LONDON

Up to 99% of people entering the UK are not following government rules by checking into designated quarantine hotels, an official said Wednesday.

Speaking to the Home Affairs Committee, Border Force Director-General Paul Lincoln said that of the 14,000 to 15,000 people entering the UK, only 150 people a day are going into mandatory quarantine hotels.

Defending the government’s policy, however, Home Secretary Priti Patel told MPs in the parliament that nearly 8,000 sample calls were taking place every day to ensure arrivals were self-isolating.

“I would like to put this in wider context of the measures in place, this is a layered approach,” Patel said, adding that ”people are now familiar with the testing prior to travel, passenger locator form, all the measures put in place to give assurance this is all about managing the risk.”

On Feb. 9, the government implemented new travel restrictions for people arriving in the UK from 33 “red list” countries. Travelers are to observe a mandatory quarantine in government provided accommodation costing £1,750 ($2,468). Those who break the travel rules face a 10 year jail sentence and a fine of £10,000 ($14,103).

On Wednesday, 9,938 more coronavirus cases were recorded nationwide, a 14.7% weekly decrease.

Also, 442 daily deaths were reported, a 3.1% weekly drop.

So far, the UK has reported 4,144,577 cases of COVID-19 and 135,613 fatalities.

Meanwhile, more than 18.24 million people have been administered their first dose of the vaccine.

The latest R range for the UK stands at 0.6-0.9, with the current growth rate at -6% to -3% per day.

The R number is a mechanism used to rate the virus’s ability to spread, with R being the number of people that one infected person will pass the virus on to.