MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands examining quarantine regulations making them more rigorous

MLA Elsby, ”you must almost treat a person coming back from the UK as though they have the most horrendous disease…”

The Falkland Islands quarantine regulations are being examined by Members of Legislative Assembly with a view to tightening up rules and interpretation of rules, according to an interview with this week's Penguin News.

MLA Barry Elsby gave as an example, individuals perhaps not being allowed to do personal passenger pick-ups from MPC flights.

On the subject of people quarantining with their families MLA Elsby told Penguin News: “We've talked about this a lot and we're almost certainly going to bring in an ExCo paper in the very near future to really try to inform people that you must almost treat a person coming back from the UK as though they have the most horrendous disease…”

He said people should assume the person arriving has Covid-19, “you can't be hugging them on arrival. You can't be sitting down and having meals at the table, you have to treat that person as infectious…”

He warned that people had to think seriously about whether their house was suitable for people to quarantine together as a family. “Is it realistic really to say yes, I can isolate separately within that unit, because I'll sleep on the couch, and I'll clean the couch after, or sleep on a camp bed. Theoretically, it is probably just doable. But is it realistic to say you have 100% certainty of not contaminating the other person in the house?”

MLA Elsby explained that current regulations did not state that you must keep away from your family while quarantining and the intention was to strengthen the regulations.