Best Western Chiswick Hotel Being Used for Quarantine |
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International travellers must stay in their rooms for ten days
The Best Western Hotel on Chiswick High Road is participating in the government scheme to provide rooms specifically for people quarantining after arriving at Heathrow from a high risk country. Under the scheme travellers must remain isolated in the room for ten days which means sleeping there for eleven nights. The maximum charge for the scheme is £80 per night but Best Western is billing people £65 for a double room with no view and limited natural light. Guests are not allowed to leave the room at all and meals are left outside their door in packages. It is understood that a hotel being used for quarantine will no longer be able to accept regular guests. No details have been released about how the tough restrictions would be enforced leading to concerns that travellers who may be infected would leave the hotel and walk into the centre of Chiswick. Daily Telegraph reporter Annabel Fenwick Elliot booked herself into one of the rooms to test what the experience would be like. After just one night she said, “Before this weekend, I considered myself to be the perfect candidate for a spell of hotel quarantine. Having grown up in a London flat, I’m used to being short of space. Having spent almost the entirety of 2020 alone, but for my dog, I am accustomed to isolation. As an introvert, the logistics of lockdown haven’t particularly bothered me. But I think even I would lose my mind if I were sentenced to 11 nights at a Government-mandated airport facility” She booked a double in the hope that the room would have more space but was disappointed by the size while acknowledging it was clean and well furnished. We asked Best Western for comment and to give details of what measures were in place to ensure people in quarantine did not leave the hotel but they did not respond.
February 14, 2021 |