CHECKS will begin tomorrow to ensure people arriving in Scotland from overseas are complying with rules to quarantine for two weeks, the First Minister has announced.
Nicola Sturgeon made the announcement at her press briefing on the coronavirus pandemic after it emerged over the weekend no follow up calls had been made after Scottish public health officials had been unable to access Home Office data on travellers' details.
"Checks will start tomorrow," the First Minister said, adding that work had been ongoing to agree a memorandum of understanding to allow the Home Office information to be made available to health officials in Scotland.
"That work has been under way over the past few weeks, there was an initial memorandum of understanding which required some amendment as I understand because there were issues around the quality of the data and the final MOU was received by Public Health Scotland on Friday which will now allow the checks to start tomorrow and I think that is positive."
She added that there was nothing to suggest there was not high compliance with the rules which currently require overseas travellers to self-isolate for 14 days after they arrive in Scotland.
Sturgeon went on to say that prevalence of the virus was at “very low levels” in Scotland and at five times lower than levels elsewhere in the UK.
"The levels of the virus suggest that the Scottish Government might be getting some things right," she added.
READ MORE: Scots public health officials ‘unable’ to contact quarantining passengers
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said as well as checks on travellers arriving from tomorrow checks would also be carried out on people who had arrived in Scotland over the past two weeks.
"The people who will do the checks as I said starting from tomorrow and working back over the last 14 days are from our contact tracing team. You will recall we have 2002 of those individuals on standby ready to be deployed ... and we have the option to add to that should that be required ... The sample quarantine checks will begin from tomorrow."
Over the weekend Freeman said no checks had been carried out due to officials lacking the correct clearance.
The Sunday Post reported that no follow-up checks were carried out north of the Border, despite Public Health England calling a random sample of arrivals to ensure they were sticking to the rules.
The Health Secretary said these calls would begin in Scotland in the coming days.
Speaking on the BBC's Sunday Politics Scotland show, she said: "We had to have our Public Health Scotland officials security cleared in order to access the Home Office systems.
"That's the system you need to access to get passenger data – in order to protect people's data. That has been resolved and those follow-up calls will begin this week."
She said Public Health England was already a part of the Home Office system while the equivalent agency in Scotland was not.
Separately, the Scottish Government is due to announce its decision on "air bridges" with other countries in the coming days.
This would allow holidaymakers returning from certain countries to avoid the 14-day quarantine period.
The Scottish and UK governments have been at odds over the issue, with the First Minister accusing officials of "shambolic" decision-making.
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