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Not a single troublesome Covid variant was spotted among travellers who flew into the UK last month, according to official data.
And fewer than one per cent of everyone who paid for a return PCR actually had the virus, amid calls for the traveller testing scheme to be scrapped.
Test and Trace statistics showed just 11,950 people (0.9 per cent) tested positive for the virus after arriving in the country in the last three weeks of August.
About a a quarter were sent away for analysis to check for mutant strains of the virus. Not one came back positive for a variant of 'high priority' or 'very high priority'.
These include the South African 'Beta' variant, the Colombian 'Mu' variant and the Brazilian 'Gamma' variant, all of which scientists fear make vaccines less effective.
It comes despite Britons being forced to shell out millions for the tests when returning to the UK from their summer holidays.
The swabs cost £92 on average, which would leave a family of four £368 out of pocket before booking flights.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid said at the weekend that he wanted to 'get rid' of Day 2 tests for double-jabbed travellers 'as soon as possible'.
Official figures showed that of the 11,950 Covid cases detected among travellers in the three weeks to September, 3,253 (27 per cent) were checked for variants.
But no swabs detected variants of 'very high' or 'high' concern that are closely monitored by Public Health England.
Variants that were detected were considered to be 'standard priority', such as the Indian 'Delta' strain which is already dominant in the UK.
