So much for closed borders

It is 14 days hotel quarantine in Australia and after that they have to have another Covid test 3 days after the isolation since they recently found a positive person who was negative in isolation but developed it soon afterwards. We have no community transmission so all cases are coming from overseas travellers, mostly people coming for the Australian Open. If I had my way there would be absolutely no overseas people coming in until we have had the vaccine. They are slow with that, we haven’t even started.

NotSpaghetti

I do accept that Canada is in a relatively good position regarding coronavirus but 3 days?

It’s up to 3 hotel days waiting on a negative test.

Then quarantine at home. I’m confused reading though, as only 4 airports accept international travel, many people will still need to fly to final destination, so you could still pick up covid on those flights.

it’s a surprise to find that the air inside a plane is cleaner than you might think. Thanks to HEPA filters and efficient circulation on commercial aircrafts, the air you breathe in flight—though not necessarily entirely virus-free—is much cleaner than the air in restaurants, bars, stores, or your best friend’s living room.
About 40 percent of a cabin’s air gets filtered through this HEPA system; the remaining 60 percent is fresh and piped in from outside the plane. “Cabin air is completely changed every three minutes, on average, while the aircraft is cruising

www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/2020/08/how-clean-is-the-air-on-your-airplane-coronavirus-cvd/

GillT57 Air conditioning systems are often full of germs. In the last few years every time I traveled by plane I ended up with a bug. My OH has refused to have another holiday with me if it involves plane travel for that very reason. We spend money on a holiday and then I end up in bed for a few days in order to recover from the bugs I've caught on the plane.

Of course, now a days we won't be going anywhere by air. The air is recycled, not recharged with external air. As an asthmatic I am sensitive to air quality and have sometimes found it difficult to breathe in large supermarkets. I have great difficulty walking through the airport at Stansted for that reason. The corridors are sealed and no fresh air.

Varian I think you know the answer to your question - of course they did. They didn't want all those pesky furriners, especially those who worked in our hospitals and care homes and picked our strawberries and asparagus.

Did any one on GN actually vote for this Vote Leave government because they promised to control our borders?

If so.how do you think they have done?????

I'm not worrying about it Alegrias1, simply commenting.

Does it not seem extraordinary that the Vote Leave Government which was elected on a promise to control our borders has proved over the last twelve months to be totally incapable of controlling our borders?

I've got enough to worry about with our own government's Coronavirus response without worrying about Canada's as well.

I do accept that Canada is in a relatively good position regarding coronavirus but 3 days?

Alegris why is it any better if the 3 days in a hotel is in Canada or elsewhere?

Gill
Absolutely, it’s all stalling. This should have been in place months ago.

The wittering on about air conditioning systems is just stalling as far as I can see. Australia have had this in place for months. All air conditioning systems should be subjected to hygiene measures anyway, and what about airplanes? Stuff and nonsense. Just get on with it.

NotSpaghetti

This is already not sounding good to me.
What a mess!
Any why only 3 days ?‍♀️

How rumours start...

Judging from the poster's username, I imagine she was talking about how things are done in Canada.

I thought this scheme was starting on February 15th. It should have been done last March in my opinion. I recognise that the logistics of it are enormous but if it had been sorted out earlier we wouldn’t be in this mess now because it would be up and running.

This is already not sounding good to me.
What a mess!
Any why only 3 days ?‍♀️

There should of course be transport prearranged by government / airport / a contracted company. In China all arrivals are escorted off the plane, onto a bus which delivers them to their hotels. I assume the same is happening in other countries with this system.

Expecting arrivals from red list countries to make their own way to these hotels negates the point of them staying in them. If public transport is used and if infectious, goodness knows how many they could pass the virus onto on their journey.

I heard this morning that there will be a need for 1000 hotel beds per day to cope with arrivals from 15 February.

Presumably that means until then 1000 travellers per day are arriving/have been arriving in the UK from the affected countries and just merrily go off to wherever, to supposedly self-isolate?

I was listening to a representative from a large hotel chain this morning and perhaps he brought up problems that we dont know about or even think about. He has been working on this for months he was talking about the air conditioning systems most hotels have and it is not suitable for virus protection as it moves air from one room to another The extra protocols needed are immense and then it course there is the hotels insurers. It obviously is not as simple as just putting the people in rooms if these are not fit for purpose.

We are starting on Feb 5 to use hotels for quarantine as well for travellers. About time, I say. Our rule is 3 days, and if you test negative, then finish quarantine at home; all at travellers own cost.

The government has continually warned people against travelling, but many 'snowbirds' spend the winter either in southern US or Mexico and have chosen to do so this year as well.

Meanwhile, the U.K. border in the Irish Sea that Johnson promised he would never sign off on ......

I did read an article saying some hotels in UK were ready and waiting but had problems with their insurers who refused cover, so they were re-thinking the situation.

Australia and New Zealand plus Papua New Guinea and other islands tend to be lumped together and called Oceania.

Grant Schapps' grasp of geography is about as good as Dido Harding's grasp of basic biology "we didn't expect the virus to mutate". God help us.

NellG

Australia is a continent. Granted it is also a chunk of land surrounded by water, but geopolitically it is a continent.

Yes, it is by definition a continent.

According to Britannica, an island is a mass of land that is both “entirely surrounded by water” and also “smaller than a continent.” By that definition, Australia can't be an island because it's already a continent

It is far larger than the whole of Europe and has State borders which can be shut. It is 32 times greater than the United Kingdom.

Are the UK borders shut, or not? I am confused. I was thinking I wouldn't be able to come home for Easter because of the 2 week hotel quarantine, but if it isn't on, I could.

I don't mind quarantining at home. But no point if I am locked in a hotel.