Uber driver among Brits returning from Italy: ‘We’ve being told NOTHING about self-isolation’

There is increasing chaos and confusion at British airports today as travellers on flights from Italy to the UK told MailOnline they had ‘no idea’ about the need to self-isolate for the next fortnight with some questioning whether they need to.

British Airways and Jet2 have axed all flights to and from the coronavirus-hit country but some planes from easyJet and Vueling continued to touch down at Heathrow, Stansted, Gatwick, Manchester and Edinburgh.   

Passengers on the near-empty planes revealed that they were not tested on arrival and there was no-one advising them how to get home to start their 14-day isolation period. Hand sanitiser pumps in the terminals were also completely empty. 

Others described landing in Italy yesterday only to be told that it was too dangerous to be there and being put on flights home as Britain lost its sixth victim to coronavirus today and Italy’s death toll also increased by 97 in a day to 463.

Francesco Stabile told MailOnline at Stansted today that he had ‘no idea’ of the latest travel restrictions after visiting his girlfriend in Italy including a Government diktat to self-quarantine immediately for a fortnight.

Mr Stabile 38, who has lived in Letchworth, Herts, for the past 16 years, said he was keen to get back to work, adding: ‘I am an Uber driver. I go to Italy every two weeks to visit my girlfriend. I have received information from the Foreign Office but I don’t know anything about self-isolating. I am feeling well. I have nothing wrong with me.’ 

Carmine Loru, 39, who arrived at Gatwick on a Vueling flight from Florence, said that he had been given no information about self-isolation, and had not undergone any tests to ascertain if he was carrying the virus.

Mr Loru, whose family is from Florence, said: ‘There is a lot of paranoia in Italy, but here there is not even anybody checking us I read that I’m supposed to stay at home for 14 days, but nobody said anything about that on the plane’.

Engineer Anna De Luca, 30, who lives in Brighton and flew into Gatwick from Naples, said: ‘It’s just crazy. I’m actually quite shocked, there were no checks at all. Even in Naples they did a check, and told us to stay one metre away from the next person. And then on the plane there was nothing. We weren’t given any information’.

She added: ‘I just asked a man working here, he said maybe you should phone 111, but there were no checks at all’,  adding all she saw was an ‘old’ NHS poster.  

In other developments to the UK’s escalating coronavirus crisis today:

• A man in his 80s who had underlying health conditions became the UK’s sixth coronavirus victim, after officials announced 50 more patients had caught the killer infection;
• Fears for hundreds of vulnerable patients were raised after a surgeon at Liverpool’s Aintree University Hospital tested positive for the virus;
• Great Ormond Street hospital cancelled surgery for children with serious heart problems for two weeks after one of its ‘health professionals’ tested positive;
• Suspected coronavirus patients are not being tested unless they’ve travelled abroad despite the disease spreading rapidly between people in the UK;
• Businesses are preparing for their workforces to be off work because of the coronavirus after officials said even mildly ill people should stay home;
• Boris Johnson admitted there is a good reason not to shake people’s hands during the coronavirus – to shame people into washing their hands;
• The Prime Minister faced fresh calls to step up the UK’s measures after Austria imposed a ban on travellers from Italy and Spain blocked flights;
• Virgin Atlantic admitted flying planes that are ‘almost empty’ in order to keep take-off and landing slots despite demand plummeting due to the coronavirus;
• The Royal Bank of Scotland announced it will defer mortgage and loan repayments for up to three months for customers impacted by coronavirus.

Retired green-grocer Martin Rudd claimed the public hand-sanitizer pumps at Stansted Airport were empty and there was no up to date health advice when in the arrivals hall, when he arrived from Pisa this morning. 

Mr Rudd, 64, from Leigh-On-Sea, Essex, told MailOnline: ‘I’m in a high-risk group – I’m diabetic and I’ve had a triple heart by-pass – so I’m taking precautions.

‘The hand-sanitizer pumps are empty and the only information is on a notice board in the arrivals hall. There isn’t any one checking to see if people are unwell or taking anyone’s temperature.’

Mr Rudd, who had been on holiday in northern part of Italy but outside the original ‘Red Zone’ with his partner Linda Collis, booked an earlier flight after the Italian government announced a nationwide lock-down.

He said: ‘My son called warned us last night that travel restrictions were changing so I booked an earlier flight so we’ve come home this morning. In fact the plane was practically empty. There were on about 15 people on the flight.’

Mr Rudd said he was taking a taxi home and would stay in-doors for the required 14 days in accordance with the latest advice from Public Health England.

He said: ‘I’ve got grandchildren so I don’t want to infect them. I’m well prepared. I’ve got lots of food in, everything I need. I bought a load of hand sanitizer before we left, in fact I took six bottles with us to Italy and I’ve been cleaning my hands after touching anything.’ 

Italian couple Eleonora and Michele, from Cagliari said they were ‘terrified’ to return home to Italy after a visit to Britain via Copenhagen.

Eleonora, 30, wore a thick face mask as she told MailOnline: ‘We are so scared, we are terrified. We are from Sardinia where there are not many cases but we have friends in Milan who are ill with the virus.

‘When we left to go to Copenhagen last Monday there was no problem. Now the whole of the country [Italy] has been shut down. We don’t know what to expect when we get home.’

A British couple have told how they became stranded in Venice and were lucky to get a flight home from Italy.

Paul and Jaki Brown had planned a romantic break in the historic island city. But they found themselves in the centre of the Coronavirus epidemic just hours after landing in Italy on Sunday.

Paul Brown, 63, a manager at Royal Mail, told MailOnline: ‘We were completely stranded. Our hotel was ordered to shut down and our flight home was cancelled. All I can say is thank God for Ryanair, the brought us home.’

The couple from a village near Exeter, Devon, had booked a week’s holiday in Venice through boutique travel agency Voyage Prive.

But just two hours after arriving in Venice the couple received an email telling them they should not go to Italy.

Speaking from London’s Stansted Airport, Jaki Brown, 66, told MailOnline: ‘We were worried about the situation in Italy so I called them on Sunday just before we were about to leave and they told us the hotel would be open for us.

‘But when we got there we found that every was shut – all the museums and churches, and the bars and restaurants all had to close by 6pm.

‘Our hotel did not have a restaurant. It only served breakfast which we had to take in our room. We were told not to mix with other guests but there was no one else staying there.

‘We were booked for a week but yesterday [Monday] the hotel staff told us they had been instructed by the owners to close.’

Paul Brown added: ‘All the other hotels in the area were closed. I called the British consulate and they told me to look for an Airbnb. They were useless.

‘We got hold of the travel agent and they managed to change our return light from Friday to today [Tuesday].

‘But when we checked last night we found that EasyJet had cancelled all their flights from northern Italy.

‘We were stranded. Thank God Ryanair are still operating flights otherwise we would still be stuck there.

‘We have had to come back Stansted, rather than Bristol Airport, but at least we are back in Britain.’

Mr and Mrs Brown said they were not aware of the latest travel advice but said they would follow the guidelines and self-isolate for 14, despite the difficulty.

Jaki Brown said: ‘I have an immune deficient, I have rheumatoid arthritis, which is a lung condition as well as causing pain.

‘We don’t have any symptoms but that is a bit of a worry.

‘To be honest we didn’t really see anybody in Venice. It was completely empty.

‘But we will do the right thing. We don’t want anyone to report us to the Coronavirus Police’.

Paul Brown added: ‘We don’t have any food in because we were expecting to be away for the week.

‘We live in a small village just outside Exeter so there are not really facilities nearby.

‘We’ll just have to eat whatever is in the freezer’.

Mr and Mrs Brown now intend to hire a car and drive to Bristol Airport to collect their own car before returning home.

Travel agency Voyage Prive did not answer requests for a comment when contacted by MailOnline.

Passengers from Italy to Gatwick continued to arrive in Britain without health checks today  – despite the country being locked down in an effort to contain its coronavirus explosion. 

After Prime Minister Conte introduced the measures, the UK government urged anyone returning to Britain from Italy to self-isolate for two weeks – regardless of whether they were experiencing any symptoms.

However several flights from Italy were still scheduled to arrive at Gatwick Airport today, despite the Foreign Office warning against all but essential travel.

Another man, Giovanni – who did not want to give his surname – said that he would be self-isolating in London, but was given no information about what to do once he got off the plane.

The 50-year-old, who works selling sanitary products in London, said: ‘Yes, of course I will self-isolate.

‘We were given no information about how we should get home or anything like that.

‘I think everybody is being a bit fatalist. I personally have a surgical mask which I was using on the plane, and which I will use as soon as I get on the train – and I think I will wear it for the next few days if I do go out.’

A woman arriving from Florence, who gave her name as Maria, said she had not been told that she had to self-isolate at all.

When told that the latest guidance from the Government was for anyone who has visited Italy to self-isolate Maria, who does not live in London, said: ‘No, I didn’t know that.

‘We were given no advice or information about that on the plane at all.’

Despite cancelling a host of services to and from Italy, a number of EasyJet flights – from places like Naples and Bologna – were still scheduled to arrive at Gatwick today.  

British Airways and Jet2 have today cancelled hundreds of flights to and from Italy until April at the earliest and eastJet has also grounded most of its services leaving thousands of customers stranded in the coronavirus-hit country.

BA has axed its 60 flights a day to cities including Milan, Venice and Rome while Jet2 has gone even further and cancelled all its Italian trips for almost two months until April 26.

EasyJet has stopped the majority of its flights to northern Italy but planes will still fly from southern cities such as Rome and Naples despite a blanket travel ban imposed by the Italian government as deaths reached almost 100 per day yesterday.

Thousands of Britons are now believed to be stuck in Italy because of coronavirus and airline cancellations, including Leah Washington, the young woman who lost her leg in the Alton Towers Smiler rollercoaster disaster of 2015. 

Jess Nicholls, 43, an enterprise change consultant, said today she felt ‘dumped’ by BA after it notified her by email that her flight from Rome to London would be cancelled.

She said she was seeking an ‘acknowledgement that they just stranded loads of passengers when they said they would get us home’.

‘Their website was down, their call centres are overloaded and we got an email after midnight saying our flight was cancelled. It’s putting more passengers in danger.’ 

Most flights to Italy from Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick have been grounded at the last minute today – but others are still flowing into the country without checks or knowing the latest advice is to self-isolate for 14 days, MailOnline can reveal.

Mrs Nicholls said she ‘had to fight’ to secure a place on a flight from BA-owned Vueling on Tuesday, which she was told was currently operating as planned. 

British Airways said it had axed its 60 flights a day to cities including Milan, Venice and Rome after the Government decided anyone arriving in the UK from the country must self-isolate for a fortnight afterwards.

Anyone who has booked to travel to or from the coronavirus-hit country can rebook at a later date or have a full refund. 

Many British travelers returning home on the last few flights out of Italy told MailOnline today they had no idea the Government was now demanding they go into self-isolation for 14 days as soon as they land in the UK.

And they must also find their way home by public transport if they are not driving themselves home.

BA has taken the extreme step as the Government changed its advice on travel to Italy last night after the country PM Giuseppe Conte put the country’s 60million people on lockdown as they lost their grip on the crisis as the death tolled jumped by 97 in one day to 463. 

A BA spokesman said: ‘In light of the Italian Government’s announcement and the UK Government’s official travel advice, we have contacted all customers who are due to travel today.

‘We have updated our policy to give customers more options and flexibility. Any travellers due to fly to or from Italy between now and April 4 can rebook to a later date up until the end of May, move their destination to Geneva or Zurich or receive a full refund.

‘We recommend that any travellers continue to check their booking on ba.com for the latest information and ensure their contact details are up-to-date in the Manage My Booking section of the website’.

In the last week BA, Virgin Atlantic, Ryanair and easyJet have all cancelled more than 1,000 flights across Europe, the US and Asia due to a drop in demand and a sharp rise in passenger no-shows. 

Flybe blamed their collapse on coronavirus last wee saying it a lack of bookings hastened their demise.

The International Air Transport Association has said that the world’s airlines could lose between $63billion and $113billion in revenues because of the coronavirus crisis. 

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is advising against all but essential travel to the entire country.

A spokesman said last night: ‘We have amended our travel advice to recommend against all but essential travel to Italy. The safety of British nationals is always our number one priority.

‘The advice is that anyone who arrives from Italy subsequent to Italian government decision should now self-isolate for 14 days.’

What should be included in my travel insurance policy to ensure I’m covered for potential coronavirus related cancellations at Easter and in the summer?

I have booked a family ski holiday to France in April and we have every intention of still going, despite coronavirus.

I already have travel insurance through my bank account with Nationwide. 

What do I need to check for to see if I am covered if the trip gets cancelled due to FCO advice on coronavirus, or France taking anti-virus steps?

Also, if I need to buy a new policy, will it cover me if I get it now and what should I look out for in it?

Grace Gausden, This is Money, replies: We have been swamped with similar coronavirus-related insurance questions regarding future travel in 2020.  

The virus outbreak is ever changing with more countries announcing new, and progressively more extreme, measures every day in a bid to combat the spread of the disease.

This has ranged from people being advised to wash their hands regularly to millions of people being quarantined in Italy.

This has made it difficult for those with holidays booked in the coming weeks and months to know what to do. 

Should they cancel to keep themselves safe or should they wait and see if they can take that trip after all?

For those who have booked travel to places now put on a blacklist by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the choice has been taken out of their hands, but for those travelling to other regions, they have a decision to make.  

One step to take to ensure you don’t lose out on all of the money you have already spent on a trip is to buy comprehensive travel insurance. This should ideally be done as soon as you book. 

There has been a surge in travellers purchasing policies, just in case they have to cancel.

Policies have risen 170 per cent since the coronavirus outbreak, according to comparison website, Go Compare.

However, buying any policy is not enough and travellers should read theirs through thoroughly before they decide to purchase it. The devil is in the smallprint. 

Check your policy 

You say you already have insurance but it is important to check the policy covers you for all the possibilities you may need to claim on.

For example, coronavirus is currently being classed as an epidemic, it may fall under the same definition for insurers, which means you should check your policy covers you for this.

Some insurers will also provide cover under ‘travel disruption as a result of FCO restrictions’ and ‘cancellation due to FCO restrictions’.

Meanwhile, around half of travel policies cover ‘cancellation due to compulsory quarantine’ – again, holidaymakers should ensure their insurance has this written in to it.

If you need to buy a new policy, after finding that your current one does not cover all the necessities, you should still be able to buy a new policy that will cover your holiday in April as, so far, there are no restrictions to travelling to France.

While this could all change before then, if you buy a new policy now, you should be able to claim on it for any cancelled flights or bookings, if France becomes a no-travel zone – the best advice is to speak directly with an insurer to check this before forking out for cover.  

 

Tourist spots stand empty while panic-buying Italians queue down the streets to get food and police go on patrol telling people to stay inside as country’s coronavirus lockdown begins

Italian streets and piazzas were empty today while shoppers crammed into supermarkets to stock up for a lengthy quarantine as the country began an unprecedented nationwide lockdown. 

Milan’s shopping galleries, Rome’s Spanish Steps and St Peter’s Square in the Vatican were all deserted today after prime minister Giuseppe Conte extended the drastic coronavirus measures to the entire country last night.  

Panic-buyers were packing into supermarkets this morning with queues stretching outside because of a rule that demands a 3ft gap between shoppers – meaning only a limited number can go inside at once. 

In Naples, police were roaming the streets with a loudhailer last night to warn people to ‘stay indoors, avoid unnecessary outings and avoid crowded places’ because of the ‘coronavirus emergency’.  

Conte declared last night that ‘everyone must give up something to protect the health of citizens’ with 9,000 virus cases confirmed in Italy and 463 people dead.  

Anyone with a fever has been ordered to stay indoors with travel banned except in emergencies and public gatherings including weddings, funerals and sports fixtures shut down.  

The virus is spreading so quickly that doctors are now having to make life-or-death decisions about who gets access to intensive care.  

Ethics rules call on doctors to consider a patient’s age and their chance of survival when allocating hospital beds. 

The Italian society of anesthesiology and intensive care has published 15 ethical recommendations to consider for doctors when deciding on admissions. 

The criteria include the patient’s age and the likelihood of survival, and not just ‘first come first served.’ 

‘It’s a reasoning that our colleagues make,’ Dr. Guido Giustetto, head of the association of doctors in northern Piedmont, said yesterday. 

‘It becomes dramatic if, rather than doing it under normal situations, they do it because the beds are so scarce that someone might not have access to medical care.’

Italy expanded the quarantine measures to all 60million people in the country last night after a lockdown in the hardest-hit north had failed to slow the outbreak.  

‘Our habits must be changed, changed now. We all have to give up something for the good of Italy,’ Conte said. 

‘When I speak of Italy, I speak of our dear ones, of our grandparents and of our parents,’ he said. ‘We will succeed only if we all collaborate and we adapt right away to these more stringent norms.’ 

Conte also raged at young people who had continued to gather socially as the virus spread, saying ‘this night life … we can’t allow this any more.’  

The nationwide restrictions mean that all schools and universities will remain closed until April 3, with cafes, pubs and eateries ordered to close until dusk. 

Italians have been ordered not to move around the country except for work and emergencies, with public gatherings and football matches cancelled. 

Following Italy’s lead, the UK government has now advised Britons against all but essential travel to the country. 

Airports remain open and Britons can return from Italy without restriction, but are being urged to self-isolate for 14 days when they arrive back in the UK. 

Malta has stopped all travel links with Italy, its nearest neighbour and main source of food and other essentials.  

Meanwhile, payments on mortgages will be suspended across the whole of Italy, the country’s deputy economy minister said today in the latest effort to manage the economic impact of the crisis. 

‘Yes, that will be the case, for individuals and households,’ Laura Castelli said in an interview with Radio Anch’io, when asked about the possibility.

Italy’s banking lobby ABI said yesterday that most lenders would offer debt moratoriums to small firms and households grappling with the economic fallout.

The government has also drawn up plans for an economic stimulus and has led calls for the EU to loosen budget rules to tackle the crisis.  

Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said: ‘The recent extension of Covid-19 controls in Italy represent one of the most rigorous country-wide control measures implemented in the last 50 years.

‘Whilst we have seen in Wuhan that such intensive social distancing can bring the epidemic under control, it is far from clear how long this may need to be maintained in the Italian context.

‘Unlike the situation in Wuhan where there was the possibility that the global epidemic could be prevented, Covid-19 is already spreading globally. So when the restrictions in Italy are eased there may still be a large number of cases in nearby countries that could lead to spread back into Italy.

‘Would this degree of restriction be appropriate for the UK? Probably not as we are currently seeing a much more gradual increase in numbers and these are already distributed throughout the UK, unlike the situation in Italy where cases were concentrated in a single region.

‘More rigorous social distancing measures are likely to be implemented in the UK over coming days or weeks as case numbers increase. But the timing of their introduction will be chosen to hopefully maximise the benefit whilst minimising the harm to British society.’ 

Italy registered 1,807 more confirmed cases as of Monday evening, for a national total of 9,172. 

The number of dead in Italy also increased by 97 to 463 – most of them elderly with previous ailments. 

It comes with China beginning to scale down its virus operation, closing the temporary hospitals which sprung up in Wuhan where the outbreak began in December last year.  

‘Now that the virus has a foothold in so many countries, the threat of a pandemic has become very real,’ WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

But he welcomed Italy’s tough measures, noting that just four countries – China, South Korea, Italy and Iran – accounted for 93 per cent of cases worldwide. 

‘It would be the first pandemic that could be controlled,’ Tedros added. ‘The bottom line is we are not at the mercy of the virus.’    

The Lombardy government has been scrambling to increase its intensive care capacity, converting operating and recovery rooms into isolated wards. 

It has cobbled together 150 more beds in the last two weeks and expects another 150 in the coming week.

‘Unfortunately we’re only at the beginning,’ said Dr. Massimo Galli, head of infectious disease at Milan’s Sacco hospital. 

Speaking to SkyTg24, Galli said the numbers of infections registered in Lombardy last week were similar to those in Wuhan, China in late January.

Galli noted that Wuhan, the center of China’s outbreak that infected more than 80,000 people nationwide, is a concentrated metropolis of 11 million and Lombardy is spread out. 

But the numbers ‘tell you that the diffusion is a real possibility,’ he warned. 

Lazio, the region surrounding the capital Rome, saw its cases jump from 87 to 102 in a day, a sign that the virus was propagating far from the northern concentrations. 

Also alarming was Italy’s high fatality rate: With 463 dead and 9,172 infected, Italy’s fatality rate is running at five per cent, higher than the 3-4 per cent elsewhere.  

Dr Giovanni Rezza, head of infectious disease at the National Institutes of Health, attributed it to the fact that Italy has the world’s oldest population after Japan. 

The median age of Italy’s virus-related dead is 80.

But some younger people have also been in intensive care, including the first person to test positive in the north who had not been to China. 

The 38-year-old Unilever worker named Mattia came to be known in Italy as Patient No 1.

At the San Matteo hospital in Pavia, there was a sigh of relief after Mattia began breathing on his own Monday with just a small amount of oxygen assistance. 

He was moved out of intensive care to a sub-ICU unit and was speaking with doctors.

‘This disease has a long life,’ intensive care chief Dr Francesco Mojoli told RAI state television. 

‘Now we hope that the fact that he was young and in good shape will help him get back to his normal life.’