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14th Jul 2020

Mandatory quarantine not feasible according to Varadkar

Sarah Finnan

mandatory quarantine

This comes amid calls from the hospitality industry who have been urging the government to provide greater clarity on tourist quarantine. 

Tanaiste Leo Varadkar has said that government can’t introduce mandatory quarantine for legal and practical reasons, suggesting that Covid-19 testing be carried out on visitors travelling from non ‘green list’ countries instead.

According to Varadkar, both the Department of Health and the government have come to the conclusion that mandatory quarantine of passengers entering the country isn’t feasible. Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast, he said:

“We have to bear in mind that this pandemic, is going on now for five, six months, the chances are certainly, it’s a high possibility that it’ll go on for years until we have a vaccine or an effective treatment. It’s just not practical to cut ourselves off to international travel for that long.”

He later added:

“Bear in mind if you go back to the start of this, the objective was to flatten the curve, to suppress the virus to make sure that our ICU’s weren’t overwhelmed, it was never to eliminate the virus.”

Business owners in the hospitality industry have called for greater clarity with regards to ‘tourist quarantine’ and serving international tourists who may not have self-isolated for two weeks after arriving in the country.

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