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Since March 2020, countries like Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand have been imposing a mandatory hotel stay on arriving travellers. Like quarantines down the centuries, the idea is simple: to stop incoming travellers infecting the local population.
Now, almost a year later, the UK has decided it too will require travellers to quarantine in a hotel if they return from any of 33 so-called ‘red list’ countries. The new requirements come into force today, and travellers are responsible for paying their own way, at a maximum cost of £1,750 per head for ten days’ accommodation, transport and testing.
But what’s it actually like to quarantine in a hotel? As chance would have it, Cass Knowlton – editorial director of Time Out Australia – is well placed to answer that question. She’s currently locked down in a hotel in Tasmania, after a positive case in her airport terminal turned her trip from a four-day getaway into an unexpected two-week quarantine.