Why the UK’s biggest coronavirus failure will be its lax implementation of quarantine

When books are written on how the UK dealt with the biggest public health threat for a century, writes Andrew Woodcock, there will be many chapters on our failure to use the best option available to us

Social distancing measures in Leicester following the imposition of a local lockdown (PA)

Throughout the coronavirus crisis, one of the most baffling aspects of the government’s response has been its approach to quarantine.

Once the disease had established itself firmly in Britain, attempts to check or isolate people coming from abroad were ditched – apparently on the grounds that there were too many cases here for such measures to make a difference.

Then, when most of our European neighbours and places like China and New Zealand had reduced the pandemic to a fraction of its former scale, we suddenly slapped a 14-day period of self-isolation on anyone entering the country from overseas.