Merriman said the debacle around France being placed in its very own category, so-called "amber plus", owing to a spike in cases of the Beta variant of Covid-19 in Reunion – a French department some 6,000 miles away from the mainland – highlighted the industry’s legitimate concerns about the regime.
In a letter to Dr Johanna Hutchinson, director of data and data science at the government’s Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC), the body that produces the data on which the government’s traffic light system is based, Merriman asked Hutchinson to provide "the data and rationale" that partially or wholly informed the government’s decision to exclude France from the easing of amber list quarantine rules for fully vaccinated arrivals on 19 July.
Merriman said it was his understanding the JBC had "in part at least" relied on data from the Global Initiative on Sharing Aviation Influenza Data (GISAID) to make its decision on France, despite corresponding data on Spain (amber list) and Bulgaria (green list) suggesting they should be subject to the same rules as France.
"My understanding is the French amber restrictions were introduced despite France having a lower percentage of Beta variant cases during the prior 28 days than Spain and Bulgaria," said Merriman, who explained his conclusions were based on GISAID data.
Merriman added his quest for "further transparency" mirrored an ultimately unsuccessful legal challenge brought by Manchester Airports Group and others to force the government to be more open about its decisions on travel, as well as representations made by the Office for National Statistics.
"This demonstrates, in my view, a concern across industry, regulators and parliament that key decisions are being made yet the rationale and understanding underpinning these decisions are not being made available for those who are impacted by it," said Merriman.
