 the Chief Executive of Heathrow Airport has called on the government to introduce mass health screening checks at airports following criticism of Britain's loose border controls during the worst global pandemic for a century. Even the guy who's running the airport thinks that maybe this has all been a bit too liberal. John Holland Kay sent a letter to Matt Hancock, the health secretary on Thursday evening urging ministers to take a lead in developing global screening standards at airports. These could include measures such as temperature checks, antibody tests and a requirement to carry a health certificate. Downing Street on Friday rejected the call for checks at airports saying the government's position was based on medical and scientific advice. To this point it has been considered that wouldn't be an effective step to take. Number 10 said we keep everything under review and we do continue to look at what is happening elsewhere in the world. There is a very odd situation here where there are 15,000 people arriving every day at British airports and they're not subject to any tests for coronavirus. The thing that's getting lots of publicity because it's kind of visual and people find that when they go to other countries in this period of time they get their temperature checked. That to me seems like a bit of a red herring. I think when the government say checking people's temperatures will have a very marginal impact because most people who are COVID, who are positive for coronavirus don't currently have a fever. It's only one of many symptoms and there are many people who are pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic. So I don't think the idea that you can sort of protect your society from incoming cases of coronavirus is helped or is made possible by those temperature checks. But for me the most surprising thing is just that why haven't we controlled who's going in and out? Because almost everyone else has, right? Britain here is in a real minority. Well I don't think there's anybody else. Let's go through the numbers here. Canada shut its borders on March 16th, Denmark shut its borders on March 13th, France has stopped letting people in from non-Chengan areas, non-Chengan states since March 11th. Germany doesn't allow people in who aren't from Schengen member states. A few exceptions, Switzerland, Britain and so on. India has banned all international flights except cargo until April 14th. Japan has a ban on 73 countries including the US and UK until April 3rd. New Zealand's had a ban since March 19th except for non-permanent residents and except for permanent residents and citizens. And the United States has banned the entry of all foreign nationals who've travelled to China, Iran, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, many many many other countries up to 14 days for arrival. So Britain is unique and I agree with you that the temperature testing thing it's kind of like it's just purely performative but hey it wouldn't be hard to do. The whole thing about this test that creates friction and so what's the problem with sticking a thermometer since I'm being by the way I wouldn't suggest that what we should be doing is what's happening in Malta where you basically go into quarantine for two weeks you arrive you have to you give an address you have to stay there the police are checking on people once twice a day if you're not there you get I think it's a 3 000 euro fine that's an incredibly easy thing to enforce okay and so Britain okay and there's only 15 000 flights coming in a day right so actually 15 000 people yeah sorry my apologies 15 000 people okay so it's very easy to enforce right and you can maybe even have it a bit higher five 10 000 pounds I just don't understand why wouldn't we do that I don't get it I just do not understand why wouldn't we do that there's not there's not a huge extra cost it might even raise revenue so I just think and the response you saw from Matt Hancock is and I tweeted about it sort of just mockingly they said well we already have the pandemic and we already had this crisis and it just doesn't really seem in the context of how it's already unfolding it won't really change very much well this is what we keep on hearing isn't it it's what we heard towards the end of January then throughout February then in March we won't have a lockdown it won't really change much you know what if we get on top of this what if in a month's time we're down to 100 deaths a day we've got you know that low r number and people somebody flies in from from New York or from Lombardy or from part of China and they you know they get straight on the London underground I mean that's it's crazy surely it's such a simple thing to do and I think it speaks against the kind of the neoliberal mindset which is just states can't do things you know we can't get on top of things we need a decisive plan and you need to act accordingly and there is just ideological commitment to frictionless you know international travel what it also what it also speaks to you though because you can rationalize it which is that I mean I've said all week on this show this the government now has two options as to what it's going to do next what its exit strategy is going to be one of them is to keep the virus moving at a low level through the population so that we don't breach our ICU capacity but that you know sort of two percent of the population have it at any one time that's you know that's been their default strategy throughout most of this period of time it's what Sweden are doing the other option is to say let's completely suppress the virus with a with a quite strong lockdown and then after that we're going to have test and trace to try and isolate and suppress the disease wherever it arises so we're trying to keep the disease down to as few cases as as feasibly possible if you were going to do the second one you have to close your borders if you're going to do the first one there's not much point in closing your borders so the fact that they haven't you know introduced any restrictions on international travel is probably the best evidence there is that the government at the moment have no plans whatsoever to try and properly suppress and contain coronavirus they're going to go for basically the sweden strategy of let it slowly move through the population yeah i think this confirms that and you know you saw it i think we we still had people flying in from the the province that surrounds Wuhan there were still people were advised to travel there but you know take precautions as the city was shutting down in China and they were coming back the state wasn't monitoring i wrote you know this is the the video i made in the viral media and then they were advised to stay at home for two weeks but again no enforcement you could have done the exact same thing if the multistate has a multa 300 000 people 400 000 people has the capacity to say you have to stay in this property this address for two weeks or you'll be fine this amount of money why can't the British state do that it is so authoritarian in so many areas why can't it do this this particular thing in the context for pandemic you know it just it just speaks to the absence of crisis management and state you know we see it's the Deloitte uh i think it was Deloitte that were running one of these testing centers that's just from world of adventures there were campsants why why Deloitte run it and it didn't work surprise surprise just like when capitol run army recruitment or you know an NHS helpline it doesn't work privatization absolutely it doesn't work in effective state to do this it's just keep on coming to the fore and i think i think the policy around incoming air passengers is another example of that