Michael Gove AVOIDS quarantine after trip to Porto for the Champions League final triggers a Covid alert because No10 is taking part in a pilot scheme that offers daily Covid …

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Michael Gove enjoys a cooling beer beer with a friend in Portugal in new pictures that have emerged today – as it was revealed the minister has sidestepped Covid quarantine over his trip to the Champions League final.

The senior cabinet minister posed with a pint with a man in a Porto bar last weekend after flying in with his son to see Chelsea beat Manchester City. 

The pair do not appear to be socially distancing, which will raise eyebrows after the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster confirmed he had come into contact with a Covid case at the Champions League final, it emerged today.

The senior cabinet minister was alerted by the NHS coronavirus app after attending the game in Portugal with his Chelsea-supporting son. But he has avoided the need for 10-day home quarantine.

But under a little-known pilot scheme for workplaces launched last month Mr Gove will be tested every day for a week instead. 

The senior cabinet minister posed with a pint with a man in a Porto bar last weekend after flying in with his son to see Chelsea beat Manchester City.

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No10 is taking part in a study led by Public Health England and NHS Test and Trace that examines whether daily testing can ‘be used as an alternative to self-isolation’. 

The daily test pilot scheme is open to anyone identified by Test and Trace as having come into contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid. 

How does the pilot scheme work?

The daily test pilot scheme is open to anyone identified by Test and Trace as having come into contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid.

It is looking to recruit around 40,000 people to see if it is a viable alternative to disruptive home quarantine.

Instead of staying holed-up at home for 10 days, participants are sent a week’s worth of lateral flow tests and, assuming they pass every day, will be able to go about their lives more or less as before.

They will have to test themselves every morning for seven days.

People who test negative and develop no symptoms will be exempt from the legal duty to self-isolate that day and can leave their home to carry out essential activities like work.

They will need to take another test the next morning to see if they need to self-isolate that day or continue to be exempt. Individuals will still have to adhere to current restrictions, including following the rules on hands, face and space, and only those formally enrolled in the research study will be exempt from usual legal duties.

To be eligible people have to be free from Covid-19 symptoms, live in England, be aged 18 or over and be outside of full-time education and not subject to quarantine rules for arriving in England from abroad.

However, people will not be able to take part if they have been informed that they have been in contact with someone who’s tested positive with a variant of concern or variant under investigation.

At the launch of the scheme PHE’s Professor Isabel Oliver, the study leader, said: ‘We know that isolating when you have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 is challenging but it remains vitally important to stop the spread of infection. This study will help to determine whether we can deploy daily testing for contacts to potentially reduce the need for self-isolation, while still ensuring that chains of transmission are stopped.’

Such a move, if deployed across the UK, would avoid a loss of productivity when people are forced to self-isolate. It would also help solve the problem of people refusing to isolate over fears of losing money or their job. 

Participants who have a lateral flow test each morning are allowed to attend their workplace as normal and do exercise, but are not allowed to socialise with others.

Ministers are hoping to eventually extend the scheme to the whole of the country. 

A spokesman for Mr Gove last night said: ‘The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is participating in the daily contact testing programme after being advised to isolate today by NHS Test and Trace.

‘He has followed COVID-19 regulations and guidance at all times and will continue to do so.’ 

Hundreds of Manchester City and Chelsea fans who travelled to Portugal and back for the Champions League final last weekend have been ordered to self-isolate for 10 days.

Supporters who travelled on the 9am Ryanair flight from Porto to Manchester on Sunday have been contacted by the NHS’s Test and Trace app and told to self-isolate alongside three chartered flights of Chelsea fans who landed in London and two chartered planeloads of Manchester City fans who landed in Manchester.

Supporters took to fan message board to reveal they were contacted and told to self-isolate through the app, while others said they received an email or phone call. Fans began reporting the messages from yesterday evening – three days after landing back in the UK.

Mr Gove had to abandon a No 10 meeting with Boris Johnson and devolved leaders yesterday when he was alerted by the NHS coronavirus app after attending the Champions League final in Portugal with his son.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was notified that he had come into contact with someone who has tested positive for coronavirus in recent days.

It is believed it may have happened when he and his Chelsea-supporting son, 16, flew back to the UK after attending the match between the London side and Manchester City at the weekend.

More than 12,000 football fans travelled to Porto for the match on Saturday and supporters on several flights said they had since been contacted by the NHS Test and Trace app. 

Mr Gove was in the middle of a meeting with the Prime Minister, Chancellor Rishi Sunak, other ministers and the leaders of the devolved administrations when he received the notification. 

Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon, Wales’s Mark Drakeford and Northern Ireland’s Arlene Foster were taking part remotely.

© Provided by Daily Mail The Track and Trace, which does not work abroad, uses Bluetooth technology to detect whether somebody has been in close contact with a coronavirus carrier [Stock image] © Provided by Daily Mail

Yesterday, it was claimed that up to five flights occupied by Manchester City fans returning from the match against Chelsea had been affected. 

What tests do you need when returning from foreign countries? 

GREEN LIST

You will be required to take a lateral flow test within 72 hours of your return flight to England, followed by a PCR test on or before the second day of your return. You will not be required to self-isolate during this time.

The cost of a PCR test can be up to £125 each in Britain, while a lateral flow test taken abroad at Faro Airport, for example, is about €30 (£25).

When arriving in the foreign country, you may also need to need provide proof of a negative PCR taken within 72 hours of your outbound flight, or proof of vaccination, depending on the destination’s requirements.

AMBER LIST

You will be required either to quarantine at home for ten days on your return and take a PCR test on days two and eight, as well as a lateral flow test before the return flight.

Or you can pay for an additional third ‘Test to Release’ on day five to end self-isolation early. You will still need to take the compulsory second test on or after day eight.

British families of four in Portugal now face having to pay £1,500 to buy three sets of PCR tests at £125 each, if they go under the ‘Test to Release’ scheme.

Adding this to the cost of a lateral flow test, which can be bought at Faro Airport for €30 (£25), the total cost for a family of four would be about £1,600.

RED LIST

If you travel to a red list country, or are in an amber country that turns red before you return, you would need to quarantine at a government-approved hotel on your return at a cost of £1,750.

Before you travel to England, you must take a PCR or lateral flow test and get a negative result during the three days before you travel.

You should also book a quarantine hotel package – including two further tests for when you are in the hotel – and complete a passenger locator form.

Although it remains unclear if the exposures took place on the return flights, several travellers highlighted the journeys as the likely point of contact.

The Track and Trace, which does not work abroad, uses Bluetooth technology to detect whether somebody has been in close contact with a coronavirus carrier.

Dom Farrell, a sports journalist for Stats Perform, travelled to Porto for work and received a notification from NHS Test and Trace four days after flying home.

He said a colleague on the same flight had received the same notification.

Mr Farrell questioned why the game took place abroad considering that two English clubs were competing against each other, forcing fans to travel.

It comes as seats on the last flights back to London from the Algarve before Portugal is removed from the UK’s green list in less than four days’ time were on sale for up to £711 today as Britons faced a race to get home. 

Britons keen to stay abroad for as long as they can before the new rules come in next Tuesday at 4am face paying at least £258 if they fly back home the night before. 

That is the cheapest flight next Monday, a Wizz Air route leaving Faro at 9.05pm local time and arriving at London Luton at 11.50pm, four hours before the rules change.

Anyone flying back today faces paying at least £99, also for a Wizz Air flight to Luton; while it is £91 on Saturday or £172 on Sunday, both for easyJet services to Gatwick. 

The most expensive seats before Tuesday’s deadline can be found for £711 on a British Airways service from Faro to London City, leaving next Monday at 11am. 

Those returning from an amber list country will be required either to quarantine at home for ten days on their return and take a PCR test on days two and eight, as well as a lateral flow test before the return flight. 

Or they can pay for an additional third ‘Test to Release’ on day five to end self-isolation early. They will still need to take the compulsory second test on or after day eight.

British families of four in Portugal now face having to pay £1,500 to buy three sets of PCR tests at £125 each, if they go under the ‘Test to Release’ scheme. 

Adding this to the cost of a lateral flow test, which can be bought at Faro Airport for €30 (£25), the total cost of tests for a family of four would be about £1,600. 

Holidays to Portugal have been thrown into chaos after ministers removed it from the green list amid concerns over the new Nepal Covid variant. 

The move triggered a furious diplomatic row, with Portugal’s president accusing UK ministers of ‘health fundamentalism’ and of being ‘obsessed’ with infection rates.

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It also sparked a race among thousands of Britons in Portugal to get back before quarantine-on-return rules kick in on Tuesday. 

Those booked to go in coming weeks were left in limbo over whether to go ahead with their holiday under the tougher quarantine rules or to rebook for later in the summer and hope the country goes green again.

The decision to move Portugal onto the ‘amber list’ was apparently triggered by concerns over the Nepal variant, a mutated version of the Indian strain. 

But Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Portugal’s president, has accused UK ministers of ‘not recognising that we live in a different situation than we lived before vaccination’. 

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