Am I missing something here?

Daffonanna

I would really like to understand why we are still seeing pictures of crowded understaffed airports , and hearing about the import of a number of cases of disease variants ‘ linked to travel ‘ . Did I understand a report correctly that said ministers are considering the removal of travellers to isolation hotels
for two weeks but they are reluctant but to do so as it would constitute ‘ a serious and irrevocable step that would affect our standing as an international travel hub ‘
Meanwhile it seems acceptable to deny an entire generation of our children and young people their basic right to an education , freedom of outdoor activity and contact with their
peers other than through a screen for the best part of a year .
Please can someone explain to me how these two experiences of enforced encarceration are calculated , and the effect of their long term effect considered .

I think the government is in a performance exercise. They are just pretending to do something.
Shutting the airports now would be like locking the doors and windows when the house is full of burglers.
The UK is the most infected country in the world right now, and the best we could do is to stop people LEAVING.

As for coming to the country and facing quarenteen. That would be like wiping your feet before entering a swamp.

No the government has let us all down very badly and is trying to draw attention to others so they can blame them. They have blamed teachers, nurses, the general public, new variants, and more besides, but they need to look at themselves.

I was on three months holiday in Australia last March when my return flight got altered. I contacted the airline and was given a choice of a flight the next day, or stay indefinitely as in al, probability all international flights were being cancelled in the next few days, and all state borders and airports closed!!! They have had just over 900 deaths in total, altho I realise their total population is far less than ours, and have just celebrated the first week with no new infections reported anywhere in the Country and life is pretty much returned to normal, albeit there are still travel restrictions in place and it will probably be next year before I can even begin to plan a resumption of my holiday! Such decisive action is so sadly lacking here.

I don’t understand why people are being allowed to travel for holidays and the rich celebrities holidaying in the Caribbean and other places is not setting a good example. I hope that if people coming back from holidays have to quarantine for 14 days in hotels it is not at the tax payers expense.

I seem to remember when the virus was first highlighted back in Jan/Feb last year, people coming off a cruise ship were taken to a hotel and kept there for 2 weeks. No more was heard about that therefore the powers that be must have aborted that idea quite quickly. I too think borders closed in both directions would have saved so many lives in the early stages but then Boris and his numpties have dithered about every serious decision while other countries have just done it. I really hope that when all this is over people will be made accountable for their actions, not forgetting the Chinese who started this in the first place.

Hear hear jocork!

I returned to the UK from Germany back in early November and Heathrow was pretty busy then, but we weren't in lockdown at that time and Germany still had a travel corridor, though I only made it back just in time for that. I'm amazed how busy it is now! Who are all these people still travelling? I considered not going even then, but decided to stick to my plans as I was helping my DiL travel with her very young baby to join my DS who was already there, having started his new job before the baby had a passport! I cut my stay short as Germany were going into lockdown, despite their numbers being much lower than ours. I took the last flight out from their nearest airport as I didn't fancy the extra travel that would have been required to get home from another airport.

Our government has been on the back foot all throughout the pandemic. Every step they have taken to reduce the spread has been too late in the day and most of the relaxations have been too early! Result? The highest death rate in the world!

I thought we were meant to learn from our mistakes but this government don't seem to. Their concentration on the economy, and I realise it is not an insignificant issue, has been prioritised over peoples lives. Only now, as the NHS is being overwhelmed, are they actually considering doing what they should have done at the start!

I realise that people are tired of all the restrictions and many are still in denial over the risks, so refuse to comply, but we wouldn't be in this mess if Boris and co. had bitten the bullet right from the start!

Being a non-scientific bod, I thought that not closing the airports and flights back in March 2020 was a decision way above my pay-grade. I assumed that there was something that I had not understood about transmission of Covid etc.

Ditto early mandatory wearing of masks.

If these measures had been adopted for perhaps a month or two, ten months ago, it would have been likely (I think... but please don't hold me, it is just my thoughts) that we could have stopped the spread of Covid in one short very sharp shot and saved many lives. Instead, we have all these more wishy-washy stop-starts and please don't start me off on the ill-fated 'Eat out' scheme. This should have been entitled 'Eat out to spread the virus'. Coinciding with a return for schools it was a perfect storm of Covid-spreading.

I remember being in central London in March last year and the whole area was flush with Chinese tourists. Some of them must have been spreading Covid. We were in a lift with one young Chinese couple and he was coughing. I have never exited a lift so quickly! Why oh why did we not close our borders?

Maddyone and joysutty. According to the media, Kate Moss was holidaying in the Caribbean and travelled to Paris for a photoshoot (allowed). Her daughter was also in Paris earning money on a catwalk (allowed) at the same time, so they got together as it was Kate's birthday. They can't earn money on a Zoom meeting.

Children don’t earn money....

I was horrified when I saw the photos of all the travellers at the airport! Why on earth should we allow them in? I suppose the government thinks they are going to spend some welcome money here which will benefit the country.

I’m sure we should close our borders and should have done ages ago.
I too wonder where all those travellers have come from and why are they travelling.
Here in Wales we can’t leave the country and no more than 5 miles from home.

Nothing is more important than reducing the virus. Everything else depends on that - education, mental health, social interaction and yes, the long term survival of our place as in international travel hub. No-one will want to pass through our airports while we have a high level of the virus. The sooner they face the inevitable and make unpalatable decisions the sooner it will be over

Part of the hestitation about enforcing quarantine for travellers to and from Denmark has been due to the damage it is said to do to international business and to the economy of the countries that trade with each other. Plus the damage that is being done to the border region of Denmark and Germany and Denmark and Sweden were a significant amount of people live in the one country and work in the other.

Obviously, if nearly all commercial travel and shipping is stopped it will have enormous financial impact.

You may not have heard of any riots, but as late as Saturday we had rioting in Copenhagen when a demonstration against the corona restrictions turned very nasty indeed. Germany has had riots too among youngsters in the bigger cities.

To me this is no excuse for not doing everything we can to stop the pandemic, but the younger generation, both teenagers and others up to about the age of 50 don't by any means find the measures that are in place necessary or democratic, so frankly most governments are between the Devil and the deep blue sea right now.

joysutty
Totally agree with you. How is Kate Moss even allowed to leave the country, holidays are illegal at the moment? It’s not just one of the many guidelines, it’s illegal to go on holiday! And how was she able to enter France? I thought British travellers were banned from France because of the new variant. It’s absolutely unbelievable!

Yes, should have closed borders much earlier. So many going over + above their duties at this time. To read yesterday that Kate Moss just jetted off to either Paris or the Caribbean for her birthday. How is this even allowed right now then ? Previously read that Rita Ora, (who I like) had done something similar by having a restaurant full of 30 of her friends for her birthday bash in December.

And a start to getting schools reopened would be to vaccinate teachers and all school staff. Elderly people can isolate at home, but teachers can’t, they have to be in school. The whole programme of vaccination has been wrong in my opinion. All key workers should have been vaccinated first, others could have waited their turn.

Daffonanna
I totally agree with your post. I cannot understand why we’re still seeing pictures of crowded airports when it’s actually illegal to go on holiday at the moment. My son cannot travel for less than an hour to his second home, nor can he legally sleep in it, but people are actually going on holiday. Also people can fly to do business, what’s wrong with zoom meetings for goodness sake?Why are we even allowing tourists into the country?

As for the teachers, they are indeed working their socks off trying to provide education for the children at home and the key worker children. But whatever they do, children will fall through the gaps. There’ll be children who don’t have a computer or WiFi in the home. There’ll be children whose parents are unable to help them. There’ll be children whose parents or carers don’t care whether they do school work or not. These children will drop behind. And let’s not forget the enormous social damage being done to children because they are deprived of their peers and face to face teaching. Anyone who pretends that children are not suffering tremendous damage from this pandemic needs to ask a teacher. I was a teacher, and my niece is a teacher, and we have discussed how in reality, the children have been at the bottom of the heap in this pandemic. I agreed with the schools reopening, but I also totally understand why they have to be shut now.

Consider the only child, stuck in a high rise flat, with a parent who is depressed, or alcoholic, and has no laptop to do his school work on. And now tell me that children are not suffering!

I also agree with you. I accept some people will have had to fly for some real reason but nowhere near all of the people we see on the TV.

Teachers are, I fully recognise, doing a fabulous job but it will be so much better for all concerned when the schoolchildren can actually attend school. Yes, some children may learn better at home and be escaping bullying but I am making a general point.

I think the borders should have been closed much earlier on.

Spot on Applegran. I wonder how many lives could have been saved if we had closed our borders.

I have never understood why we didn't from the beginning use the benefits of being an island nation - surely an advantage in a pandemic - and close our borders. We could have done this early on, apart from allowing entry of desperate cases and our own nationals who live here, and all who are allowed in be forced to quarantine in a way we could monitor effectively.

I could easily fall into utter despair..

slightly off subject, I did think of posting a separate thread

but.. these fines that are "issued" how many are paid?
not dissimilar to the quarantine/lockups question!

If other countries can do so then I think that we should. If it helps contain this damn thing then why on earth not? Use hotels as other countries do. If we can use them for all the illegals that one paper reported then surely it is just as easy to quarantine any one flying in from another country? Get a grip Boris & Co please!

The ERG - shades of Trump supporters - are calling for an ease of lockdown.

Schools should be re-opening.

We have the highest death rates per million in the world, yet they continue to call for greater mixing.

I am beginning to doubt their sanity quite honestly

I think that a lot less than 8000 a day would arrive if there was an enforced quarantine.

geekesse

On Radio 4 this morning, this was discussed.

Around 8,000 people arrive into London Heathrow per day.

There are around 10,000 hotel beds in hotels near the airport. So where are they supposed to put up to 80,000 people while they all do their 10 day quarantine?

But how many of those 8,000 people are flying for essential reasons? Maybe some of them should not be flying and won’t be if they have to pay to stay in a hotel?