Businesses in Ireland have been compelled to turn American tourists away. The tourists are said to have openly admitted to not self-isolating.

Ireland has entered its third week the reopening of it’s economy, with thousands of restaurants and hotels welcoming throngs of customers back. The government has urged Irish citizens not to travel abroad during the current summer holidays, but concerns have been raised about the numbers of tourists entering Ireland from overseas.

While the United States has recorded 3.4 million coronavirus cases, the highest in the world, flights are still entering Ireland from the US. American tourists, however, according to the New York Times, are not self-isolating upon arrival.

One of the measures introduced by Ireland to slow the spread of the virus in the country, is that anyone travelling to Ireland from abroad must self-isolate for 14 days. Travellers must fill out a form at the airport confirming their place of quarantine and providing a contact number. Ireland’s state police have been authorized to check on the address at any time to ensure the person is self-isolating. However, police are reportedly lax. Moreover, dozens of flights are entering Ireland each day.

Irish citizens have expressed anger at the situation. Some restaurateurs said any future international bookings into their establishments will be required to submit the date on which they entered the country and will not be served if they were in Ireland for less than than 14 days. Other tourism related businesses said they had lost out on income by turning away Americans who had admitted to not self-isolating. They said they were not willing to put their staff and other guests at risk. The Americans, meanwhile, allegedly did not think that 14 days of self-isolation was ‘mandatory’.

meanwhile, the NYT reports that figures released by the National Public Health Emergency Team last week indicated that 17 out of 23 new cases in a 24-hour period, had been ‘travel-related’.

Umm Muhammed Umar