[imagesource: Twitter / Francesca Desquesnes]

When news of the Omicron variant first broke Boris Johnson panicked and hit the ‘red list’ button once more.

Now anybody returning from South Africa to the UK is forced to spend 10 days (and sometimes 11 nights) in an approved quarantine facility.

The cost alone is enough to send shivers up the spine – accounts range from £2 285 per person to £3 715 a couple, or roughly R48 000 a head to R78 000 a pair.

There’s just no way South Africans who planned on returning home for Christmas are paying that, but Britons forced to return aren’t left with much choice.

Somebody is making a whole lot of money off this arrangement because you don’t exactly get much bang for your buck.

Consider this account by Carla Stout on The Guardian:

I need to isolate in my room for 10 days and 11 nights. It is, to put it mildly, a bit of a dump: a tired, chipped Formica table, sagging curtains, freezing cold…

I phone reception, who tell me that they have only just put the heating on; I should be patient, they say. The room will be warm in 20 minutes. Half an hour later my teeth are still chattering so I phone again, demanding a heater. Another phone call and, half an hour later, a heater is produced. I am forced to perch it on the table because the power socket on the floor is broken.

I’m not that fussy about food, though I do long to eat off an actual ceramic plate – everything turns up in those little aeroplane-style packages, with wooden cutlery to boot…

It all makes little sense. If, by the fifth day, I’ve received a negative PCR result and have no symptoms, why do I have to stay another five days?

Stout also says she is losing income while she quarantines on top of the £2 285 she has already forked out.

Kate and Alex Freed recently travelled to South Africa for their honeymoon and flew back on December 2 after their original flight home was cancelled due to the travel ban.

Now they’re stuck in a hotel overlooking Heathrow and they’re not at all chuffed.

The couple said getting from the airport to the hotel took almost six hours, despite the fact that the Holiday Inn Express is located at the airport’s Terminal 4.

They were put on a bus full of people with poor ventilation and others were so distressed they were in tears, according to The Telegraph:

After arriving at the hotel itself, the pair said they had food and other supplies delivered by their family, because the hotel food was “inedible”.

“You’re paying serious money and … it’s not substantial meals. Half the time it’s cold, half the time it’s just inedible,” Mr Freed said…

“I don’t disagree with quarantine if that’s what the Government want to do… It’s just the cost that’s come with it,” she added.

“The way it is run is awful. I just feel something needs to be done about it,” Mr Freed said.

Let’s hear from Kate and Alex:

Francesca Desquesnes was even more irate.

She also returned to the UK from South Africa on December 2:

“It’s inhumane. I would I would actually ask any MP to come and spend 10 days in the hotel like this and do what we do and then tell us it’s humane.

“Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Grant Shapps – all three of you.”

Ms Desquesnes’s will be allowed to leave at one minute past midnight on Dec 15, but has to endure another nine days yet…

“I think if you’re not a person that is a strong person, and you weren’t mentally strong, this would destroy you.  I honestly believe that this would destroy most people’s sanity. This is not humane or a nice way to treat British citizens. It makes me not want to be British.”

Her tweet on the state of the meals being served went viral:

Current food conditions at the holiday inn express Heathrow quarantine hotel. No ventilation, no fridge, no work space. Think @TravelCTM_UK are making money- is this worth £2285??? pic.twitter.com/YgnfeyPcHn

— Francesca Desquesnes (@leap_services) December 6, 2021

Desquesnes went on to say she feels like she’s in Guantanamo Bay.

Michelle Bovey-Wood paid more than £7 000 for a quarantine room that sleeps three so she could be with her wife and their six-year-old daughter.

She was told the sofa doubles as a bed but no sheet, pillows, or duvet was provided. Eventually, they ended up using pillows to construct a bed for their daughter:

“It’s total abuse. It has abused basically every single human right that we have – freedom of movement – in every sense.

“People are rude, it’s isolating, there is no support should you need it. It’s horrific.”

There isn’t even WiFi in the room. That’s where I draw the line.

Sufficient tales of woe?

Nope, because there’s another article on The Telegraph by the wonderfully named Mickey Bevridge headlined ‘My Heathrow quarantine hotel hell: tiny rooms, rude staff and cold curries’:

I sit here writing this article three days into our 10-day stay. The food provided has generally been unhealthy and consisted largely of rich curries swimming in oil. Luckily a friend took pity on us and sent us some fresh vegetables and salads. We are allowed outside for exercise in a small car park.

The first morning we went out there, the car park was icy and slippery. We recommended to security that they salted the ground before someone got hurt. Everyone passed the buck…

If the Government can waste billions of pounds on ‘Track & Trace’ and ‘Eat Out to Help Out’, why can’t they subsidise the relatively few people who have had to quarantine in a hotel? Like much of our response to this pandemic, it’s hard to find any discernible logic to it.

Again, somebody is coining it and the British public (or South Africans who live and work in the UK) are footing the bill.

Former Bafana Bafana skipper Dean Furman also took to social media to share the story of his parents in quarantine.

Others chimed in with tales of woe:

Exactly same as my friends. £3700, no fridge, no laundry, heating doesn’t work, can only leave their room for 30mins a day to walk round a little courtyard, the food is shocking, landed at Heathrow had to wait hours for a bus to Gatwick. This was the salad they got. @HolidayInn pic.twitter.com/P67jPR2SeA

— Mitchell Osbon (@Merv159) December 4, 2021

The slim chances of anybody coming to South Africa and braving the quarantine upon arrival back in the UK become even slimmer.

Not that Boris and his cronies will mind very much. Normal rules don’t apply to them.

[sources:guardian&telegraph&telegraph]