They’ve had over a year to think and implement this along with a host of other things but in my mind this is yet another example of this governments attitude of let everyone else sort stuff, small government in the extreme mentality. They literally couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag if they had to.
With regard to the logistics of it, I see no massive barriers. You know the numbers coming in, and if necessary you simply say no to people before they even board the plane. That number is driven by hotel capacity. Then it’s a case of contracts with hotels and security and testing.
The reaction when the government first considered self-quarantining back in May last year is quite illuminating. Branded as “isolationist”! It lasted for barely 33 days before being reintroduced much later in the year.
But I really do feel that the logistical challenges are being underestimated by you and some others in here. I think it’s the right thing to do but it’s important also to do it right.
I honestly don’t believe it is difficult. It just needs the will to do it, cash and resources.
And given that the UK has smashed through 100k deaths I honestly find the opinion of those business groups pathetic. They should also be reminded that such half arsed measures have probably damaged their business more than actively managing the pandemic. There’s more than enough evidence to illustrate that fact.
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No, this is about hoping that the target of July for vaccinating with one dose the whole adult population (and two doses for those over 65) might be met earlier, in May.
I think the target date for lifting lockdown is still around April, isn’t it?
I hadn’t thought a date had been set but the implication was initially for re-opening in February. Then the message went out about schools returning 8 March. I read it was being reviewed this month, and so thought a loosening in March being possible. I’ve since seen people suggest it may go on until April (possibly just to cover Easter?) but at least one of those Newspapers in that article is putting out the date of the lockdown possibly ending in May.
Australia international arrivals 2019 vs 2020 (all airports): 1,779,243 /mnth reduced to 20,250 /mnth (bitre)
UK international arrivals 2019 vs 2020 (all airports): 9,497,560 /mnth reduced to 1,330,314 /mnth (gov.uk)
Australia’s international arrivals in 2020 was 1.1% of arrivals in 2019. UK had 14% of the arrivals in 2020 compared to 2019. Shockingly, the 3 months from April saw UK cut arrivals to 0.14% of 2019 arrivals (yes you read that right) so there was a foundation to actually control things from that point, but then practically opened up the borders as normal to international travel and the arrivals were only reduced by 50% from the previous year’s level through those summer months. Granted they didn’t have the infrastructure to perform test and trace which is an obligatory requirement for an extermination approach to the virus, but borders could have been controlled.
If they had taken a similar approach to Aus with a similar percentage of arrival reductions, they would be looking at needing to accommodate 94,000 people each month across UK airports compared to what Australia faced which was 20,000. But importantly keep in mind that Tullamarine in Melbourne was closed for 4 months of the pandemic and practically all flights were going into Kingsford-Smith. So its not at all impractical for the UK to have done the same across its international airports with a similar % reduction in flights.
I have heard some in here say how damaging it would have been to close airports. Is this in an economic sense only, or damaging in other ways? If damaging only economically, try to sell that to the families of the 110,000. The willpower wasn’t there, they thought they knew better than the scientists and fucked things up completely.
Beyond that, I am super interested to see the financial cost comparison between countries that closed their borders and relied somewhat on the domestic economy (while getting to live almost a normal life!) vs the countries that said the economic damage for closing borders was too great and yet killed people and still were destroyed economically. UK can’t really be used as a comparison due to the hit from Brexit but will be interested in how countries like Germany, France, USA have faired with their comparatively open border restrictions at airports.
You’ve got the decimal point in the wrong place, UK arrivals dropped to 1.5% of those in the same period the year before (446,600 in the 3 months April, May, June 2020 compared with 29,645,700 in the same three months in 2019).
It is notable that this drop was mainly attributable to human behaviour rather than any restrictions. Governments around the world were urging people to avoid non-essential travel. Arrivals had already dropped significantly even before the UK went into its first lockdown and nearly three months before the UK even began introducing health measures at the border (6 June, crazily late).
At that point, of course, we were then out of the first wave and the government began reopening ‘travel corridors’. This is where the government failed for a second (third, fourth, fifth…) time. It should have taken the time then before the second wave hit (which everyone predicted) to introduce proper measures at the border and set up infrastructure to deal with segregating travellers, checking for the virus, etc but it missed that opportunity.
With regards to the trade-off - I mean quarantining is potentially damaging because it is so relatively extreme. It is damaging to mental health, damaging to family life, damaging to the economy and I’m not sure how much more it reduces the risk of community transmission than would not already be achieved by enforcing negative PCR certificates within 48 hours of travel, temperature and lateral-flow tests on arrival, proper/functioning track and trace, self-isolation upon arrival for 10-14 days which can only be shortened by a second negative PCR test in the UK.
By all means, if people has shown a willingness to take on personal responsibility for social good, then government hands off approach for quarantine, opting for self isolation would be good. However, while I believe not the majority, there are enough people who has shown otherwise and if the government does not show the iron will to impose hard laws, then we have what we have.
Also a test 2 days before or after arrival is not good enough as back then, data has shown that the virus might show up to 14 days after initial transmission? So even if I am shown to be free from infection now, I can still show infection 2 weeks later, isn’t that right? I might be wrong as even a test is not 100% accurate. As for a quarantine mentally damaging, I can only say, if a sacrifice of staying alone 14 days in a hotel room so that you can freely interact with your loved ones is not seen as an incentive, then again how do the government expect things to be controlled and that contact tracing or ringing in clusters be easy? And how can the citizens blame the government?
Would enforced quarantine in hotels not lead to a reduction in the numbers of people entering the country and as a result make the whole thing easier.
We have found that half the passengers coming through the airports are those returning from holidays, I would imagine there is a similar percentage in the UK. Stop the idiots going on holiday and the job of quarantening is made easier still.
Yes, quite likely it would reduce the numbers of people travelling to the UK (or leaving and returning) - but my main issue is that it is a disproportionate response in all but the most serious of cases. Is there any data as to how much more effective enforced quarantining upon arrival is at reducing the R number compared with PCR test certificate required to travel, temperature and lateral flow test on arrival, self-isolation for 10-14 days, effective track and trace, further PCR test upon arrival in the UK? I would have thought that those measures would identify the vast majority (if not all) of those who may be contagious so how many more potential carriers are we identifying (or nullifying) by going to enforced quarantine in hotels?
That’s really where I’m coming from on this. I feel it’s extreme, logistically challenging, and disproportionately damaging to mental health, family life, economy if the impact on further lowering community transmission is negligible.
And yet evidence of Australia, New Zealand and the others completely debunk that idea. In those countries life goes on as normal, pretty much with far less restrictions and only lockdowns when cases are found.
It’s basically, control the virus and enjoy greater freedoms within the country or do as little as possible but enjoy your lockdowns.