No plans to test passengers arriving at Doncaster Sheffield Airport

Doncaster Council’s director of public health, Dr Rupert Suckling, responding to a question from Mexborough Coun Andy Pickering on airport testing, said capacity issues meant this was not possible at this time and there was no Government guidance on it.

Currently, people arriving at the airport testing centre showing symptoms of coronavirus are being tested and passengers arriving who have no symptoms do not have to be tested.

At present, those who arrive from countries such as Spain and France are being asked to self-isolate for 14 days due to rising cases in those countries.

But Dr Suckling said the travel and aviation industries are in early discussions with Government ministers about rolling out testing for passengers on arrival and after five days.

“The current UK policy on testing is only test people with symptoms - so we currently wouldn’t signpost people who arrive at Doncaster Sheffield Airport to go to the testing station,” Dr Suckling said.

“The airline industry is speaking to Government on whether they can bring in a testing procedure to test people immediately on arrival and then five days later.

“At the moment, the advice for people coming back from the allotted air corridors is to go about their daily business assuming they had no symptoms and for those from somewhere no longer within an air corridor they have to quarantine for 14 days.

“I do think we will see movement on that in response to the aviation and the travel industry.

Coun Pickering added: “The reason I mention this, is because we do seem to have an opportunity with the testing site at the airport - is something we could push for?”

“We would only want to press for that if there was sufficient capacity at the airport testing station,” Dr Suckling said.

“Sometimes it seems planes land at Doncaster within a few minutes of each other and we’d want to use up all the testing capacity for the people from the area who are symptomatic.

“It is something that we are pursuing with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government in terms of how we want to respond to air traffic passengers.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.

Subscribe to The Star website and enjoy unlimited access to local news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you also see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times and get access to exclusive newsletters and content.

Visit https://www.thestar.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support it. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Thank you

Nancy Fielder, editor