Just four in 1,000 double jabbed holidaymakers are testing positive for Covid on their return to Britain, according to new research, as MPs called for costly PCR tests to be scrapped.
The exclusive data, which is being studied by Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, show that at the end of July only 0.4 per cent of fully vaccinated travellers arriving back from holiday at UK airports had contracted Covid.
Single vaccinated travellers were twice as likely to test positive, representing 0.8 per cent of arrivals. Even for unjabbed holidaymakers it was only between one and 1.2 per cent, according to the analysis from Cignpost, one of the UK’s biggest providers which conducts 11,000 tests on arrivals a day.
It is the first breakdown of travellers’ test results to take account of their vaccination status and prompted calls from MPs for the Government to take advantage of the success of the jabs to ease the PCR testing regime.
Henry Smith, the Tory chairman of the all-party Future of Aviation group, said the findings justified replacing PCR tests – which cost on average more than £60 per person – for amber and green countries with cheaper lateral flow tests.
Anyone testing positive with the cheaper test would then have to take a PCR: “The data really makes the case for a much simpler and straightforward testing regime,” said Mr Smith.
However, Nick Markham, the founder of Cignpost, said lateral flow tests had higher rates of false positives while the 0.4 per cent still equated to 400 people infected with Covid arriving in the UK each day.
He said that during the delta variant crisis the firm recorded 10 per cent of arrivals from India as positive even though they had taken the less accurate antigen tests before flying to the UK.
“PCR tests are more accurate so they capture those cases that antigen will miss. You can also sequence PCR tests which you cannot do with antigen and this gives you an early indication if there are new variants of concern out there,” said Mr Markham.
Ministers will on Thursday consider recommendations to keep Turkey and Pakistan on the red list, requiring arrivals to the UK to quarantine in a hotel for 10 days at a cost of £2,285 per person. If they do, it will be a blow for the two countries who have lobbied to go amber and be exempt from quarantine.
