During the ongoing pandemic, UK has introduced a blanket ban for all the citizens coming from a red-list country to quarantine in a Hotel for 10 days. I understand that this is put in place to protect us from being infected with new strains of COVID. However, I would urge that some exceptions be made to this hotel quarantine.

I would request, urge and pray to you that UK exempts children under 5 years of age from hotel quarantine. The experience would be traumatising for the child. We are proud that the UK is so sensitive towards the elderly, children and the needy however by putting young children in a hotel quarantine would be a great lapse of judgement and policy which can have a long-term negative impact on the children. This can easily be avoided and still mitigating all the risks of Covid by mandating home quarantine, compulsory Covid testing, spot checking and compulsory daily lateral-flow testing.

A hotel (a glorified jail like) quarantine for children under 5, to live (eat hotel food, sleep, play, clean etc) in 4 walls for 10 days, will be traumatising, insensitive and very sad. It can have a negative impact on their growth, relationship, friendships and  behaviour which we should avoid. Lets be sensitive to the children and take an empathetic but secure stance towards this policy.