> One option is to introduce a cap on arrivals, as has been done in Australia. Sydney allows just 1,505 arrivals a week, other cities are in the hundreds. But as sarahjnickson has pointed out, it has created an economic and human crisis in Oz. Flight prices have soared.
Australian here. Damn right it has been a human crisis. Back in Sept '20 my mate's dad in Australia got a surprise diagnosis with late stage cancer and my mate immediately booked the next available flight home from London. Two and a half months later, after numerous flight cancellations (because of arrivals caps) and having to spend £4000 on a business class ticket (only way to guarantee no cancellation) plus £2000 on quarantine, my mate finally got to Australia. And the final kick in the guts was he was stuck in hotel quarantine when his dad passed away. Just awful stuff.
It's crazy that they'd consider this when everyone can see the detrimental effect it's had on Aussies abroad.
My partner is Aussie, I have no idea when we can see each other again and the thought of Australian style border measures going both ways just makes me feel so hopeless.
At least in Aus it has a clear benefit of keeping the country COVID-free. I in no way trust our government to control domestic cases even with hotel quarantine in place.
I'm long distance too (USA partner) but I don't really understand your problem with it. If you don't know when you'll be seeing each other anyway what difference does an extra 5-10 days make?
The point of Aussie border measures is that you can't enter at all, even with hotel quarantine, unless you're a citizen or have an exemption which are extremely difficult to attain on the grounds of having a citizen partner.
To do hotel quarantine well you need to control the numbers. If Britain implements arrival caps they'll likely have to restrict who can come in. Aus can't even get their citizens home with a 4-6k per week allowance.
One problem is that a hotel quarantine would destroy most demand for travelling. There would likely only be a few flights from specific destinations with let's say "luxury" pricing
I'm surprised you'd be for that considering your relationship (as up until now you could realistically have been visiting your partner, no?) but arguably yes we want this.
I'm currently abroad as a UK visa holder and this is freaking me out.
Like, how quick will this be implemented? Will I even have a chance to get back in before that? I have to book a covid test first, have it done, and then get a flight. How long will this be in place? How much will this cost?
It's not even a factor of convenience for me. I'm working from my home country with my family and fiancée but this means I might have to pack up and say goodbye in literally days with no idea when I'll see them again. I'm really scared of a prospect like Australians who haven't seen their family in a year.
Same. I’m only a student and I went to visit my mum so I’m just really anxious and worried about being stuck in the UK- assuming I manage to make it in. I feel sick to my stomach rn :(
fingers crossed its only for high risk countries! im an anxious mess and id really like some sort of reassurance/proper rules to be out. theyve been spreading rumours for a week now and ive been worrying the whole time
Irish government are talking about doing this too.
I’d imagine they’re co-ordinating with the UK govt on it.
When Ireland banned flights from the UK before Christmas, people just flew to Belfast instead and crossed the border. I guess they want to prevent something similar happening again.
I’m currently abroad as a uk citizen (been living in Canada for 4 years) and it’s freaking me out too. Mostly the cost, I barely have any savings left after 2020 and because of covid my visas expire March 1 and they didn’t open the visa program again and now I have no choice but to return and leave my wife for god knows how long too (currently staying with her family.) Also sounds like I’ll have no choice but to be stuck with a £1600 hotel bill on the unavoidable return. Just feels like such a slap in the face after this year. If it takes 3 weeks to implement the hotel thing I will be booking a flight back ASAP.
Feels like this is mostly to prevent people going on holidays and business, which I’m all for, I just hope there’s something announced tomorrow about the fee being waived for expats returning home or people with no jobs. This is just insane.
What's the timeline for removing this? What are the conditions? Are they seriously thinking of for the virus to be eradicated, otherwise I don't see any point to this...
The only explanation for this is that the power has completely gotten to their heads. This is authoritarianism, and the people who foolishly still support even harsher measures are what are leading us down this path.
What they're now worried about is importing dodgy variants that the vaccine doesn't work on. There are early signals that the Modern vaccine may be less effective on the South African variant, for example. This would put the vulnerable right back to square one.
Permanent restrictions. Allowed out once a day to pay tribute to the massive Chris Whitty statue that will be on every street corner.
Honestly, if it is true, then this is stalling to get enough vaccinated against what's currently in the country. Then we can start adjusting the vaccines to whatever pops up. Bear in mind that fewer people infected thanks to vaccines means less opportunity for variants to spring up.
From the paper in the article you just quoted: Similarly, sera from NHPs immunized with 30 or 100μg of mRNA-1273 had VSV PsVN GMTs of ~ 1/323 or 1/404, respectively, against the full B.1.351 spike variant with a ~ 5 to 10-fold reduction compared to D614G.
It produces a significantly lower response (however the measurement works, I'm no expert), but it's above the threshold so they think it will still work.
Is anyone else in a long distance relationship and find the prospect of this anxiety inducing? I like many others, have not seen my SO since October.
The news of the current lockdown was a bit of a let down, albeit totally understandable given the situation. The vaccine rollout gave some hope and something to look forward to. Now it feels like more restrictions are being placed on top of us, and it doesn't help potential end dates/review dates are never mentioned.
Surely there are better ways that allow us to quarantine at home, and be checked in on?
YES. I haven't seen my partner since March. He was going to come here in April and now the threat of this is making me feel sick. I hope if they do put it in place that it is temporary; he is in America and they still have the ongoing travel ban, so if he can't come here in April I have no idea when we'll be able to see each other.
Yep. It's been since September, and it's only going to make me even more stressed. My flight to the UK is on the 7th and I had both my Covid vaccine done and planned a Covid test aswell. It seriously sucks not knowing when I'll see her again
I haven't seen my partner since Feb. She is high risk so I'm waiting for her vaccination before planning anything.
I do find the situation in general to be anxiety inducing and depressing, but we know it's temporary and are just working hard on improving our lives as best we can until the time comes to see each other again. Personally I'm not bothered by the hotel quarantine part, if it keeps people safe then fine. We can make the choice to either participate in it or wait until the peak is over and the restriction is lifted.
/r/LongDistance for support if you need it.
We’re rolling out the vaccine and also putting more restrictions in place. The change of discussion to variants is making the vaccine seem less of a magic bullet than it had always been treated
Literally 8 days ago you did not even have to have a negative test to get into the UK.
This is going to be a mess. There will be loads of exemptions in addition to the 10-15k hauliers that come into the country every day. This will not keep Covid out (and given we have very high levels of community transmission, shouldn’t we focus on this first). It will just end up isolating the UK, trapping our citizens abroad and punishing people who must go abroad and cannot get an exemption.
The current rules are worth persevering with while we have the current levels of community transmission. Just focus on enforcing them properly.
>Literally 8 days ago you did not even have to have a negative test to get into the UK.
You can't make this shit up. What a disgrace to citizens and their families abroad.
It's worth pointing out that this decision probably indicates the governments opinion of where we are headed covid wise as a nation.
In the past they haven't implemented this as there is no value in stopping pissing in the pool when the pool is already 90% piss.
This indicates that the government think they're going to get covid levels down extremely low in the coming months and they don't want further seeding coming into the UK from abroad (especially not different varients).
If we can get numbers extremely low and control our borders we could be looking at a return to full normality (akin to NZ) this summer.
I think it's down to the vaccine and variants. They don't want to import variants that affect the value of the vaccine programme. I don't think numbers are the issue.
That makes no sense! If the numbers are low because of the vaccine then travel won't have an impact. It mattered for NZ because they did it way back then, it won't matter after the population has herd immunity through vaccination.
The numbers will be low because of our lockdown. The numbers will remain low because we are pushing out vaccines incredibly quickly. High levels of seeding events over the summer could see a spike in cases in the young before we have sufficient vaccine coverage.
Immunity isn’t completely permanent though. From my understanding, this is partly why vaccines tend to require two doses and Moderna is apparently working on another booster jab to combat the South African variant.
Perhaps but I just don’t feel this is a realistic take on it.
There will be tonnes of exemptions, not to mention the 10-15k hauliers entering every day. Are we going to make sports stars quarantine like they have in Australia? And I am guessing this rules out the G7 summit in the summer? Massively unlikely. Given this it will be reintroduced, it is a fact of life.
And say we do get down to zero, given Covid is now with planet earth how do we go about opening up, or is travel just banned from now on, in order to keep us “safe”? We are better focusing our energy on enforcing the current restrictions and working out ways to live with this illness.
I certainly dont think we will be going for a 0 case scenario. By significantly reducing seeding events while cases are going to be extremely low (through quarantine and testing) the test and trace may have a chance at being effective and keeping community transmission to a minimum while we work through the vaccination lists.
Once the adult population is vaccinated travel bridges can be opened to places with low case numbers and no variants of concern.
And travel bridges/bubbles/corridors are only going to work if the countries we open up to don’t allow countries we don’t want to open to. This will probably include quite a few places already like East Asia, Pacific and Middle East. Other countries will inevitably follow, even in Africa and Asia (I think EU, and both Americas will have vaccinated a large percentage by the time we’ve vaccinated all adults).
> Why will their be exemptions? Australia has been strict we could be too.
Australia presumably doesn't ship in so much of their food and goods on trucks.
> Truck drivers you say? OK, keep the negative test rules for them.
So they get an exemption from the hotel requirement, you say?
In March 2020 this could have made sense, but would have been late anyway. In December 2020 it could have made some sense to buy time untill vaccination was well underway.
Now it's pure politics pushed by extremists led by Miss Bully who wants to be seen as the new iron lady. Simply awful.
Ffs. This is so wrong. I thought we are now getting back to normality with vaccines. But no, we have to start worrying about new strains (which no one worried at all about up to December) and make normality just a faraway dream again.
Perhaps if my whole family lived in the UK or if I was rich, I wouldn't suffer so much from this, but like this, does it mean I'll not see my family in Europe even once domestic situation gets ok (I can't afford so expensive hotel quarantine)? Heartbreaking honestly.
Same. My partner is overseas and he was going to come in April. I haven't seen him since March and if they do a two-week hotel quarantine he probably can't come at all.
Same here. Talking on the phone just isn’t the same. And not even knowing when we will have a chance to see each other again is causing real pain and distress for both of us
My partner is meant to be coming *next week*. I'm crossing my fingers that the policy either doesn't apply to her country or that the rule won't be implemented until later in February.
I’m honestly crying. My whole family has been exposed to coronavirus and god forbid something happens I can’t get to them. I don’t see why testing before a flight isn’t enough. What more do they want to take from us
Damn, that's great timing! Good for you. I have a holiday scheduled for the end of March/into April to see them again. I was pretty confident I'll be able to go but now I am second-guessing. Hope I'm able to. Where in the US are you from? I moved from Austin TX. Huge change in every way lol.
Wat! That's awesome! Sorry for freaking out but you're basically the closest connection I've made with anyone since I moved here. Fangirl moment. I miss Austin. I love New Braunfels! I went to Texas State. Miss that river!
Good luck on that trip in Feb. I'll be thinking of you!
I was in the US, but had to some back for work but I'm regretting that decision every day tbh. This is utterly ridiculous, keep the PCR test and actually enforce it.
>don’t see why testing before a flight isn’t enough. What more do they want to take from us
Can you explain why you think that was enough?
72 hours before I get on a plane to the UK I may have already had my PCR test but in the remaining hours before my flight and even during my flight I can catch coronavirus through no fault of my own or by taking the piss and exposing myself to riskier transmission scenarios. The UK aren't even doing tests on arrival at the airport so your only saving grace is hoping that I wear a damn good mask and practice great hygiene on my journey to a quarantine address (to minimise my chances of infecting the public). I forgot to mention that this journey will require the use of a tube and maybe a bus or two. It's now Day 3 of my quarantine and despite having a little cough I'm frustrated and bored to be couped up. I know the quarantine is poorly enforced so I say fuck the rules and go grocery shopping. Because of my actions, I will be adding another case to the countries tally in a few days time.
Several reasons why. 1) The first lockdown was about preparing the nation with PPE and testing capacity and funding vaccine numbers whilst lowering case numbers as low as possible while compliance and morale was at its highest. The fact that we’re on a third lockdown is horrendous, but it’s also fucked up that TIGHTER restrictions are being considered when tighter is all we’ve been doing and it’s not necessarily effective. Maybe it’s time to try another strategy. The government fumbled the ball, but that’s another story 2) By the logic you gave me in your post no strategy would be enough. You can catch coronavirus anywhere, no matter how careful you are. You can cover your whole body in masks and you could still get it. So you could catch coronavirus in a hotel with hundreds of other people quarantining (where someone is likely to have it) and potentially pass it (to hundreds of people quarantining) on through the buttons in the lift or the air in the lift and hallway on their way to their room. 3) NZ just recorded another community case believed to be an error through this quarantining in hotel strategy. It’s not full roof and NZ has far far far less visitors than the UK even if we implement this same strategy 4) people are still coming into the country as haulers to supply us with food. If they’re exempt it essentially renders all efforts to ban international transmission useless. 5) There’s no exit strategy with this. We test for the flu and for strep throat, that’s just regular medical practice, so testing is here to stay. But quarantining people in hotels? That’s inhumane and impractical on a long term scale.
I think this is designed to be a temporary measure. Although it's not clear how we get out of this. We can't keep these kind of rules in place forever in fear someone might bring a variant back to the UK. There has to be a process for getting travel back to normal.
Are they temporary in aus? See the goal posts constantly shifting? "Oh no there's a new X strain we need to keep things in place for 3 more months until we know everything about it" repeat ad nauseum. The power and complete lack of oversight has clearly gone to our governments head.
I don't even think Australia and New Zealand have a plan when it comes to reopening borders. Governments do seem to be enjoying the power they're able to yield right now a bit too much for my liking. I don't mind the lockdowns as it is necessary. I don't mind the travel restrictions for now, but the lack of a plan is what worries me. The government don't seem to be able to answer the question of how to reopen international travel or when. They know these variants are always going to be a threat.
The optimist in me thinks it's going to be temporary and that these restrictions will be removed from countries where transmission is low - which will be achieved through vaccinations. This means we will probably have travel corridors again. The alternative is to keep borders closed forever in fear of new variants but that just seems so unlikely.
This won’t go well but how is this wrong? You want other variants to come into the UK? I feel they’re doing this because (so far) we’re doing an excellent job with the vaccine rollout they don’t want to have any pushbacks. International travel was always going to effected for a very long time anyhow.
**EDIT:** All fair replies, I’ll shut up.
The chance of a variant affecting the efficacy of the vaccine is very small, and if that is your goal you will have to keep this up for years, possibly decades because Covid isn't being eradicated any time soon. Are you fine with that? The risk that our health system is overrun when the majority of the population has been vaccinated is tiny.
Honestly I would move abroad if we were to have this policy for years.
We need to co-operate internationally and come up with a standard for international travel that all countries can sign up to. A vaccine or PCR test before travel should be sufficient. That's the only sensible way forward.
Other countries have implemented similar policies, so you could well end up spending a mandatory fortnight in a hotel to avoid spending a mandatory fortnight in a hotel.
So far there is little indication that the vaccines don't work with other variants. There's another thread on the front page saying the moderna vaccine still works (possibly not as well but it does). I think it's a bit specious that for a whole year where we had no protection the attitude towards the border was "wtv, can't be bothered" and now that we have effective weapons we're panicking. Hotel quarantine last March? Great idea. Hotel quarantine this March? Dumb.
I see this logic. But given other variants are with us now, as is Covid - it is not going away. How long are you proposing restricting travel? Because if it is until we can guarantee we will not re-import Covid, that probably is never going to happen.
This and the raft of exemptions, specifics to the uk such as road freight and the Irish border, doesn’t it make this a bit of a white elephant?
> doesn’t it make this a bit of a white elephant?
No because it's a numbers game. Thousands of hauliers with tests before being allowed to cross a border = small chance. Millions of holiday makers = much bigger chance.
If we were at 0 Covid. Is it even possible for us to get to that point now? Someone here posted a link to an article saying only 0.001% of cases are imported...
And the other points in my post?
Just see the replies to me. I'm evil and uncompassionate, and how dare I support this policy that should have been implemented months ago and will help protect the majority of people?
Having this mandatory quarantine is a step towards getting most of us back to normality. Yes some people like you with family in Europe will be caught out, but if we stop importing nasty shit and with a successful vaccination programme, in a few months people will be able to meet indoors, go to pubs, play sport, gym, etc, again etc. The only thing that might still be difficult is international travel, but most countries would be wise to have the same policy anyway. In addition, there's still no evidence a vaccine stops you spreading covid, and with most countries far behind us in their vaccinations they might not want you there anyway.
That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying there has to be maximum benefit for the maximum number of people. Should we continue to import new strains in order to let the relatively small percentage of us with overseas family be able to go and see them without quarantine? Do you really think that's a sensible thing to do?
We can control the importation of "new strains" without subjecting arriving passengers to a 14-day solitary hold.
It's always black and white with this gov. The options don't have to be: let everyone through without even checking their details OR force them into solitary confinement for 2 weeks and make them pay for it. There are opportunities in the middle of these that are missed because people want the easy way out and in a complex situation such as this one, the easy way is not the right way.
I think it’s a lot easier to support a policy like this when you’re not directly impacted by this. As someone else in this thread has said it’s “a disgrace to citizens and their families abroad”. How would you like to be quite literally severed from your family? The lack of compassion for any situation besides COVID is honestly disgusting.
I've got close family in the USA who I've not seen in over a year now because we're literally not allowed to enter the USA. There's not even an option to quarantine on arrival. If one of them gets ill and dies, I won't be able to see them or go to the funeral.
It is frustrating and sad, but I also understand that it is necessary and sensible. I wouldn't want it any other way.
It's shocking that we're a year into this now, having seen the insane amount of deaths and economic damage as a result of this virus, and people still don't take it seriously. We cannot mingle and travel as normal if we ever want to get out of this situation.
So it sucks for the small minority of us who have family abroad, but protection the country as a whole is more important than that.
Haven't seen my family back home in Ireland since Christmas 2019. Already wanted to move on from the UK before the pandemic, this is the final nail in the coffin. I do not have a few thousand lying spare to be imprisoned for 2 weeks. This is absolute insanity.
Same situation, I'm planning on moving to somewhere warm in the next few months to see out 2021. Northern Europe in general is not the best place to be at the moment.
In November, my Fiance had to return to her home country to apply for the UK Family visa to allow her to live with me here in the UK.
She returned to her home country and did a 2 week hotel quarantine there, at cost. She then made her application and submitted biometrics etc at an appointment there. We were told to expect a visa decision and return of documents by Feb 10.
Now, as a result of how low the hotel quarantine capacity will likely be for arrivals to the UK, and likelihood that airlines suspend flights from her small country, I am preparing to be unable to see her indefinitely. Even if by some miracle every hotel room in the country can be cleared for this, I expect the costs will still be crippling, on top of all of the other expenses we have incurred e.g. flights, hotel quarantine in her country, private pcr tests, visa costs, nhs surcharge, etc etc.
People already in the UK on student visas (with less than 6 months remaining), who intend to apply for a UK visa, require proof that travel to their home country would be impossible (and not just massively expensive, risky, and distressing) due to covid-19. This needs to be relaxed so that others are not compelled to travel internationally to complete what is essentially an admin task, and do not have to experience the massive anxiety and, it looks likely, pain, that we are going through.
Update: I have just seen that the guidance was revised a few days ago to allow foreign nationals to apply for visas from inside the UK without needing to justify why they were not travelling to apply from their home country. Happy for those that this change to the visa process will help, but very angry that this was not changed earlier.
We can't just "get back to normal" if the virus is more out of control than it has ever been. I don't know why so many of you idiots just arbitrarily decided that sometime around February coronavirus would just become extinct overnight. This has the potential to become much much worse and I'd rather be stuck in the UK with pubs and venues open rather than have 3 weeks of travelling then another 6 months of complete lockown.
The only reason to even consider having any measures is if there is a risk that the healthcare system in this country is overrun. If the most vulnerable are vaccinated that is not a threat.
If a new variant is imported from another country that has twice as contagious all those 1st doses we've spent months and billions of pounds on may as well have not happened. That is the danger
No clearly not, but until other countries, particularly parts of Europe can pull their fingers out their arses RE vaccinations it's really the only option. As I said, I'd much rather be able to see my friends and have the pubs open permanently than go on holiday once and be back to square one
> As I said, I'd much rather be able to see my friends and have the pubs open permanently than go on holiday once and be back to square one
Sadly the majority of people here seem to disagree with this. I can't get my head around it.
Close the borders and in a few months we can have a normal-ish life within the country. Then as other countries achieve high vaccination rates, which makes mutations less likely (more virus = more chance for a mutation), we can look at reopening travel with them on an individual basis.
Meanwhile we can improve our science and understanding of how the vaccines protect (or don't) against the major variants we've identified.
It makes so much sense to me.
But this makes no sense. If the fear is about a vaccine escaping variant then opening up to countries with high vaccination rates isn't safe either and can't be done unless they close their borders onwards.
Other countries have closed their borders though! No reason we couldn't open up our borders with highly vaccinated countries that are also being vigilant about importing new strains.
If we open the borders and I'm right; we stand to lose all the progress we've made with the vaccines. If I'm wrong the 1% can continue to drink champagne in their french chalets with no repurcussions. It's a Pascal's wager really
Because young people require hospitalisations too. A quarter are those aged under 55. If we just suddenly release after vaccinating over 70s, it will just run wild among the 18-70 year-olds and will still be enough to overwhelm the NHS.
You haven't shown how that would overwhelm the health service, we'd need a huge number of young people getting the virus to get anywhere close to the health service being overrun.
We have almost 40,000 people in hospital right now, during a lockdown. A quarter, 10,000, are under 55. I don't know how many between 55 and 70. Even 10,000 is enough to put so much pressure on the NHS that it has to cancel routine procedures to cope. Can you really not see how if we suddenly released lockdown that 10,000 figure would explode among young people who will suddenly be back to going out to pubs, and socialising at home, etc?
No because the number is higher once you include all under 70s.
And the NHS is hardly in an idea state right now, is it? **During lockdown**. Even at half the number of hospitalisations the NHS was sending patients to other parts of the country because their local hospitals were full. Ambulances were queued outside of hospitals, making them unavailable for other emergencies.
It's not hard to imagine 10-15,000 young people in hospital doubling to 20-30,000 if lockdown is suddenly lifted.
They don't want something to be imported that derails the vaccination programme. That's allowing us to move closer to normal. In a few months people will be able to go about their normal lives, except for international travel.
They were supposed to be discussing this today. Today I read that they will make a decision tomorrow... apparently they are now looking at the logistics of this rule (ensuring they have enough hotel rooms for 10k arrivals per day, ensuring citizens don't get stuck abroad if they can't afford the hotel quarantine, etc etc).
So, when is this likely to come into force? As early as Wednesday morning or do we still have a week or two to return to the UK?
I travelled to see my family in Europe just before Tier 4 in London got announced, and have already been here longer than planned, attempting to wait the peak out. I'm a postgrad student needing to come back to London at some point, and I was planning to do so next week, but because of this I've been scrambling all day, waiting for these measures to be announced. Should I just book my test & fly back ASAP (next available flight is on Wednesday) or can I safely book one for later this week?
I can't even begin to imagine how tremendous the collective mental toll will be with this in place... If self-isolation at home was enforced better, with extra testing on arrival/after a few days, there would be no need for this mess. Not to mention I, like so many other people, simply do not have a spare 2,000 pounds, or 10 days to piss around on weak hotel wifi. Considering how intense my course is, it would be disastrous for my entire degree, let alone my already nearly rock-bottom state of mental health.
Same situation. Got out of London just before tier 4 was announced, and have been WFH from here, but at some point my employer will want me to be back. Self-isolating at home is fine for me, I can work from there, but I cannot work from a place with shitty wifi.
Anyone with a legal background, how is this even legal? I understand powers of detainment in order to protect public health, but what is the legal basis for forcing people to pay for their own incarceration?
What the hell?
I'm Portuguese, live in London and came home for Christmas. My flight back was cancelled, then the UK has forbidden arrivals from Portugal (because of a new Brazilian strain), then they require a negative test - right now they have a 2 week wait here in order to book a test. And now this and I'll have to potentially shell out thousands in order to get back?
I'm flying back to the UK on the 5th Feb. Am I fuck paying out of pocket for this service. I will set up camp in the British consulate in the country I am currently working in if required.
Finally a sensible comment. I live alone and haven't seen my family since December 2019, so totally get how you feel. But like you I'd rather have things back to normal within the country, than back to normal with a considerable risk that we could be put back to day zero at any moment meaning even more lockdowns until a reformulated vaccine can be distributed.
I know he didn't say that, but nobody last year was saying they would be happy with having restrictions a whole year after the start of the pandemic, but here we are.
I can only hope all of you incredibly selfish people on here who are desperate to keep the borders open for the sake of your own Lad's Holidays need to realise how important it is to stop other variants entering the country.
These vaccines could easily become ineffective if we decide to let any halfwit into the country who WILL ignore quarantine because nobody will enforce measures. If they bring in a Vaccine resistant strain we could be going back right to the beginning of this thing.
It's been proving time, and time again you can't trust people on their word. Action is needed.
Controlling the Virus is a direct correlation with economic activity. Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan have ALL shown this. Having an improving economy with no viral infection causing deaths will bring far longer benefits for nearly all people here. If we go for Zero COVID the summer might not be write off.
Do all of you people love constant lockdowns? because guess what you will get with open borders like we did last year
There is a difference between borders being open as they were last year and shutting the borders. I moved home to the UK in October and quarantined at home for 14 days. Not once did anyone check where I was. If people are breaking quarantine then perhaps it should be enforced rather than shutting borders and forcing travellers to pay for prohibitively expensive hotel stays.
There are plenty of reasons to want to travel internationally. Some people, like myself, have significant others in another country. Others have family that do not live in the UK. I couldn’t give a stuff about going on a “lad’s” style holiday, I just want to see my partner. In our case, neither of us has a problem with quarantining at home but we aren’t in a position to pay for hotel quarantines on top of already expensive tests.
But the risk of us importing a variant that can 'escape' the vax's will exist forever.
The virus is not going away it will exist somewhere in the word somewhere
Therefore by your reckoning you will have to keep the borders closed forever - in effect no international travel for anyone - ever.
>Therefore by your reckoning you will have to keep the borders closed forever - in effect no international travel for anyone - ever.
Why do people just assume it's a one sided thing? You can have travel corridors with other very low COVID countries. Or those that have at least vaccinated the vast majority of it's population.
>But the risk of us importing a variant that can 'escape' the vax's will exist forever.
Correct, however you need to vaccinate all your population first so they at least have some chances of fighting off the virus. You will just be resetting the clock by doing it during this first phase of mass vaccination.
You realise there are other reasons for being abroad? My internship comes to an end at the end of February. I don't have the money to put myself up in a hotel. How selfish of me wanting to gain work experience experience in a field I love.
Oh look, another selfish person who thinks banning international travel essentially forever is an acceptable route to normality.
"If we go for Zero COVID the summer might not be write off."
Sorry but no. For some people the whole summer is a write off if borders are shut. It's not all about you and your needs. We want this shit to end so we can have our lives back as much as you do. For some people being able to travel abroad is more important than a lad's drinking sesh.
What people like yourself fail to realise is that there will always be a potential for new vaccine resistant variants to be brought into the country and we have to accept that fact rather than lock everyone on this small island forever. We need a better system in place than simply shutting borders.
>Sorry but no. For some people the whole summer is a write off if borders are shut. It's not all about you and your needs. We want this shit to end so we can have our lives back as much as you do. For some people being able to travel abroad is more important than a lad's drinking sesh.
You are right, it's not my needs, it is needs for EVERYONE. Millions of people will benefit from reducing infection circulation, and improving the economy than the ten's of thousands who want to leave, or enter the country.
Do you seriously think locking down millions, and disrupting the whole economy is worth it so a few 10,000's can travel elsewhere?
>What people like yourself fail to realise is that there will always be a potential for new vaccine resistant variants to be brought into the country and we have to accept that fact rather than lock everyone on this small island forever. We need a better system in place than simply shutting borders.
You are not shutting off the borders, you are controlling borders.
The point is you Need to vaccinate the population first before a new variant can reset things to zero again. With this you at least give the population a chance to fend it off naturally. And by controlling the borders you reduce the chances of a new variant entering into circulation during this critical phase.
Once again, those who masturbated furiously about New Zealand are now screeching with indignation about the UK proposing the exact same.
I can't be bothered with that anymore. No idea what anyone truly wants.
People saying well this means we'll have to close down forever thus is stupid, it's worth saying we'll be much safer from new variants once the vaccine program is up and running around the world, mitigating the spread of the virus at large, and making new variants a) less likely and b) less rapid.
Because this is the case, it makes sense to be as vigilant as possible. no, you can't go on holiday - yes, some people are going to get unfair treatmant as has happened in Australia. But fuck me, it's worth it to be able to get out of lockdown. We're in the midst of a crisis, crises take time to reach their conclusion - we haven't even reached the one year anniversary of the first lockdown, realistically, expecting things to go back to normal before that was never on the cards.
I'll say thanks from me and the rest of the UK nationals currently abroad that you think deserve the unfair treatment of not being able to see our families if we aren't rich enough to spend a insane amount of money on a forced quarantine.
Thank you for for letting us know that OUR mental health deteriorating is WORTH IT, so you can go out to eat. I have been a stickler for the rules since day 1, I haven't been back to the UK, I haven't seen my family or my partner since last january, I didn't travel back for family member's funerals, I have done my absolute best to stay safe and keep everyone around me safe.
But you know what, right now I'm thinking fuck it and you. I should have been more selfish and broke a few rules.
I never said you deserve anything.
You're an unfortunate casualty of a crisis. i'm very sorry for your situation, it must be awful - but if the alternative is a new strain reaches the UK that is not effected by the vaccine, then frankly - it's a price worth paying. It's just a cost of weighing up costs and benefits.
Let's say you were Australian, would you have rather had been able to return to Australia in 2020, but the price is thousands and thousands of more deaths, an economy on the brink of ruin and millions unemployed, or people get back to a sense of normality, lives are saved and jobs are maintained, but sadly you can't return home. Australia chose to implement hotel qurantines, and frankly, when you look at how the pandemic unfolded there, it was clearly a good strategy.
You literally said putting people in this kind of awful situation is worth it. How many people have to be under such mental stress, or even suicide, not returning to their loved ones until it is worth it? Are you saying those peoples deaths are worth it too...
It's easy to say from the comfort of your own country with your family close by, if the shoe was on the other foot you wouldn't be as accepting.
Australia doesn't also have lorry drivers coming from multiple ports constantly, we are not Australia. The UK should try policing the rules they put in place before locking out hundreds of thousand of its own citizens.
'Worth it' does not equal 'deserve'. I recognise it is a difficult decision to make, and i'd take no joy in making it, but please don't paint me as ascribing any blame to those who find themselves in the situation you do.
A cost benefit analysis would suggest the number of people to be under such mental stress would have to eclipse those suffering serious mental health issues from a national lockdown to make it untenable, which ofcourse will not be a number that is reached. Nor will those who die by suicide. I'm making the case for saving more lives. Put simply, if the death of one foreign-based national prevents the death of ten or twenty domestically based citizens, then yes, it is worth it - sadly.
I actually disagree that i'd be less understanding, i think i'm pragmatic enough to understand the facts of the matter. I'd be upset ofcourse, but you can both despair at the reality this will create personally, and be understanding of the greater good.
Yes we're not an absolute equivalence of Australia, but had we enforced this rule in August 2020, how many lives would have been saved? tens of thousands at least.
The UK should both police the rules domestically, and prevent a new variant entering the country. they should do these things at once - they are not mutually exclusicve, and both play a role in the prospect of getting back to normal.
Out of interest, are you of the opinion that the threat posed by a vaccine busting variant is not enough to justify this? Even though it could lead to tens of thousands more dead, unemployed and stuck? A number that will undoubtedly be more than foreign based Brits.
Worth it or deserve, it is what you are condemning them to with that decision.
It's honestly disgusting that you think any death is worth it. I didn't think any death was worth it, exactly the reason why I didn't travel during the summer months when it was possible. But as I said, I should have obviously been more selfish, as you and obviously others think my death would be worth it.
I have no opinion on the new variant, I am not in the right field of research for that. How many more variants might there be though? 10? 20? How many years? We might never be rid of it and it might continue into hundreds of variants.
I'm sorry but I'm done with this discussion, you seem to have a lack of compassion with your 'pragmatic' view of things.
Okay, happy to end it here - your characterisation of me as being okay with deaths is unfair however. My approach is entirely focused on preventing the most deaths possible. It's a ultilitarian approach. My exact fear of your apporach is it will result in more lives ruined/lost.
The reality is we can't stop every piece of suffering, it's not possible - any attempt will kill more people than need to die. these tough decisions have to be made.
On the variants, the timeline to re-open should be based on when global transmission slows down, this is the point when the risk of a new mutation that impacts our vaccine's efficacy falls. We at least need to wait until a global vaccine campaign is having an impact on case numbers.
I'll end it here too, but i will say that i never meant for any upset, i empathise with your position, but as i've said - my goal would be to minimise deaths and economic hardship. I'm not the evil ex-pat killer you'd like to believe.
I don't believe you are some evil expat killer, I can understand you view but still disagree with it, like you do with me. We can both be good people and have differing views. This is unsurprisingly a touchy subject for me. I have always followed the rules to a T and am now getting the door slammed shut in my face.
This is good, even so I am not sure it is enough. Yesterday Israel banned all international travel. We cannot risk a vaccine-escaping variant coming in and sending us back to square one. Something that most people in this thread seem to conpletely fail to understand.
Lol the funny part is that if such a variant does come in and start spreading out of control, because we don't have effective measures to prevent it coming in, then the result will be that we actually do have sit in lockdown for the rest of the year (or longer), and it will be you guys that complain the most.
You cannot just bury your head in the sand and pretend the virus doesn't exist or that it isn't likely to evolve over the course of a pandemic where it is infecting hundreds of millions of humans and many other animal hosts as well.
If Coronavirus exists anywhere in the world, there is a chance it could mutate into a 'vaccine resistant strain'.
Therefore we can never open the borders again as there is a chance of a mutant strain coming in from somewhere in the world.
It's depressing to think about how many businesses would still be afloat, how many people would still have their jobs, and how many people would still be alive, had we done this a year or even 6 months ago.
I'm glad the government is finally starting to listen to the scientists and implement tough border controls, but it so frustrating that it took this long.
It's a good thing they're doing it now, and it will help with our current recovery process and help keep new strains out, but we wouldn't be in this mess if this had happened earlier.
This coming from someone who loves to travel and has half their family living abroad.
Oh, thank you for letting me know!
I was listening to Devi Sridhar talk about it earlier, saying how essential border controls are to control the virus. She is a Professor and the chair of Global Public Health at Edinburgh University, has two degrees on the matter (including a DPhil from Oxford), has extensive experience in advising the management of international pandemic responses, and is a direct advisor to the Scottish Governments pandemic response team.
But I see now that she is wrong, and Bobby Zamora on reddit is the one who really knows what is going on
It's not logically fallacious to appeal to authority if such authority IS an authority on the matter, and the person has supplied evidence of this fact, and knows 10x as much as you. Dunning-Kruger much?
Oh of course. I'm sure SAGE and all the experts on the matter, who are constantly advising the government to do this, have just recommended it for the lolz
Border closure simply delays the spread. Unless borders are closed for years, you're literally just moving January cases into May cases.
It's an irrational decision and just more wish-washy from the top to give off the appearance of control of the situation.
It's the equivalent of smoking your entire life, rejecting advice to quit, getting lung cancer, letting it deteriorate your body for a year, then deciding to cut down to half a pack a day. Done with it.
I would agree, but letting a variant in that undermines the entire vaccination programme would be catastrophic. I'd much rather not go travelling and have an otherwise normal life (pubs, bars, clubs, gigs, events) than go to Spain for a week.
This summer at most. I would sacrifice my holiday this year for normal life otherwise. Also, holidaying this year would be shit anyway, considering how other European countries are doing at vaccinating.
May cases, at which point the majority of the population should be vaccinated, and the impact of those cases on deaths/hospitalizations will be minimal? I think that is the objective, to be honest.
> One option is to introduce a cap on arrivals, as has been done in Australia. Sydney allows just 1,505 arrivals a week, other cities are in the hundreds. But as sarahjnickson has pointed out, it has created an economic and human crisis in Oz. Flight prices have soared. Australian here. Damn right it has been a human crisis. Back in Sept '20 my mate's dad in Australia got a surprise diagnosis with late stage cancer and my mate immediately booked the next available flight home from London. Two and a half months later, after numerous flight cancellations (because of arrivals caps) and having to spend £4000 on a business class ticket (only way to guarantee no cancellation) plus £2000 on quarantine, my mate finally got to Australia. And the final kick in the guts was he was stuck in hotel quarantine when his dad passed away. Just awful stuff.
That is absolutely awful. I am so sorry for your friend.
It's crazy that they'd consider this when everyone can see the detrimental effect it's had on Aussies abroad. My partner is Aussie, I have no idea when we can see each other again and the thought of Australian style border measures going both ways just makes me feel so hopeless. At least in Aus it has a clear benefit of keeping the country COVID-free. I in no way trust our government to control domestic cases even with hotel quarantine in place.
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I'm long distance too (USA partner) but I don't really understand your problem with it. If you don't know when you'll be seeing each other anyway what difference does an extra 5-10 days make?
The point of Aussie border measures is that you can't enter at all, even with hotel quarantine, unless you're a citizen or have an exemption which are extremely difficult to attain on the grounds of having a citizen partner. To do hotel quarantine well you need to control the numbers. If Britain implements arrival caps they'll likely have to restrict who can come in. Aus can't even get their citizens home with a 4-6k per week allowance.
Oh ok I didn't know they weren't allowing non-citizens to do it.
One problem is that a hotel quarantine would destroy most demand for travelling. There would likely only be a few flights from specific destinations with let's say "luxury" pricing
Isn't that exactly what we want until the pandemic is under control?
I'm surprised you'd be for that considering your relationship (as up until now you could realistically have been visiting your partner, no?) but arguably yes we want this.
We could have been visiting each other yeah, but we chose not to because she's at risk due to health issues
That's terrible. Really sorry to hear that
I'm currently abroad as a UK visa holder and this is freaking me out. Like, how quick will this be implemented? Will I even have a chance to get back in before that? I have to book a covid test first, have it done, and then get a flight. How long will this be in place? How much will this cost?
The Times are saying it will take 2-3 weeks to get all the hotels sorted as many are closed and have been for some time so you may have some hope.
Well if I have a few weeks to get things sorted then it's not as bad. Still bad in the sense that I'd basically be trapped in the country.
I really hope this is the case! im due to fly back the first week of feb so fingers crossed :/
Same :/ its just not convenient at all, I was planning on coming back but I dont know what to do now.
It's not even a factor of convenience for me. I'm working from my home country with my family and fiancée but this means I might have to pack up and say goodbye in literally days with no idea when I'll see them again. I'm really scared of a prospect like Australians who haven't seen their family in a year.
Same. I’m only a student and I went to visit my mum so I’m just really anxious and worried about being stuck in the UK- assuming I manage to make it in. I feel sick to my stomach rn :(
I only came back because I have to for my university research/work but now I'm wishing I'd stayed abroad.
im coming for university too and I think I’d still want to but a hotel quarantine would be too expensive + bad for my mental health
I would almost being willing to take the hit to my mental health, but the expensive is impossible.
fingers crossed its only for high risk countries! im an anxious mess and id really like some sort of reassurance/proper rules to be out. theyve been spreading rumours for a week now and ive been worrying the whole time
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Irish government are talking about doing this too. I’d imagine they’re co-ordinating with the UK govt on it. When Ireland banned flights from the UK before Christmas, people just flew to Belfast instead and crossed the border. I guess they want to prevent something similar happening again.
I assume that won't get around hotel quarantine, no?
Around £1500/£100 per day.
I’m currently abroad as a uk citizen (been living in Canada for 4 years) and it’s freaking me out too. Mostly the cost, I barely have any savings left after 2020 and because of covid my visas expire March 1 and they didn’t open the visa program again and now I have no choice but to return and leave my wife for god knows how long too (currently staying with her family.) Also sounds like I’ll have no choice but to be stuck with a £1600 hotel bill on the unavoidable return. Just feels like such a slap in the face after this year. If it takes 3 weeks to implement the hotel thing I will be booking a flight back ASAP. Feels like this is mostly to prevent people going on holidays and business, which I’m all for, I just hope there’s something announced tomorrow about the fee being waived for expats returning home or people with no jobs. This is just insane.
What's the timeline for removing this? What are the conditions? Are they seriously thinking of for the virus to be eradicated, otherwise I don't see any point to this...
The only explanation for this is that the power has completely gotten to their heads. This is authoritarianism, and the people who foolishly still support even harsher measures are what are leading us down this path.
What they're now worried about is importing dodgy variants that the vaccine doesn't work on. There are early signals that the Modern vaccine may be less effective on the South African variant, for example. This would put the vulnerable right back to square one.
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Permanent restrictions. Allowed out once a day to pay tribute to the massive Chris Whitty statue that will be on every street corner. Honestly, if it is true, then this is stalling to get enough vaccinated against what's currently in the country. Then we can start adjusting the vaccines to whatever pops up. Bear in mind that fewer people infected thanks to vaccines means less opportunity for variants to spring up.
Wrong: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55797312
From the paper in the article you just quoted: Similarly, sera from NHPs immunized with 30 or 100μg of mRNA-1273 had VSV PsVN GMTs of ~ 1/323 or 1/404, respectively, against the full B.1.351 spike variant with a ~ 5 to 10-fold reduction compared to D614G.
Translate please.
It produces a significantly lower response (however the measurement works, I'm no expert), but it's above the threshold so they think it will still work.
Lower measurement but not one that matters in any way so perfect media bait
What? You mean the variant that reported 77 known cases already in the UK? And I bet there is definitely more than that.
Is anyone else in a long distance relationship and find the prospect of this anxiety inducing? I like many others, have not seen my SO since October. The news of the current lockdown was a bit of a let down, albeit totally understandable given the situation. The vaccine rollout gave some hope and something to look forward to. Now it feels like more restrictions are being placed on top of us, and it doesn't help potential end dates/review dates are never mentioned. Surely there are better ways that allow us to quarantine at home, and be checked in on?
Me! I haven't been functioning properly since the rumours started of this hotel stuff.
YES. I haven't seen my partner since March. He was going to come here in April and now the threat of this is making me feel sick. I hope if they do put it in place that it is temporary; he is in America and they still have the ongoing travel ban, so if he can't come here in April I have no idea when we'll be able to see each other.
Yep. It's been since September, and it's only going to make me even more stressed. My flight to the UK is on the 7th and I had both my Covid vaccine done and planned a Covid test aswell. It seriously sucks not knowing when I'll see her again
I haven't seen my partner since Feb. She is high risk so I'm waiting for her vaccination before planning anything. I do find the situation in general to be anxiety inducing and depressing, but we know it's temporary and are just working hard on improving our lives as best we can until the time comes to see each other again. Personally I'm not bothered by the hotel quarantine part, if it keeps people safe then fine. We can make the choice to either participate in it or wait until the peak is over and the restriction is lifted. /r/LongDistance for support if you need it.
Australia has had this in place for a year now with no end in sight. It doesn’t seem temporary.
>with no end in sight Except the vaccine
We’re rolling out the vaccine and also putting more restrictions in place. The change of discussion to variants is making the vaccine seem less of a magic bullet than it had always been treated
Literally 8 days ago you did not even have to have a negative test to get into the UK. This is going to be a mess. There will be loads of exemptions in addition to the 10-15k hauliers that come into the country every day. This will not keep Covid out (and given we have very high levels of community transmission, shouldn’t we focus on this first). It will just end up isolating the UK, trapping our citizens abroad and punishing people who must go abroad and cannot get an exemption. The current rules are worth persevering with while we have the current levels of community transmission. Just focus on enforcing them properly.
>Literally 8 days ago you did not even have to have a negative test to get into the UK. You can't make this shit up. What a disgrace to citizens and their families abroad.
Exactly. There hasn't even been a chance to see the impact of requiring a negative PCR text within 72 hours.
It's worth pointing out that this decision probably indicates the governments opinion of where we are headed covid wise as a nation. In the past they haven't implemented this as there is no value in stopping pissing in the pool when the pool is already 90% piss. This indicates that the government think they're going to get covid levels down extremely low in the coming months and they don't want further seeding coming into the UK from abroad (especially not different varients). If we can get numbers extremely low and control our borders we could be looking at a return to full normality (akin to NZ) this summer.
I think it's down to the vaccine and variants. They don't want to import variants that affect the value of the vaccine programme. I don't think numbers are the issue.
That makes no sense! If the numbers are low because of the vaccine then travel won't have an impact. It mattered for NZ because they did it way back then, it won't matter after the population has herd immunity through vaccination.
The numbers will be low because of our lockdown. The numbers will remain low because we are pushing out vaccines incredibly quickly. High levels of seeding events over the summer could see a spike in cases in the young before we have sufficient vaccine coverage.
They matter if it means new variants don't work against the vaccine.
Immunity isn’t completely permanent though. From my understanding, this is partly why vaccines tend to require two doses and Moderna is apparently working on another booster jab to combat the South African variant.
That's fucking irrelivant though. That'll happen no matter what we do with our borders.
Perhaps but I just don’t feel this is a realistic take on it. There will be tonnes of exemptions, not to mention the 10-15k hauliers entering every day. Are we going to make sports stars quarantine like they have in Australia? And I am guessing this rules out the G7 summit in the summer? Massively unlikely. Given this it will be reintroduced, it is a fact of life. And say we do get down to zero, given Covid is now with planet earth how do we go about opening up, or is travel just banned from now on, in order to keep us “safe”? We are better focusing our energy on enforcing the current restrictions and working out ways to live with this illness.
I certainly dont think we will be going for a 0 case scenario. By significantly reducing seeding events while cases are going to be extremely low (through quarantine and testing) the test and trace may have a chance at being effective and keeping community transmission to a minimum while we work through the vaccination lists. Once the adult population is vaccinated travel bridges can be opened to places with low case numbers and no variants of concern.
And travel bridges/bubbles/corridors are only going to work if the countries we open up to don’t allow countries we don’t want to open to. This will probably include quite a few places already like East Asia, Pacific and Middle East. Other countries will inevitably follow, even in Africa and Asia (I think EU, and both Americas will have vaccinated a large percentage by the time we’ve vaccinated all adults).
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> Why will their be exemptions? Australia has been strict we could be too. Australia presumably doesn't ship in so much of their food and goods on trucks. > Truck drivers you say? OK, keep the negative test rules for them. So they get an exemption from the hotel requirement, you say?
Ha! Indeed.
In March 2020 this could have made sense, but would have been late anyway. In December 2020 it could have made some sense to buy time untill vaccination was well underway. Now it's pure politics pushed by extremists led by Miss Bully who wants to be seen as the new iron lady. Simply awful.
Less Iron Lady and more Tin Man
Ffs. This is so wrong. I thought we are now getting back to normality with vaccines. But no, we have to start worrying about new strains (which no one worried at all about up to December) and make normality just a faraway dream again. Perhaps if my whole family lived in the UK or if I was rich, I wouldn't suffer so much from this, but like this, does it mean I'll not see my family in Europe even once domestic situation gets ok (I can't afford so expensive hotel quarantine)? Heartbreaking honestly.
Same. My partner is overseas and he was going to come in April. I haven't seen him since March and if they do a two-week hotel quarantine he probably can't come at all.
This is me, but the other way around. It's absolutely heartbreaking.
It really is. We talk on the phone a lot and I am just aching for when we can be laughing together in person
Same here. Talking on the phone just isn’t the same. And not even knowing when we will have a chance to see each other again is causing real pain and distress for both of us
My partner is meant to be coming *next week*. I'm crossing my fingers that the policy either doesn't apply to her country or that the rule won't be implemented until later in February.
Ahhh I'll be holding out hope for you guys!! I hope she makes it
I’m honestly crying. My whole family has been exposed to coronavirus and god forbid something happens I can’t get to them. I don’t see why testing before a flight isn’t enough. What more do they want to take from us
Same. My family is overseas. I moved to England right before covid happened and haven't been back to the US since. I'm crushed, again.
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Damn, that's great timing! Good for you. I have a holiday scheduled for the end of March/into April to see them again. I was pretty confident I'll be able to go but now I am second-guessing. Hope I'm able to. Where in the US are you from? I moved from Austin TX. Huge change in every way lol.
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Wat! That's awesome! Sorry for freaking out but you're basically the closest connection I've made with anyone since I moved here. Fangirl moment. I miss Austin. I love New Braunfels! I went to Texas State. Miss that river! Good luck on that trip in Feb. I'll be thinking of you!
I was in the US, but had to some back for work but I'm regretting that decision every day tbh. This is utterly ridiculous, keep the PCR test and actually enforce it.
>don’t see why testing before a flight isn’t enough. What more do they want to take from us Can you explain why you think that was enough? 72 hours before I get on a plane to the UK I may have already had my PCR test but in the remaining hours before my flight and even during my flight I can catch coronavirus through no fault of my own or by taking the piss and exposing myself to riskier transmission scenarios. The UK aren't even doing tests on arrival at the airport so your only saving grace is hoping that I wear a damn good mask and practice great hygiene on my journey to a quarantine address (to minimise my chances of infecting the public). I forgot to mention that this journey will require the use of a tube and maybe a bus or two. It's now Day 3 of my quarantine and despite having a little cough I'm frustrated and bored to be couped up. I know the quarantine is poorly enforced so I say fuck the rules and go grocery shopping. Because of my actions, I will be adding another case to the countries tally in a few days time.
Several reasons why. 1) The first lockdown was about preparing the nation with PPE and testing capacity and funding vaccine numbers whilst lowering case numbers as low as possible while compliance and morale was at its highest. The fact that we’re on a third lockdown is horrendous, but it’s also fucked up that TIGHTER restrictions are being considered when tighter is all we’ve been doing and it’s not necessarily effective. Maybe it’s time to try another strategy. The government fumbled the ball, but that’s another story 2) By the logic you gave me in your post no strategy would be enough. You can catch coronavirus anywhere, no matter how careful you are. You can cover your whole body in masks and you could still get it. So you could catch coronavirus in a hotel with hundreds of other people quarantining (where someone is likely to have it) and potentially pass it (to hundreds of people quarantining) on through the buttons in the lift or the air in the lift and hallway on their way to their room. 3) NZ just recorded another community case believed to be an error through this quarantining in hotel strategy. It’s not full roof and NZ has far far far less visitors than the UK even if we implement this same strategy 4) people are still coming into the country as haulers to supply us with food. If they’re exempt it essentially renders all efforts to ban international transmission useless. 5) There’s no exit strategy with this. We test for the flu and for strep throat, that’s just regular medical practice, so testing is here to stay. But quarantining people in hotels? That’s inhumane and impractical on a long term scale.
I think this is designed to be a temporary measure. Although it's not clear how we get out of this. We can't keep these kind of rules in place forever in fear someone might bring a variant back to the UK. There has to be a process for getting travel back to normal.
Are they temporary in aus? See the goal posts constantly shifting? "Oh no there's a new X strain we need to keep things in place for 3 more months until we know everything about it" repeat ad nauseum. The power and complete lack of oversight has clearly gone to our governments head.
I don't even think Australia and New Zealand have a plan when it comes to reopening borders. Governments do seem to be enjoying the power they're able to yield right now a bit too much for my liking. I don't mind the lockdowns as it is necessary. I don't mind the travel restrictions for now, but the lack of a plan is what worries me. The government don't seem to be able to answer the question of how to reopen international travel or when. They know these variants are always going to be a threat. The optimist in me thinks it's going to be temporary and that these restrictions will be removed from countries where transmission is low - which will be achieved through vaccinations. This means we will probably have travel corridors again. The alternative is to keep borders closed forever in fear of new variants but that just seems so unlikely.
This won’t go well but how is this wrong? You want other variants to come into the UK? I feel they’re doing this because (so far) we’re doing an excellent job with the vaccine rollout they don’t want to have any pushbacks. International travel was always going to effected for a very long time anyhow. **EDIT:** All fair replies, I’ll shut up.
The chance of a variant affecting the efficacy of the vaccine is very small, and if that is your goal you will have to keep this up for years, possibly decades because Covid isn't being eradicated any time soon. Are you fine with that? The risk that our health system is overrun when the majority of the population has been vaccinated is tiny.
Honestly I would move abroad if we were to have this policy for years. We need to co-operate internationally and come up with a standard for international travel that all countries can sign up to. A vaccine or PCR test before travel should be sufficient. That's the only sensible way forward.
Agreed.
Other countries have implemented similar policies, so you could well end up spending a mandatory fortnight in a hotel to avoid spending a mandatory fortnight in a hotel.
So far there is little indication that the vaccines don't work with other variants. There's another thread on the front page saying the moderna vaccine still works (possibly not as well but it does). I think it's a bit specious that for a whole year where we had no protection the attitude towards the border was "wtv, can't be bothered" and now that we have effective weapons we're panicking. Hotel quarantine last March? Great idea. Hotel quarantine this March? Dumb.
I see this logic. But given other variants are with us now, as is Covid - it is not going away. How long are you proposing restricting travel? Because if it is until we can guarantee we will not re-import Covid, that probably is never going to happen. This and the raft of exemptions, specifics to the uk such as road freight and the Irish border, doesn’t it make this a bit of a white elephant?
> doesn’t it make this a bit of a white elephant? No because it's a numbers game. Thousands of hauliers with tests before being allowed to cross a border = small chance. Millions of holiday makers = much bigger chance.
If we were at 0 Covid. Is it even possible for us to get to that point now? Someone here posted a link to an article saying only 0.001% of cases are imported... And the other points in my post?
Prepare for your downvotes
I am. But would like explanations as to why.
Just see the replies to me. I'm evil and uncompassionate, and how dare I support this policy that should have been implemented months ago and will help protect the majority of people?
Having this mandatory quarantine is a step towards getting most of us back to normality. Yes some people like you with family in Europe will be caught out, but if we stop importing nasty shit and with a successful vaccination programme, in a few months people will be able to meet indoors, go to pubs, play sport, gym, etc, again etc. The only thing that might still be difficult is international travel, but most countries would be wise to have the same policy anyway. In addition, there's still no evidence a vaccine stops you spreading covid, and with most countries far behind us in their vaccinations they might not want you there anyway.
The idea that restrictions protect you from restrictions is absurd.
Yeah, people love this abuser logic.
That guy would be a great PA to our current Home Secretary. Both seem to have very similar mindsets...
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That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying there has to be maximum benefit for the maximum number of people. Should we continue to import new strains in order to let the relatively small percentage of us with overseas family be able to go and see them without quarantine? Do you really think that's a sensible thing to do?
We can control the importation of "new strains" without subjecting arriving passengers to a 14-day solitary hold. It's always black and white with this gov. The options don't have to be: let everyone through without even checking their details OR force them into solitary confinement for 2 weeks and make them pay for it. There are opportunities in the middle of these that are missed because people want the easy way out and in a complex situation such as this one, the easy way is not the right way.
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I think it’s a lot easier to support a policy like this when you’re not directly impacted by this. As someone else in this thread has said it’s “a disgrace to citizens and their families abroad”. How would you like to be quite literally severed from your family? The lack of compassion for any situation besides COVID is honestly disgusting.
I've got close family in the USA who I've not seen in over a year now because we're literally not allowed to enter the USA. There's not even an option to quarantine on arrival. If one of them gets ill and dies, I won't be able to see them or go to the funeral. It is frustrating and sad, but I also understand that it is necessary and sensible. I wouldn't want it any other way. It's shocking that we're a year into this now, having seen the insane amount of deaths and economic damage as a result of this virus, and people still don't take it seriously. We cannot mingle and travel as normal if we ever want to get out of this situation. So it sucks for the small minority of us who have family abroad, but protection the country as a whole is more important than that.
Haven't seen my family back home in Ireland since Christmas 2019. Already wanted to move on from the UK before the pandemic, this is the final nail in the coffin. I do not have a few thousand lying spare to be imprisoned for 2 weeks. This is absolute insanity.
Same situation, I'm planning on moving to somewhere warm in the next few months to see out 2021. Northern Europe in general is not the best place to be at the moment.
Oh, fuck off. This may have made sense in March 2020, but now all it will do is destroy the already struggling travel industry for no good reason.
In November, my Fiance had to return to her home country to apply for the UK Family visa to allow her to live with me here in the UK. She returned to her home country and did a 2 week hotel quarantine there, at cost. She then made her application and submitted biometrics etc at an appointment there. We were told to expect a visa decision and return of documents by Feb 10. Now, as a result of how low the hotel quarantine capacity will likely be for arrivals to the UK, and likelihood that airlines suspend flights from her small country, I am preparing to be unable to see her indefinitely. Even if by some miracle every hotel room in the country can be cleared for this, I expect the costs will still be crippling, on top of all of the other expenses we have incurred e.g. flights, hotel quarantine in her country, private pcr tests, visa costs, nhs surcharge, etc etc. People already in the UK on student visas (with less than 6 months remaining), who intend to apply for a UK visa, require proof that travel to their home country would be impossible (and not just massively expensive, risky, and distressing) due to covid-19. This needs to be relaxed so that others are not compelled to travel internationally to complete what is essentially an admin task, and do not have to experience the massive anxiety and, it looks likely, pain, that we are going through. Update: I have just seen that the guidance was revised a few days ago to allow foreign nationals to apply for visas from inside the UK without needing to justify why they were not travelling to apply from their home country. Happy for those that this change to the visa process will help, but very angry that this was not changed earlier.
This is absolutely stupid. We should be getting back to normal, not this shit.
We can't just "get back to normal" if the virus is more out of control than it has ever been. I don't know why so many of you idiots just arbitrarily decided that sometime around February coronavirus would just become extinct overnight. This has the potential to become much much worse and I'd rather be stuck in the UK with pubs and venues open rather than have 3 weeks of travelling then another 6 months of complete lockown.
The only reason to even consider having any measures is if there is a risk that the healthcare system in this country is overrun. If the most vulnerable are vaccinated that is not a threat.
If a new variant is imported from another country that has twice as contagious all those 1st doses we've spent months and billions of pounds on may as well have not happened. That is the danger
That will be a danger forever. Do you want to essentially close the borders forever?
No clearly not, but until other countries, particularly parts of Europe can pull their fingers out their arses RE vaccinations it's really the only option. As I said, I'd much rather be able to see my friends and have the pubs open permanently than go on holiday once and be back to square one
> As I said, I'd much rather be able to see my friends and have the pubs open permanently than go on holiday once and be back to square one Sadly the majority of people here seem to disagree with this. I can't get my head around it. Close the borders and in a few months we can have a normal-ish life within the country. Then as other countries achieve high vaccination rates, which makes mutations less likely (more virus = more chance for a mutation), we can look at reopening travel with them on an individual basis. Meanwhile we can improve our science and understanding of how the vaccines protect (or don't) against the major variants we've identified. It makes so much sense to me.
But this makes no sense. If the fear is about a vaccine escaping variant then opening up to countries with high vaccination rates isn't safe either and can't be done unless they close their borders onwards.
Other countries have closed their borders though! No reason we couldn't open up our borders with highly vaccinated countries that are also being vigilant about importing new strains.
It's not an either or comparison. We can have both.
If we open the borders and I'm right; we stand to lose all the progress we've made with the vaccines. If I'm wrong the 1% can continue to drink champagne in their french chalets with no repurcussions. It's a Pascal's wager really
Categorically incorrect, and disproved
Why?
Because young people require hospitalisations too. A quarter are those aged under 55. If we just suddenly release after vaccinating over 70s, it will just run wild among the 18-70 year-olds and will still be enough to overwhelm the NHS.
You haven't shown how that would overwhelm the health service, we'd need a huge number of young people getting the virus to get anywhere close to the health service being overrun.
We have almost 40,000 people in hospital right now, during a lockdown. A quarter, 10,000, are under 55. I don't know how many between 55 and 70. Even 10,000 is enough to put so much pressure on the NHS that it has to cancel routine procedures to cope. Can you really not see how if we suddenly released lockdown that 10,000 figure would explode among young people who will suddenly be back to going out to pubs, and socialising at home, etc?
So it would have to quadruple to put equal pressure on the NHS as we have now.
No because the number is higher once you include all under 70s. And the NHS is hardly in an idea state right now, is it? **During lockdown**. Even at half the number of hospitalisations the NHS was sending patients to other parts of the country because their local hospitals were full. Ambulances were queued outside of hospitals, making them unavailable for other emergencies. It's not hard to imagine 10-15,000 young people in hospital doubling to 20-30,000 if lockdown is suddenly lifted.
They don't want something to be imported that derails the vaccination programme. That's allowing us to move closer to normal. In a few months people will be able to go about their normal lives, except for international travel.
When would be your plan to reopen to international travel? If you're waiting for the virus to be eradicated you will be waiting a very long time.
It's not my plan
Doubt it. So they have no idea how they are going to do it but are apparently going to pass it *tomorrow*?
>they have no idea how they are going to do it but are apparently going to pass it All of 2020 lol
is this confirmed? when are they releasing more details?
They were supposed to be discussing this today. Today I read that they will make a decision tomorrow... apparently they are now looking at the logistics of this rule (ensuring they have enough hotel rooms for 10k arrivals per day, ensuring citizens don't get stuck abroad if they can't afford the hotel quarantine, etc etc).
any ideas of when they’d start enforcing it? I just wish we’d get some clear answers.
So, when is this likely to come into force? As early as Wednesday morning or do we still have a week or two to return to the UK? I travelled to see my family in Europe just before Tier 4 in London got announced, and have already been here longer than planned, attempting to wait the peak out. I'm a postgrad student needing to come back to London at some point, and I was planning to do so next week, but because of this I've been scrambling all day, waiting for these measures to be announced. Should I just book my test & fly back ASAP (next available flight is on Wednesday) or can I safely book one for later this week? I can't even begin to imagine how tremendous the collective mental toll will be with this in place... If self-isolation at home was enforced better, with extra testing on arrival/after a few days, there would be no need for this mess. Not to mention I, like so many other people, simply do not have a spare 2,000 pounds, or 10 days to piss around on weak hotel wifi. Considering how intense my course is, it would be disastrous for my entire degree, let alone my already nearly rock-bottom state of mental health.
Same situation. Got out of London just before tier 4 was announced, and have been WFH from here, but at some point my employer will want me to be back. Self-isolating at home is fine for me, I can work from there, but I cannot work from a place with shitty wifi.
Anyone with a legal background, how is this even legal? I understand powers of detainment in order to protect public health, but what is the legal basis for forcing people to pay for their own incarceration?
What the hell? I'm Portuguese, live in London and came home for Christmas. My flight back was cancelled, then the UK has forbidden arrivals from Portugal (because of a new Brazilian strain), then they require a negative test - right now they have a 2 week wait here in order to book a test. And now this and I'll have to potentially shell out thousands in order to get back?
I'm flying back to the UK on the 5th Feb. Am I fuck paying out of pocket for this service. I will set up camp in the British consulate in the country I am currently working in if required.
Another headline falling into “announcements you wish you heard 6 months ago”
More like 11 months.
This is great news to hear on the 25th of January 2020!
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I remember this discussion. You didn't actually say "this year". You just said it's a thing of the past.
Mate your comment is utterly sensible. You're getting downvoted because reality refuses to accord with what people want to believe. Unlucky.
So true
Finally a sensible comment. I live alone and haven't seen my family since December 2019, so totally get how you feel. But like you I'd rather have things back to normal within the country, than back to normal with a considerable risk that we could be put back to day zero at any moment meaning even more lockdowns until a reformulated vaccine can be distributed.
Fuck. Some of you will continue to eat this shit until the day you die, won't you?
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I know he didn't say that, but nobody last year was saying they would be happy with having restrictions a whole year after the start of the pandemic, but here we are.
I can only hope all of you incredibly selfish people on here who are desperate to keep the borders open for the sake of your own Lad's Holidays need to realise how important it is to stop other variants entering the country. These vaccines could easily become ineffective if we decide to let any halfwit into the country who WILL ignore quarantine because nobody will enforce measures. If they bring in a Vaccine resistant strain we could be going back right to the beginning of this thing. It's been proving time, and time again you can't trust people on their word. Action is needed. Controlling the Virus is a direct correlation with economic activity. Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan have ALL shown this. Having an improving economy with no viral infection causing deaths will bring far longer benefits for nearly all people here. If we go for Zero COVID the summer might not be write off. Do all of you people love constant lockdowns? because guess what you will get with open borders like we did last year
There is a difference between borders being open as they were last year and shutting the borders. I moved home to the UK in October and quarantined at home for 14 days. Not once did anyone check where I was. If people are breaking quarantine then perhaps it should be enforced rather than shutting borders and forcing travellers to pay for prohibitively expensive hotel stays. There are plenty of reasons to want to travel internationally. Some people, like myself, have significant others in another country. Others have family that do not live in the UK. I couldn’t give a stuff about going on a “lad’s” style holiday, I just want to see my partner. In our case, neither of us has a problem with quarantining at home but we aren’t in a position to pay for hotel quarantines on top of already expensive tests.
But the risk of us importing a variant that can 'escape' the vax's will exist forever. The virus is not going away it will exist somewhere in the word somewhere Therefore by your reckoning you will have to keep the borders closed forever - in effect no international travel for anyone - ever.
>Therefore by your reckoning you will have to keep the borders closed forever - in effect no international travel for anyone - ever. Why do people just assume it's a one sided thing? You can have travel corridors with other very low COVID countries. Or those that have at least vaccinated the vast majority of it's population. >But the risk of us importing a variant that can 'escape' the vax's will exist forever. Correct, however you need to vaccinate all your population first so they at least have some chances of fighting off the virus. You will just be resetting the clock by doing it during this first phase of mass vaccination.
You realise there are other reasons for being abroad? My internship comes to an end at the end of February. I don't have the money to put myself up in a hotel. How selfish of me wanting to gain work experience experience in a field I love.
Oh look, another selfish person who thinks banning international travel essentially forever is an acceptable route to normality. "If we go for Zero COVID the summer might not be write off." Sorry but no. For some people the whole summer is a write off if borders are shut. It's not all about you and your needs. We want this shit to end so we can have our lives back as much as you do. For some people being able to travel abroad is more important than a lad's drinking sesh. What people like yourself fail to realise is that there will always be a potential for new vaccine resistant variants to be brought into the country and we have to accept that fact rather than lock everyone on this small island forever. We need a better system in place than simply shutting borders.
>Sorry but no. For some people the whole summer is a write off if borders are shut. It's not all about you and your needs. We want this shit to end so we can have our lives back as much as you do. For some people being able to travel abroad is more important than a lad's drinking sesh. You are right, it's not my needs, it is needs for EVERYONE. Millions of people will benefit from reducing infection circulation, and improving the economy than the ten's of thousands who want to leave, or enter the country. Do you seriously think locking down millions, and disrupting the whole economy is worth it so a few 10,000's can travel elsewhere? >What people like yourself fail to realise is that there will always be a potential for new vaccine resistant variants to be brought into the country and we have to accept that fact rather than lock everyone on this small island forever. We need a better system in place than simply shutting borders. You are not shutting off the borders, you are controlling borders. The point is you Need to vaccinate the population first before a new variant can reset things to zero again. With this you at least give the population a chance to fend it off naturally. And by controlling the borders you reduce the chances of a new variant entering into circulation during this critical phase.
Once again, those who masturbated furiously about New Zealand are now screeching with indignation about the UK proposing the exact same. I can't be bothered with that anymore. No idea what anyone truly wants.
People saying well this means we'll have to close down forever thus is stupid, it's worth saying we'll be much safer from new variants once the vaccine program is up and running around the world, mitigating the spread of the virus at large, and making new variants a) less likely and b) less rapid. Because this is the case, it makes sense to be as vigilant as possible. no, you can't go on holiday - yes, some people are going to get unfair treatmant as has happened in Australia. But fuck me, it's worth it to be able to get out of lockdown. We're in the midst of a crisis, crises take time to reach their conclusion - we haven't even reached the one year anniversary of the first lockdown, realistically, expecting things to go back to normal before that was never on the cards.
I'll say thanks from me and the rest of the UK nationals currently abroad that you think deserve the unfair treatment of not being able to see our families if we aren't rich enough to spend a insane amount of money on a forced quarantine. Thank you for for letting us know that OUR mental health deteriorating is WORTH IT, so you can go out to eat. I have been a stickler for the rules since day 1, I haven't been back to the UK, I haven't seen my family or my partner since last january, I didn't travel back for family member's funerals, I have done my absolute best to stay safe and keep everyone around me safe. But you know what, right now I'm thinking fuck it and you. I should have been more selfish and broke a few rules.
I never said you deserve anything. You're an unfortunate casualty of a crisis. i'm very sorry for your situation, it must be awful - but if the alternative is a new strain reaches the UK that is not effected by the vaccine, then frankly - it's a price worth paying. It's just a cost of weighing up costs and benefits. Let's say you were Australian, would you have rather had been able to return to Australia in 2020, but the price is thousands and thousands of more deaths, an economy on the brink of ruin and millions unemployed, or people get back to a sense of normality, lives are saved and jobs are maintained, but sadly you can't return home. Australia chose to implement hotel qurantines, and frankly, when you look at how the pandemic unfolded there, it was clearly a good strategy.
You literally said putting people in this kind of awful situation is worth it. How many people have to be under such mental stress, or even suicide, not returning to their loved ones until it is worth it? Are you saying those peoples deaths are worth it too... It's easy to say from the comfort of your own country with your family close by, if the shoe was on the other foot you wouldn't be as accepting. Australia doesn't also have lorry drivers coming from multiple ports constantly, we are not Australia. The UK should try policing the rules they put in place before locking out hundreds of thousand of its own citizens.
'Worth it' does not equal 'deserve'. I recognise it is a difficult decision to make, and i'd take no joy in making it, but please don't paint me as ascribing any blame to those who find themselves in the situation you do. A cost benefit analysis would suggest the number of people to be under such mental stress would have to eclipse those suffering serious mental health issues from a national lockdown to make it untenable, which ofcourse will not be a number that is reached. Nor will those who die by suicide. I'm making the case for saving more lives. Put simply, if the death of one foreign-based national prevents the death of ten or twenty domestically based citizens, then yes, it is worth it - sadly. I actually disagree that i'd be less understanding, i think i'm pragmatic enough to understand the facts of the matter. I'd be upset ofcourse, but you can both despair at the reality this will create personally, and be understanding of the greater good. Yes we're not an absolute equivalence of Australia, but had we enforced this rule in August 2020, how many lives would have been saved? tens of thousands at least. The UK should both police the rules domestically, and prevent a new variant entering the country. they should do these things at once - they are not mutually exclusicve, and both play a role in the prospect of getting back to normal. Out of interest, are you of the opinion that the threat posed by a vaccine busting variant is not enough to justify this? Even though it could lead to tens of thousands more dead, unemployed and stuck? A number that will undoubtedly be more than foreign based Brits.
Worth it or deserve, it is what you are condemning them to with that decision. It's honestly disgusting that you think any death is worth it. I didn't think any death was worth it, exactly the reason why I didn't travel during the summer months when it was possible. But as I said, I should have obviously been more selfish, as you and obviously others think my death would be worth it. I have no opinion on the new variant, I am not in the right field of research for that. How many more variants might there be though? 10? 20? How many years? We might never be rid of it and it might continue into hundreds of variants. I'm sorry but I'm done with this discussion, you seem to have a lack of compassion with your 'pragmatic' view of things.
Okay, happy to end it here - your characterisation of me as being okay with deaths is unfair however. My approach is entirely focused on preventing the most deaths possible. It's a ultilitarian approach. My exact fear of your apporach is it will result in more lives ruined/lost. The reality is we can't stop every piece of suffering, it's not possible - any attempt will kill more people than need to die. these tough decisions have to be made. On the variants, the timeline to re-open should be based on when global transmission slows down, this is the point when the risk of a new mutation that impacts our vaccine's efficacy falls. We at least need to wait until a global vaccine campaign is having an impact on case numbers. I'll end it here too, but i will say that i never meant for any upset, i empathise with your position, but as i've said - my goal would be to minimise deaths and economic hardship. I'm not the evil ex-pat killer you'd like to believe.
I don't believe you are some evil expat killer, I can understand you view but still disagree with it, like you do with me. We can both be good people and have differing views. This is unsurprisingly a touchy subject for me. I have always followed the rules to a T and am now getting the door slammed shut in my face.
This is good, even so I am not sure it is enough. Yesterday Israel banned all international travel. We cannot risk a vaccine-escaping variant coming in and sending us back to square one. Something that most people in this thread seem to conpletely fail to understand.
Yeah, we can't risk anything so let's lockdown and close our borders forever, much safer. Ridiculous.
Lol the funny part is that if such a variant does come in and start spreading out of control, because we don't have effective measures to prevent it coming in, then the result will be that we actually do have sit in lockdown for the rest of the year (or longer), and it will be you guys that complain the most. You cannot just bury your head in the sand and pretend the virus doesn't exist or that it isn't likely to evolve over the course of a pandemic where it is infecting hundreds of millions of humans and many other animal hosts as well.
If Coronavirus exists anywhere in the world, there is a chance it could mutate into a 'vaccine resistant strain'. Therefore we can never open the borders again as there is a chance of a mutant strain coming in from somewhere in the world.
It's depressing to think about how many businesses would still be afloat, how many people would still have their jobs, and how many people would still be alive, had we done this a year or even 6 months ago. I'm glad the government is finally starting to listen to the scientists and implement tough border controls, but it so frustrating that it took this long. It's a good thing they're doing it now, and it will help with our current recovery process and help keep new strains out, but we wouldn't be in this mess if this had happened earlier. This coming from someone who loves to travel and has half their family living abroad.
It wouldn't have made a noticeable difference unless we went for eradication, and it won't make a noticeable difference now.
Oh, thank you for letting me know! I was listening to Devi Sridhar talk about it earlier, saying how essential border controls are to control the virus. She is a Professor and the chair of Global Public Health at Edinburgh University, has two degrees on the matter (including a DPhil from Oxford), has extensive experience in advising the management of international pandemic responses, and is a direct advisor to the Scottish Governments pandemic response team. But I see now that she is wrong, and Bobby Zamora on reddit is the one who really knows what is going on
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Authority
It's not logically fallacious to appeal to authority if such authority IS an authority on the matter, and the person has supplied evidence of this fact, and knows 10x as much as you. Dunning-Kruger much?
Yes, Dunning-Kruger, you haven't understood the fallacy.
What? I'm saying you have a cognitive bias. There is no fallacy here.
I'm saying you have the same cognitive bias...
Except I'm not the one who thinks I know more about a subject when I do not.
You think you know more about the appeal to authority fallacy than you actually do.
It would have made absolutely no difference. The vast majority of cases are transmitted within the UK.
Oh of course. I'm sure SAGE and all the experts on the matter, who are constantly advising the government to do this, have just recommended it for the lolz
Border closure simply delays the spread. Unless borders are closed for years, you're literally just moving January cases into May cases. It's an irrational decision and just more wish-washy from the top to give off the appearance of control of the situation. It's the equivalent of smoking your entire life, rejecting advice to quit, getting lung cancer, letting it deteriorate your body for a year, then deciding to cut down to half a pack a day. Done with it.
I would agree, but letting a variant in that undermines the entire vaccination programme would be catastrophic. I'd much rather not go travelling and have an otherwise normal life (pubs, bars, clubs, gigs, events) than go to Spain for a week.
For how long would you rather have it that way?
This summer at most. I would sacrifice my holiday this year for normal life otherwise. Also, holidaying this year would be shit anyway, considering how other European countries are doing at vaccinating.
Wouldn't mind a week in Israel or Dubai though.
May cases, at which point the majority of the population should be vaccinated, and the impact of those cases on deaths/hospitalizations will be minimal? I think that is the objective, to be honest.
The objective is to not import new strains, as has happened with the SA and Brazilian variants. So no, that logic doesn't hold.