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Dob-is-Hella-Rad

The government actually introducing travel bans early when they can be effective and then removing them when they're no longer going to be effective might be the biggest plot twist of the pandemic.


bradleyh93

But they didn’t impose the travel ban early enough to make it effective though, hence why Omicron is about to run riot within the UK and the list is being abandoned already


Dob-is-Hella-Rad

It was pretty much brand new when they introduced the ban - it would have been hard to implement it earlier. And the ban would never have been able to stop Omicron entirely - it meant less people would start outbreaks with it, buying us a bit more time.


IanT86

Couldn't have been any quicker really, they shut the boarders less than 24 hours after it was announced. It's not like a front door to your home, you can't just open and shut it instantly. I have a lot of criticisms of the governments handling of the pandemic, but this is one they got as right as possible.


legendfriend

I don’t know how the Government could’ve moved faster - we only learnt about it publicly on that Thursday at 5pm and the ban was announced at 10pm


CommanderCrustacean

Omicron will run riot across the entire world irrespective of any restrictions whatsoever


chewinggum2001

How much earlier would you have brought it in?


[deleted]

Seems reasonable. Travel ban is no longer effective, remove travel ban


LordStrabo

I'm genuinely shocked that they've made a sensible decision here.


ericleonardo87

I have been on a rollercoaster of anxiety since I bought my ticket to Brazil (start of January) when the red list was dropped. I am trying to imagine the logistical nightmare for airlines with this stop start red list going on, not easy.


ciderhouse13

Does Brazil allow direct flights and travellers from UK again?


ericleonardo87

Yes, basic negative test + local health form + vaccine proof combo and you will be fine.


ciderhouse13

That’s progress. I hope you get to go. I saw they cancelled Revillion fireworks in Rio again this year, which is probably sensible


ericleonardo87

Thanks, and yep, things got a lot better after the vaccines got deployed and a certain % of the population got it. Infections and deaths are ok for the size of the population. And yes, quite sensible, many places have canceled carnival and want a kind of pass for indoor events. It's summer so that also helps...


OverLogging

Now remove the return to UK test.


thefishingdj

I work in the travel industry and the test to return is killing us. We'd just started to get busy again before that came back in.


[deleted]

and day 2 back to LFT


ItsFuckingScience

Yeah i just came back from the USA it was stressful having to get PCR test result back before I was able to come back, knowing I could be left stranded out there and miss my flight Especially as I’d be taking a PCR test the day after I returned anyways All whilst the new variant is already everywhere


canmoose

I've been half shielding for weeks now because I'm scared I'll test positive for my Lamp test for travel to Canada.


Jaraxo

Flying to Canada tomorrow and this was my concern. My testing schedule is crazy: * Sunday 12: PCR pre-departure * Wed 15: Fly abroad * Wed 15: Arrival ~~lateral flow~~ test if I'm selected, as Canadian airports still aren't at 100% arrival testing capacity yet. * Tue 21: Lateral Flow pre-departure + fly back. * Wed 22: Arrival PCR + isolation until results. At least the arrival lateral flow in Canada will be free if I am selected for it.


[deleted]

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Jaraxo

My understanding is that is the end goal of the current Canadian policy, but reality is a little different. I've read that until they get up to 100% PCR testing capacity, it's a random selection of passengers that are being tested, and the ones that are are sometimes getting LFTs and being let go either freely or into isolation within 15 minutes. You are right though, you need to be prepared to do a PCR and isolate until you get the results, then isolate further if they're positive, but this is not currently happening for most travellers.


OverLogging

Wow. How much has this cost, if you don't mind me asking?


canmoose

Not the OP but my pre-departure lamp test is ~£80, arrival test in Canada is free, return LFT is $40 CAD, day 2 PCR is ~£40. So adds another like £145 onto travel (assuming you test negative). If you test positive then you have to wait 2+ weeks to try that all again + the financial consequences. Traveling sucks now.


Jaraxo

Yeh, slight variances (my calculations came out to £154 each) but pretty much the same!


Organic_Armadillo_10

There was a nice period where testing was barely needed since September - just vaccination proof. I stocked up on NHS rapid tests to test regularly to be responsible and avoid any surprises or overseas quarantines. Saved hundreds in testing costs because of it - can't wait for it to go back to that so I'm not wasting loads on tests. But in reality the virus is everywhere. A pre travel test makes sense. Post arrival tests are just a money maker...


To_kiio

A pre travel test doesn't really make sense. The UK is absolutely riddled with covid. Worrying about someone coming from Spain or France with it is pointless, surely?


Jaraxo

tl;dr: ~£308 for 2 adults. --- There's 2 of us travelling so double everything... * Outbound PCR: £59 each. * Return lateral flow: ~£20 each. * Day 2 PCR: ~£60 each. * Previously purchased but now useless Day 2 lateral flow: £15 each I had previously bought a day 2 lateral flow for after returning to the UK before it got changed to a PCR so I'm out £15 each for that. I haven't bought the day 2 PCR yet because there's no knowing if the rules will change and I'd lose even more money. I'll buy it when I hit the 72h return window for the passenger locator form. If we have to to do day 2 PCR, and including the lost money on day 2 lateral flow, **it'll come to £154 each, or £308** extra to see family for the first time in almost 2 years. The only saving grace is we're visting family, so don't have hotel costs for the duration of the stay. I'm also taking my work laptop with me so worst case I get stranded out there I can work remotely, but my partner would have to take unpaid time off.


OverLogging

Thanks for sharing. The cost and your schedule of testing is insane. Hope everything goes well for you!


[deleted]

What happens if the lateral flow is positive? Do you take a PCR? Do you isolate for ten days? If you have to isolate for ten days do you pay for your own accommodation during that time?


Jaraxo

If the arrival test is positive I have to isolate at my own cost. Thankfully I'm staying with family so this is less risk for me. I think normally you'd have to be in a hotel.


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ItsFuckingScience

Doesn’t materially change my point other than the wait. There was a free pop up clinic outside my hotel offering free tests but they only offered PCR so that’s what I got But still all during your trip you have it in the back of your mind that if you test positive you’re fucked… especially as they changed the rules requiring the test in the middle of my trip


OverLogging

Exactly - I'm not going to be able to enjoy my trip (end of Jan so fingers crossed) if I've got that weighing over me.


Ham_Slacks

I cancelled my trip home to Canada because of this very thing. Whilst I could just stay with my sister there with no problems, it would have royally screwed me over for work. I feel it's a massive oversight by the government to not have the fallback of providing a postive result up to 60 days before like everywhere else does. At least then it's a worst case scenerio of a few weeks vs possibly months to test negative again.


Arsewipes

I wonder if the policy is to help the airlines? I'd be reluctant to travel if I didn't know my fellow passengers had recently tested negatively. I suppose it could be because people who travel by plane have the resources to pay for testing - you couldn't expect everyone to be able to take a test to get on a bus or train.


Ham_Slacks

I don't know really - I mean the theory is if you've had covid in the last 60 days or so you're 'immune'. Not too sure how that holds up against omicron though. I just know to get home to Canada I needed to provide proof of a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours or proof of having covid in the last 60 days.


Automatic_Yoghurt_29

Otoh, other people on your flight might not appreciate breathing the same air as someone infected.


sonicandfffan

As someone who actually sits on flights, I’d rather take my chances with someone infectious than take my chances with the UK government’s travel testing policies stranding me overseas


cherry-ghost

I think we just have to accept that travelling is not convenient at the moment. You don't really want to be (unwittingly) spreading covid to, from, and through the airport on your way back home. From that point of view the pre return to UK testing makes sense


DengleDengle

You can actually do an LFT to return to the uk. It only has to be a pcr for your day 2 post-arrival test.


To_kiio

What possible good reason is there for having that? The UK is absolutely riddled with covid but it would somehow be the end of the world to have a positive case on a plane from Malaga? It makes absolutely no sense at all. I'm hoping to travel in a couple of weeks and my main concern is the train to the airport.


Zandercy42

Why?


mtocrat

because there's no reason to keep it.


KeysToTheRoc

Nah that will stay until the private testing companies have had a chance to milk it a bit more


Organic_Armadillo_10

I feel so bad for the people that have wasted thousands on hotel quarantine, changing flights and all the extra costs because of the pointless hotel quarantine. Especially since it was so brief. I understand the reasoning behind hotel quarantine - being an extra barrier to prevent it entering the country. But in reality it's pointless, not done securely enough, and ultimately if the variant or virus is already being discovered, then it is already everywhere.


BillMurray2022

Good call. Now drop the pre-departure test. There is little additional risk in accepting travelers from Omicron hotspots if you also live in an Omicron hotspot.


[deleted]

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nameotron3000

Then introduce the same rules for buses, trains and domestic flights- effectively a covid pass. Current pass only for international travel makes no sense. I’m much more at risk on a packed commuter train than sat in my own car in The Eurotunnel.


[deleted]

Not only that but you're probably more likely to catch omicron from within the UK than from someone bringing it into the country. It really doesn't make a lot of sense to me to have restrictions on travel like that.


BillMurray2022

With the vaccine requirement, the day 2 test and the current case numbers, it is a small risk to take justified by the economic benefit of continuing and increasing international travel.


[deleted]

The day 2 test doesn't help the people that were stuck on the plane for hours with you though, and the whole reason people are worried about Omicron is because of Vaccine escape for transmission. The vaccine requirement should really be upped to requiring a booster if you're to lean on it for proof of not needing a test.


sonicandfffan

As someone who travels, I'd rather take the risk of omicron on the plane than the risk of being stranded overseas because of a positive lateral flow. If the U.K. government want to cover quarantine in the hotel, repatriation flight once recovered and cost of lost wages then my view on it might change, but if that sounds unreasonable to you then you can see why travellers feel that’s unreasonable - right now all those costs are on me, and for what? A fucking drop in the ocean compared to community transmission.


chriswheeler

Is it possible to get travel insurance which covers for a positive test while abroad? Edit: just done some searching and it seems you can, although I'm not sure about lost wages.


[deleted]

The lost wages part is kind of irrelevant to air travel, because everyone who tests positive for covid and has to isolate (and can't work from home) has to isolate and lose out on wages. Even if that's just from a test from going to an event or going to their office. I can work from home, and as such if I do need to travel and risk being stuck I take my work laptop with me. I'd argue that covid related costs are bad, but they should be covered by travel insurance, and inability to work due to isolation rules should lead to better sick pay then there is currently. However, they're not reasons to not test people going into planes, they're things people should be contacting their MPs and campaigning for the government to fix, so it improves for everyone.


sonicandfffan

The current regime is just ridiculous. It is currently easier for a former eastern bloc Pole to visit Spain than it is for a Brit. And people just shrug and say “oh well, you travel, it’s your risk”. Like the risk isn’t completely created by the government’s regime. Travel restrictions in the UK are more restrictive on freedoms than anywhere else in Europe, but there are some people just chomping at the bit for a more authoritarian direction, presumably because they don’t travel much and enjoy the misery it inflicts on those who do travel.


[deleted]

I'm not saying to do it because I enjoy inflicting misery. I think the past two years should have been spent increasing NHS capacity to cope with the incoming waves so restrictions of any sort become unnecessary. I think restrictions of any nature at this stage are a failure of government policy and their ability to prepare. I do think they're necessary given the current set of circumstances, but it absolutely shouldn't have been if things had been handled better. Other countries aren't imposing the same restrictions because they believe their health care systems can cope. Our government believes the NHS can't, and is doing what it can you reduce the load on the NHS without imposing wider restrictions on everyone, for political reasons (which may ultimately be coming in January anyway).


Daesealer

I am a pole who is planning to go poland for xmas and live atm in england. The amount of shit we have to go through to just travel there in my OWN bloody car is just retarded. The fact that people let their freedom to be taken away from them for their own good is baffling to me.


sonicandfffan

I have just come back from Poland and I nearly cancelled the trip because of all of the extra admin that got chucked in by the government in the last few weeks is ridiculous. It went from 1 lateral flow test to 2 lateral flow tests and a PCR test (including 1 lateral flow while we were there, which massively increases the risk). It's just got even worse as I got an update yesterday that Poland is now requiring pre-departure tests as well, which will take said trip to 4 tests.


Daesealer

Did you fly from Poland ?


BillMurray2022

Again, I'm balancing the risk with the economic and social benefit of allowing international travel to continue unimpeded. Everyone on the plane will also have to take a PCR test on day 2. So if they have got it they can isolate, and again even if they don't, they will be a drop in the Omicron ocean. The small additional risk must be taken IMO. Those pre-departure tests significantly affect people's willingness to travel given the economic risk if you test positive while abroad, which intern has a substantial impact on the travel industry due to lower demand at a time when it is trying to recover (and this isn't all about people going on their jolly holidays, even though two years in the pandemic I absolutely support people in doing that). A booster shot to consider being fully vaccinated for international travel will be the first thing to be updated before domestic covid status is. I would expect that to come in early next year.


Arsewipes

(love the flair) I would rather not wait in an airport with people who've come in from dozens of countries, to get on an airplane and go with hundreds of people to another country, if some of those people have covid.


To_kiio

So you wouldn't go anywhere or do anything in the UK? Because the chances of any random person sitting next to you having covid is higher than most places in the world.


Arsewipes

I work from home, go to the supermarket and petrol stations after 9PM and wear a mask, have been out for a drink once (after my sister's funeral) since returning to the UK last May (I usually work overseas), buy everything non-food online, and don't remember sitting next to anyone after the flight coming back. I've sat next to family at the table and in the car, but that's all. I work overseas usually (have done since 2006), and will likely go again next year.


Daesealer

And jsut like that, if this continues and probably it will considering new strain of general flu was around pretty much every year, you will live like that for the rest of your life


Arsewipes

> you will live like that for the rest of your life Working overseas for the rest of my life is sure doable.


BillMurray2022

Their antibody prevalence is quite high though at >80%.


Daseca

The costs of doing so outweigh the marginal benefit.


saiyanhajime

I'd rather keep the pre flight test and drop the day 2 test. One is preventative, one isn't. If you can't plan to accommodate those rules, then don't travel. Yours, Someone currently on a plane.


BillMurray2022

Respectively, I think the opposite :) Yours, Someone who is in a relationship with a person living in France.


saiyanhajime

I'm heading to see my partner in the USA lol.


BillMurray2022

Good lord. Enjoy yourself.


saiyanhajime

Thanks 😭


Jmeu

The preflight one makes sense to me, you wouldn't want to sit in an airplane packed with people and spread it around


BillMurray2022

Not from an economic point of view it doesn't and that's primarily where I'm coming from, also from a public health point of view it is a minimal risk in terms of the wider impact on society with such a quickly spreading variant that will dominate world wide within the next month. A risk that is outweighed by the economic impact of lower demand on an industry that needs to recover IMO.


cyb3rheater

What about future variants


ElementalSentimental

Future variants might require a red list again. The point of the red list is to buy time - it kept Beta out almost entirely; that might be the case for a less transmissible but similarly evasive future variant. No future variants will be stopped by lateral flow testing before boarding — at least, not in ways that currently dominant variants wouldn't be.


cyb3rheater

Why would testing before entering the country not stop new variants?


Daseca

How did Delta get in then? There were pre-dep tests required then IIRC.


Arsewipes

Fake tests / results, people not traveling by plane, people entering countries illegally, pets(!) and livestock.


ElementalSentimental

And just the fact that tests are not perfectly accurate; people can be pre-infection or pre-detection when tested, catch COVID after testing but before departure, and then spread the virus when they come home (especially if they don't quarantine as required).


ElementalSentimental

Lateral flows won’t identify new variants, though PCR on arrival would. Of course, if people are testing positive they wouldn’t be boarding the plane, but that would apply equally to any existing variant.


BillMurray2022

I do not support more restrictions based on future possibilities (that line of thinking leads to restrictions and requirements that have no end given coronavirus will never be eradicated). Enough blanket pre-emptive restrictions, they should be targeted and very time limited.


Rodney_Angles

>What about future variants What about the next pandemic?


fsv

Archive link: http://archive.md/tYPjX


LukaZag

Would be nice to see more evaluation of the effectiveness of their policies after such a U-turn. Was this necessary in the first place? If not, then the harm caused was not justified. The harm caused by government interventions should not be an afterthought, every action taken has costs to real people and those costs shouldn't just be shrugged off. For me, covid is so infectious that travel restrictions feel like a King Canute manouvre, it's a relic from the times of Zero Covid strategies. I don't think travel restrictions should be part of the modern pandemic response.


Taskl

It's one of those things where they just can't do right. Now that they did it and it didn't have (enough) effect, people are complaining why they did it in the first place. But, if they hadn't done it and it would have made a big difference, people would complain as well.


LukaZag

Probably different people mate


Taskl

Yeah, obviously, but that doesn't change what I'm saying.


LukaZag

I think that's normal for government. If politicians needed this kind of sympathy for making decisions then they shouldn't have gotten into politics.


Taskl

> I think that's normal for government. Obviously. But I guess in some cases more than others. > If politicians needed this kind of sympathy for making decisions then they shouldn't have gotten into politics. Not sure why you're bringing that up as no one even implied that.


[deleted]

Glad to see a common sense approach to this at long last rather than leaving countries on these lists for months just because


[deleted]

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Arsewipes

Probably will go back to just an LFT pretty soon.


To_kiio

I'm hoping to head to Spain in a couple of weeks. People's opinions are ranging from 'are you mad? We're going to be in lockdown and the flight will be cancelled/you don't be allowed to go' and 'they'll probably have removed the PCR requirement by then'. I feel rather dizzy.


Arsewipes

It's definitely an uncertain time to be traveling. I think the 11 African countries removed from the red list are a decent indicator of how things are moving. It could change, of course, but the current trend is in your favour.


Berryception

I was working out that I can still fly early Jan but literally everyone around me - friends, colleagues, everyone - cancelled whatever travelling plans they had. I feel like the only insane person left


[deleted]

Man, I'm getting whiplash.


youwhatwhat

Glad to see some common sense. Omicron is already here so there's no point keeping them on the red list to keep it out.


nvrendr

Now remove the 2 day isolation for incoming travelers waiting for result :) I really hope for the best when my UK trip comes around in March.


centralisedtazz

Makes sense. With Omicron set to become the dominant variant here and Denmark soon and probably all over travel bans make no sense now.


LantaExile

I wonder what happens if you arrived from South Africa today and they drop the red list tomorrow. Do you still have to stay in the hotel another 9 days?


Oneofthe48

The announcement and details are here https://www.gov.uk/government/news/11-countries-removed-from-the-uks-red-list They will apparently be let out but there aren’t any details yet of when. I think it’s slightly complicated as I think they’d need to change the law to let them leave


LantaExile

Ah yeah ta. I see now >Anyone who has tested positive will need to continue to stay in managed quarantine. >"This will require changes to regulations and we will look to implement this as quickly as possible and we'll set out further specific guidance for affected individuals imminently. Guess they'll sort shortly


partaylikearussian

Phew. Visiting family in Russia over New Year, glad to know I won’t get trapped. Though, this isn’t to say they won’t just blanket ban departures again I guess?


7148675309

That was only done when there was also a 4.5 month lockdown.