Quarantine

[narly101]

I would also argue that the're putting this in just as the UK begins to consider leaving the UK for a summer holiday. I wonder what legislation they're going to put in for the 14 day quarantine you have to remain at home after returning, and can't return to work. Who pays that?

 

[The Wizard]

I would also argue that the're putting this in just as the UK begins to consider leaving the UK for a summer holiday. I wonder what legislation they're going to put in for the 14 day quarantine you have to remain at home after returning, and can't return to work. Who pays that?

Yourself I would assume as it would be your personal choice to go, knowing you have the quarantine for 2 weeks when you come back. Given we have such massive unused testing capacity there must be some way we can get people to be swabbed when they come through the airport - for example, returning travellers, a swab is taken and they give an address where they will stay until a result is returned, this could be at a cost to subsidise it for the authorities. This is basically the same as the quarantine rule but using some of our testing capacity.

Otherwise realistically, how the hell will air travel ever get back up and running without the virus being eradicated, it will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.K. if international tourism giants go under.

 

[nicko31]

I would also argue that the're putting this in just as the UK begins to consider leaving the UK for a summer holiday. I wonder what legislation they're going to put in for the 14 day quarantine you have to remain at home after returning, and can't return to work. Who pays that?

I guess if you can't return to work and need to take a further 2 weeks off that's a personal choice. If you work from home and are content with staying in for 2 weeks and dont have kids returning to school its OK

 

[Bozza]

Please note, once again, I am neither arguing for nor against the 14-day isolation measures, however...

Would it?

Yes, it would. Any tactic that means those of an undetermined infected state do not socially interact with anyone else would help restrict virus spread.

Social interaction increases virus spread - it's as simple as that.

(Again, for the hard of hearing, I'm not stating that is what we should do however.)

We've got more cases per person than almost every other country. I'm much more likely to get it by interacting with another British person than I am with someone who has come in from another country.

Yep.

Other countries should be quarantining us.

Maybe they should. Maybe they shouldn't. It's not really what we are talking about here though.

This government just falls back on xenophobia and British exceptionalism when it hasn't got a clue, (which is all the time).

OK.

 

[Bozza]

Yourself I would assume as it would be your personal choice to go, knowing you have the quarantine for 2 weeks when you come back. Given we have such massive unused testing capacity there must be some way we can get people to be swabbed when they come through the airport - for example, returning travellers, a swab is taken and they give an address where they will stay until a result is returned, this could be at a cost to subsidise it for the authorities. This is basically the same as the quarantine rule but using some of our testing capacity.

Otherwise realistically, how the hell will air travel ever get back up and running without the virus being eradicated, it will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs in the U.K. if international tourism giants go under.

The problem is those who are in the early stages of infection but return negative results, as well as the up to 20% of false negative tests that are being reported in the media today. There may well be some overlap in these two scenarios.

But, yes, testing people upon arrival, with confidence, and allowing those who don't test positive to immediately re-enter the community is clearly preferable for all.

 

[Marty___Mcfly]

The scientific argument for quarantine NOW rather than EARLIER Gov is putting forward is that when you have large numbers of domestic cases, the amount arriving from abroad is a low percentage of the overall problem. Once domestic numbers have gone down, and travel to the UK potentially increases, those cases from abroad could represent a bigger percentage of the overall problem, so this warrants restrictions being pout in place. This does seem a bit tenuous to me, and does have major financial implications for the travel industry so overall I'm personally not sure its worth doing. But that is their rationale and they're sticking to it.

Looking on the bright side-


At the moment, all the UK hotels, visitor attractions, restaurants, pubs etc are closed so bringing in a quarantine, at this point, has little impact in incoming tourists, who are not going to come here in that circumstance anyway.

Also, many European countries are yet to fully open up and some still have their own quarantine in place so large numbers of UK residents travelling to those countries also unlikely at this stage.

EU countries are talking about opening up most travel from 15 June potentially.

So by the end of June / start of July this quarantine will actually start to have a greater economic impact impact, if by then in UK we have opened up hotels, visitor attractions, restaurants, pubs etc, and other EU countries are fully open and welcoming travellers.

The quarantine is reviewed after 3 weeks, i.e. 29 June. I predict at that point Gov may look to reach a reciprocal agreement to exempt all countries with a lower Covid risk than ours, so that could be the entire EU in effect. Then will will get travel and holidays back up and running.

So at the moment the main impact is that it is just putting people off booking summer flights / travel, and some people may just give up on such plans entirely which will impact on the travel industry. It may be that people will feel more confident booking domestic holiday.

Basically- not much going on holiday wise right now so the quarantine isn't actually blocking to much. By the end of June there may be more travel options open and at that point I predict the quarantine will be watered down significantly but measures will remain for anyone arriving from countries with a higher infection rate than ours, or from ones which we just cannot reach a reciprocal agreement with.

 

[Bozza]

The scientific argument for quarantine NOW rather than EARLIER Gov is putting forward is that when you have large numbers of domestic cases, the amount arriving from abroad is a low percentage of the overall problem. Once domestic numbers have gone down, and travel to the UK potentially increases, those cases from abroad could represent a bigger percentage of the overall problem, so this warrants restrictions being pout in place. This does seem a bit tenuous to me, and does have major financial implications for the travel industry so overall I'm personally not sure its worth doing. But that is their rationale and they're sticking to it.

There is little chance of the government suddenly announcing "Yeah, we ****ed up, we should have closed our borders or imposed traveller quarantines back in February and March".

Sir David King's view seemed to be...

Should they have done it earlier? Yes.
Because they didn't do it earlier, does that mean doing it now is wrong? No.

Whilst discussing what should have been done weeks or months ago has merit in many ways, I don't think it's a case of "Because you didn't do it before, there's no point in doing it now."

 

[beorhthelm]

The problem is those who are in the early stages of infection but return negative results, as well as the up to 20% of false negative tests that are being reported in the media today. There may well be some overlap in these two scenarios.

source report that says false negative rates of between 2% and 29%, and:

The lack of a clear-cut “gold-standard” is a challenge forevaluating covid-19 tests; pragmatically, clinical adjudication may be the best available “gold standard,” based on repeat swabs

in others words not much can be done about this, except repeat tests, and this is a problem with swab tests in general. werent people complaing about multiple tests per person last week?

 

[Marty___Mcfly]

There is little chance of the government suddenly announcing "Yeah, we ****ed up, we should have closed our borders or imposed traveller quarantines back in February and March".

Sir David King's view seemed to be...

Should they have done it earlier? Yes.
Because they didn't do it earlier, does that mean doing it now is wrong? No.

Whilst discussing what should have been done weeks or months ago has merit in many ways, I don't think it's a case of "Because you didn't do it before, there's no point in doing it now."

Agree with that. But I'm just not sure travel without the quarantine would be a significant factor for case numbers, particularly from the EU where everyone(?) has lower numbers than us.

And- the quarantines which seem more effective actually put people up in hotels like Maty Ryan had to do in Australia, then you know the people aren't going anywhere and can test, re-test if needed etc. Our strategy of advising people to stay at an address then letting them go may not be too effective. I appreciate you have said that most people will want to comply. I agree that a UK resident returning to the UK may be likely to comply, if they have chosen to come back during quarantine (but to be honest if it was me I would either come back before Monday or wait until the quarantine was lifted if I had the choice). Others coming over e.g. for business or leisure may be more reluctant to. Time will tell I guess.

 

[Steve in Japan]

Thinking out loud.......for those who see benefit in quarantine, why not go the whole hog and close borders for a month? If you are risk averse, as many appear to be, that would be lot more robust at preventing the spread of the virus. Lets do an Australia or New Zealand, stick our heads up our arse and really **** up the economy.

I know it doesn't make any sense but then neither does this half-arsed quarantine measure.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

The public are getting confused and increasingly fustrated.

Meanwhile, Ryanair are emailing their database sayng Italy is OPEN, Portugal is OPEN and saying the quarantine idea is utter shite

Home office advice, "no non-essential international travel"

Very interesting to see how many people take the skies this summer

If I was to guess, I would guess that the FCO advice will change shortly.

There is no point bringing in a Quazza and keeping the FCO advice the same.

Its interesting that there was a meeting today between the Gov and Travel companies and Ryan air/Virgin/Easy jet etc are continuing the plans for July.

 

[LamieRobertson]

Still hoping for a short break in Dorset or Devon late November..happy to take two weeks quarantine after

 

[Steve in Japan]

http://www.moj.go.jp/EN/nyuukokukanri/kouhou/m_nyuukokukanri01_00003.html

Just fyi.

With non-Japanese from > 100 countries banned from entering, it would be quicker to list the few who are allowed in.

Thats what I call a closed border. And this has also applied to long-term residents of Japan. They did this on April 3rd.

 

[Billy the Fish]

Quarantine, eh?

View attachment 124453

Exactly what I thought of.

New travel policy: you can enter if you flew on a magic carpet to meet the king of the potato people! That and 10 minutes without oxygen.

 

[Napper]

will put of a lot but will be loads take the risk of the fine

 

[nicko31]

If I was to guess, I would guess that the FCO advice will change shortly.

There is no point bringing in a Quazza and keeping the FCO advice the same.

Its interesting that there was a meeting today between the Gov and Travel companies and Ryan air/Virgin/Easy jet etc are continuing the plans for July.

I notice Virgin have announced today they will start flying from Heathrow to the US again from late July...

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

I notice Virgin have announced today they will start flying from Heathrow to the US again from late July...

Yeah, have they been told something?

Seems odd after aug announcement?

Have we done this to appease trump?

 

[Marty___Mcfly]

Yeah, have they been told something?

Seems odd after aug announcement?

Have we done this to appease trump?

I think Airlines in general are expecting restrictions to be eased and things up and running by July. Not sure if this is based on discussions with Gov or simply because the projections suggest infection rates will be much lower by then across Europe / USA

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

I think Airlines in general are expecting restrictions to be eased and things up and running by July. Not sure if this is based on discussions with Gov or simply because the projections suggest infection rates will be much lower by then across Europe / USA

Also, I think it’s to shift some of the heavy lifting to insurance companies

 

[Steve in Japan]

I watched Shapps tonight practise his response to queries on the quarantine. Feigns impatience...."look, we owe it to all those who have died not to give away our hard-won progress. It's a national emergency". Or words to that effect. Patel did the same yesterday.

I am happy to be corrected, but you could search for any other country in Europe (probably the world), implementing a blanket quarantine at this stage. "Following the science", my arse.