Health Secretary Sajid Javid wrote to the Competition and Markets Authority on Aug. 6 asking it to investigate the market for PCR tests to ensure that consumers did not face unnecessarily high costs or other poor provision.
It would also examine if there was any immediate action that the government could take in the meantime. The United Kingdom operates a "traffic light" system for international travel, with low-risk countries rated green for quarantine-free travel, medium risk countries rated amber, and red countries requiring arrivals to spend 10 days in isolation in a hotel.The cost of a laboratory analysed PCR COVID-19 test ranges from 20 pounds to nearly 600 pounds depending on the provider, according to the Financial Times newspaper.