Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports that passengers arriving in the UK on flights from Wuhan since the outbreak of the coronavirus in China have not been medically screened upon their arrival.

Enhanced monitoring measures are in place for all direct flights from Wuhan to the United Kingdom in response to the outbreak of Wuhan novel coronavirus (WN-CoV). We are rolling the enhanced monitoring for all direct flights from China. The focus of the measures is to identify those who may be at risk of having contracted WN-CoV, ensuring that they have information and support if they are concerned and can contact Public Health England staff at the airport.

These measures do not include the introduction of ‘medical screening’ such as temperature screening. Expert advice suggests ‘medical screening’ such as temperature screening would be of very limited effectiveness and detect only a small minority of cases. This is because symptoms do not usually appear until five to seven days, and sometimes up to 14 days.