Scots Covid quarantine checks to finally get underway

Quarantine check on travellers returning to Scotland from overseas will get underway tomorrow, Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed.

Nicola Sturgeon says checks will begin tomorrow

The First Minister revealed that a delay in agreeing a "memorandum of understanding" with the UK Home Office to allow clearance for Scots public health officials in accessing passenger details has prevented any checks taking place so far.

The Scottish Government came under fire at the weekend when it emerged that no checks had been carried out arrivals into the country four weeks after quarantine requirements were introduced.

The SNP leader insisted she was not seeking to "point fingers of blame" at the UK Government over the hold up.

"Checks will start tomorrow," Ms Sturgeon told today's Coronavirus briefing.

"We took a decision to manage this aspect of the system within our own public health arrangements. Therefore, there required to be work done to conclude a memorandum of understanding that would allow the data to flow from the Home Office to Public Health Scotland.

"That work has been underway for the past few weeks.

"There was an initial Memorandum of Understanding which required some amendment as I understand it because there were issues around quality of the data. The final MoU was received by Public Health Scotland on Friday (last week) which will now allow the checks to start tomorrow."

The system of quarantine was introduced a month ago and means anyone entering Scotland from abroad is currently expected to isolate for two weeks or face a £480 fine. The measure was introduced to suppress the spread of coronavirus.

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