There have been a lot of comments on social media about continuing flights into British airports, particularly Heathrow. The prevailing wisdom on Twitter seems to be that thousands of people are flying into Britain, many from Coronavirus hotspots. No health checks are in place at the airport and they just disappear into the community, taking the virus with them.

Reality check: The UK is itself a Coronavirus hotspot. COVID-19 is already endemic in this country and we are in the middle of an epidemic. We have no more reason to test new arrivals into this country than we have to test anybody else. I accept that we should have tested sooner and more extensively than we did. But it is too late now. The government may try to spin the lack of testing as a policy decision. But it was a decision taken out of necessity because we lacked the capacity and are still playing catch-up in that regard. It is too late to quarantine the country. (There are exceptions. I understand that all travel between Shetland and the rest of the world has been shut down.)

And who are these air travellers? Not tourists, that is for sure. The entire tourist industry has been closed down. In my neck of the woods police roadblocks are turning away visitors to the Lake District. It is fair to assume that the only people travelling around the world are people who have to. And according to The Metro in Britain that includes the 1.3 million Britons who have returned to the UK since the start of the pandemic, the overwhelming majority using flights on commercial airlines. Thousands more, stranded in locations where commercial flights are restricted or unavailable,  are awaiting charter flights commissioned by the UK government.

Back to Heathrow. According to their website

In our terminals you’ll see a host of banners, digital signs, floor markings, and leaflets with health advice and social distancing reminders. You’ll also notice the over 600 hand sanitizer dispensers located around the terminals.

We have a dedicated team of Public Health England officials at Heathrow with enhanced monitoring processes – some of which aren’t necessarily visible to passengers.

For our colleagues, we’ve made surgical masks available to those who would like to wear them and are installing Perspex barriers in security. These barriers were designed by one of our in-house engineers and the first prototypes were installed this week.

No flight deemed by any Government to be a risk is operating in or out of Heathrow. Importantly, we continue to follow the advice of health experts and Government.

Passenger flights are down by 75%. Cargo flights have increased by 400% and flights into Heathrow bring in 40% of UK medical supplies.  I am confident that a similar story could be told about every UK airport.

This epidemic has made us fearful and angry at the government’s demonstrable lack of competence in dealing with the crisis. These are unprecedented times. But, hard as it is, we need to take care and direct our fear and anger at legitimate targets. Heathrow is not one of them.