Adventures in Coronavirus Bureaucracy

H aving gone nearly two years without seeing my English family, I was naturally willing to brave whatever deluge of paperwork and intrusion was necessary in order to hop across the pond to spend a few days with them.

No amount of brazen you-gotta-do-what-you-gotta-do determination had quite prepared me for the labyrinth I was about enter.

COVID-19 may well be waning in Britain, but the regulations it has yielded are most certainly not. The current British approach to travelers flits wildly between bureaucratic imbecility, calculated indifference, and jarring Orwellianism. By the time I got on the plane to London, I had had two vaccinations, taken a stateside COVID test, pre-booked a test in the U.K. for the return leg, and filled in a “passenger locator” form that the British government intended to use to make sure that I was quarantining as promised. But this wasn’t enough. To get into England, I was also obliged to spend $170 to pre-purchase a couple of at-home COVID tests that would be delivered by mail once I had arrived.

The rules governing this lattermost requirement seemed to have been devised by Franz Kafka himself. According to the British government’s website, the first of my two at-home tests was to be taken on or before Day Two, while the second was to be taken on Day Eight. And yet, despite its presumably being an extremely common eventuality, there was nothing whatsoever on the site that explained what to do if one was going to be in Britain for fewer than eight days.

After a long and fruitless search, I emailed the British government to ask what I should do, and, three days later, I received a response explaining that I wouldn’t be able to take the Day Eight test if I wasn’t going to be in the country because the test must be both conducted and mailed from within the United Kingdom, but that, despite this rule, I was obliged to buy one anyway. Having noticed that the approved suppliers also sold packages with only the Day Two test included (at half the price, natch), I inquired whether I simply could do that instead. “No,” came the reply. “Why not?” I asked. “Because the passenger locator form for your category requires both,” I was told. “Why does the passenger locator form require both?” I asked.

Because, that’s why.

Lacking any desire to be turned away at the border for want of an $85 chit, I did as I was told. As it turned out, though, the border crossing was the least of my worries. In London, the agent looked long and hard at my passport, took a cursory glance at my face, said “that’ll do,” and then waved me through. Perhaps, I thought, the whole thing had merely been expensive security theater?

The following day, I discovered that it was not. As promised, I received a package in the mail labeled “COVID Tests.” But — quelle horreur! — it contained only the box for Day Two. Unsure once again what I should do, I called the supplier to check and ended up spending a thrilling morning making sure that I would receive a Day Eight test that I was legally obliged to have in my possession but that I was unable to use. Who says farce is dead?

From there, my day got even better. During lunch, we were visited by a police officer who had come by to make sure that I was quarantining as promised. He checked my name, looked at my driver’s license, and then explained to me that if I broke my quarantine I would be fined up to £10,000 ($13,000) — yes, even though I was fully vaccinated, had proof of a negative test taken before I arrived, and had proof of a negative test after I’d been in the country for three days. Welcome to England, mate!

On Day Four, I got the results from my Day Two test: “NEGATIVE.” By this point in the proceedings, I was beginning to feel as if I should be accruing loyalty status — as one does on airlines. “Charles Cooke. COVID Test Platinum Member. Tier Points 3. Swab Points 205.” Over and over again, I’d had needles stuck into my arm and swabs stuck into my mouth and my nose, and all I was getting in return was a series of perfunctory, coach-class-esque emails confirming the obvious. If I am ever again commanded to take another sample, I shall expect a personal letter from the CEO of the lab, congratulating me for my heretofore unbroken record and praising my DNA. At the very least, I could get a glass of champagne following the nostril-daubing.

By the time I took my final test of the trip — this one so that I could get on the plane back to the U.S. — I had become surer that I was free of COVID-19 than I have ever been of anything in my entire life. If, for whatever reason, I am ever found wandering around the desert in a parched and confused state, unable to remember any of the details of my life, I will presumably still be able to croak to my rescuers that I am COVID-negative. Maybe, just maybe, we’ve gone a little too far with all this.