bit of luck, we will have confirmation of this by Thursday.
Shifting the day two test from PCR to lateral flow will help to reduce the cost of travel. But removing the pre-departure test would be a pivotal moment in the opening up of travel. The test creates unnecessary anxiety, is easily faked, costs too much, and does not fall in line with what our European neighbours are doing. For many people, it will be the main reason why they don’t bother travelling overseas at all.
Here are five reasons why the 72-hour test makes no sense, and must be scrapped now. We also want to hear your own experiences and opinions of the pre-departure test – comment at the bottom of this article to join the conversation.
1. The test results can be manipulated
Many companies offer a service whereby travellers can take an antigen test with them on holiday, to take within 72 hours of returning home. Convenient? Yes. Easily manipulated? Absolutely.
The pre-departure test I recently took for my return from Kefalonia required a photograph of the test result, in order for the certificate to come through. There is no way, however, for the company to know who took the test, or when it was taken. I could have asked my girlfriend to take the test, for example, or I could have taken it before I travelled and snapped the photograph against a suitably Greek-looking surface.
Other companies do not even request a photograph – a simple tickbox of ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ suffices to get an official document through, paving the way for your flight home. Obviously, going into a pharmacy to take the test means you will not have the option to cheat the system, were you that way inclined.
2. Few other countries test arrivals in this way
We can travel just about anywhere in Europe – Spain, Greece, France and beyond – with a simple flash of a double vaccination QR code via the NHS app. All have considerably lower case rates than we do; the UK is on 360 per 100,000, Spain is on 60, Greece is on 144, France is on 105. Our pre-departure test is, frankly, out of step with the current status quo across the Continent.
3. The Government doesn’t even check the results
After going through the faff of taking your pre-departure test, it is slightly surprising that no official in the UK takes so much as a peep at your results. On travelling back to the UK it is the airline check-in staff who are tasked with checking this certificate. Anecdotally, from my recent return from Greece, this was a very swift glance at my phone. Nobody will ever see this certificate again.
4. The tests are too expensive
Companies offer antigen tests starting from £25, going up to £100 for ‘supervised video services’. Different countries offer these tests in pharmacies for around €30 (£26) or €40 (£34). For an individual, this is manageable. For a family, however, it can add a significant amount to an already expensive holiday. Particularly galling when you can collect a box full of NHS lateral flow tests from a UK pharmacy for free.
5. It hangs over the holiday
Even for the most seasoned, cool-headed traveller, the anxiety of taking the 72-hour pre-departure test really ramps up during the trip. The bottom line is that if you test positive, you will not be able to travel home. In some countries, this means turning yourself into the authorities and checking into a mandatory quarantine facility (typically at your own expense), or else finding somewhere to isolate at your own expense. Such a scenario is not viable for most holidaymakers.
