Kate Garraway clashed with Grant Shapps over the delay in bringing in coronavirus testing for people entering the UK.
Kate and her Good Morning Britain co-host Ben Shephard questioned the hold-up after the government finally announced people would need evidence of a negative test, asking ‘why have we waited 10 months?”
The Secretary of State for Transport was discussing the government’s decision not to bring in mass testing for people entering the country.
This comes as people travelling to the UK will now have to provide evidence of a negative coronavirus test.
Mr Shapps explained why it is only being put in place now - pointing to the existence of new variants of the virus.
Kate said: “If it is going to prevent those with COVID coming into the country, it feels like it might have been helpful to do it sooner?”
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Mr Shapps said: “First of all, quarantine is by far and away the bigger tool so it means that if you have to self-isolate then you can absolutely be sure that person comes out of isolation without being able to spread.
“The thing about a test it only tells you that someone is asymptomatic, they don’t know they have any symptoms.”
The GMB presenter said: “But sorry Mr Shapps, quarantine as we know is very hard to enforce, you are having to rely an awful lot on trust and there’s been lots of problems with self isolation and the spread of it anyway. If someone gets off a plane, testing negative at that moment, you know they haven’t got COVID .”
Mr Shapps added: “Unfortunately that’s not true. That’s one of the difficult things being able to get across. It sounds so logical what you just said, you get a test, you know you’re negative, job done.
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“Actually that’s not what it shows you, it shows you it’s not showing at that moment in time, you may still be carrying coronavirus and worse still you might now think you don’t have it. So it’s extra, it’s an additional thing to do, but it’s no way as good.”
Kate said: “Why are you bringing it in now then? If you thought it wasn’t so good, why bring it in now?”
Kate’s co-host Ben Shephard jumped in at this point and questioned the hold up in implementing the mass roll out. He said: “Why have we waited 10 months?”
