British hopes of summer holidays abroad quashed!

[Kilkis]

Crete Tip is reporting that due to the cases found on the flight from Qatar "Flights to and from Qatar will therefore be suspended for the time being."

I think the way the Greek government is controlling people coming in, i.e. testing, quarantining, making use of the EASA list and suspending flights if necessary is pretty reasonable but it isn't infallible, especially when they start to reduce the level of testing to random samples. It is all based on which airport the plane has come from. The Pakistani nationals were from Gujrat and all Pakistan airports are on the EASA high risk list. They had flown via Qatar and all Qatar airports are also on the EASA high risk list. If this happened again the future and they happened to fly via an airport not on the EASA list they might not have been tested.

Warwick

[Guy M]

Greek Tourism Minister on Radio 4 just now, explaining the current situation as already known: from specific airports (ie most of U.K. ones) testing on arrival mandatory, then wait for 24 hours for results - if test is negative, 7 day self quarantine, if test is positive ‘longer than 7 days’ (he didn’t say how much longer). It was ‘an inconvenience in the first few days’ - sounds a bit more than an inconvenience to me.

But, changes still possible - he hopes the epidemiological situation will be better, so by some time in July entry may be easier from the U.K.

All of which is fine and as before, but there are still repeated mess ups in the U.K. - test, track and trace not operating, Alok Sharma, Business Secretary having to self isolate having fallen ill in parliament after taking part in the farcical queueing to vote on Tuesday, yesterday number of deaths in the U.K. was more than the total number of deaths in the whole of the EU etc. i’m not packing my suitcase yet.

[Maud]

As for getting on a plane, ( with a packed suitcase), forget it for now! Just look at those poor people on the Doha flight.

Re your Sharma comment Guy, I am not sure if you watched PM’s Questions on the BBC Parliament programme at lunch time yesterday? When the Speaker announced the short recess, Johnson walked from his seat and stood shoulder to shoulder with another MP. I am surprised no reporter has picked up on it yet! I expected it to come up in the Number 10 Briefing yesterday afternoon.

Words fail me.....almost!

[Kilkis]

If you watch any of the debates in Parliament, Maud, MPs are sitting in seats marked with a green tick and not in seats with a no entry sign. When that debate finishes lots of those MPs get up and new MPs come in and sit on the seats that have just been vacated. For example, I think Alok Sharma was sat at the dispatch box when he was obviously ill. In the next debate another minister would have immediately sat in the same seat. It is a farce. I think it needs a few non-government MPs to catch COVID-19 and sue the government for knowingly and wilfully endangering their safety. Perhaps if some of them catch it and have little or no symptoms they could all go in together, sit in a lot of the no entry seats and announce loudly that it is OK, they can't catch COVID-19 because they already have it.

Warwick

[trebor457]

I am not surprised how poorly the Government are dealing with the pandemic. Over the last 2 days there have been 2 Ministers, interviewed on Sky News, who were asked about people coming to England and quarantining. Both stated that people would of course be allowed to go to shops for food.
Bob

[Kilkis]

Example. 1) Arrive at Gatwick North Terminal. 2) Get the small transit train to the South Terminal, with other passengers. 3) Get a train into central London, with other passengers. 4) Get on a tube to cross London to another main line station, with other passengers. 5) Get on a train to another city, with other passengers. 6) Get on a bus to their destination, with other passengers. Stay indoors overnight. 7) Get a bus into town, with other passengers. 8) Visit several shops to get all their needs, with other shoppers. 9) Get on another bus to where they are staying, with other passengers. Quarantine themselves for 2 weeks, unless they find they need something else, in which case repeat steps 7 to 9. So absolutely no chance of passing the virus onto somebody else then?

Warwick

[trebor457]

Kilkis you missed out that they could join in the demonstrations!
Bob

[Maud]

Yes Warwick, we watch Parliament regularly. - I have seen the green and red symbols on the seats. I have also watched MP’s immediately sitting in places vacated by other members. I mentioned the ‘shoulder to shoulder‘ stance of Johnson, as his daily mantra is to keep 2m distance from other people!

As for Sharma’s illness....
If it is Covid 19, surely the building will need to be shut down for a deep clean.....just as with other buildings that have been infected?! I gather they have already had cleaners in, but how do they know exactly what surfaces Sharma touched? I hope the cleaners have done a good job!!!- It makes an even bigger mockery of yesterday’s ridiculous voting on MP’s returning to Parliament!

I have mentioned it on here before Bob, - that although I do not have time for O’Leary, he objected to the quarantining when it was first discussed. These were based on the same reasons as Warwick’s. - Unlike Greece, where people are put on a bus together and taken to the same hotel, in the U.K. they will probably have travelled on public transport, or at least come in to contact with dozens of other people before reaching their U.K. destination. They are then allowed to go out and shop for food....including for pets.....and go out to seek medical aid. If officials happen to call and check on them and they are not at the nominated location, all they have to say is that they are out food shopping! The whole thing has not been thought through at all. - Just like everything else by this Government!

[chrissyg]

Once again politicians have one rule for them, one for us. Work from home if still possible!! So why are they huddled together in a cabinet meeting ?
And as their own head scientist said in the briefing yesterday the quarantine makes sense if coming in from a bad case country into a good case country. So why now and not months ago and why not even now but in a weeks time? They are on another planet, or wish they were!!

[Kilkis]

Kilkis you missed out that they could join in the demonstrations!
Bob

I think that would break the quarantine rules, Bob, so I can't imagine anyone would do that.

As an update to one of my earlier posts on this thread, the UK passed Spain yesterday on deaths per million population so only Belgium ahead. They do have a good head start but I am sure the plucky UK will do its best to catch them. The USA is coming up very fast on Ireland and the Netherlands and should make it into the top ten in the next couple of days. It's looking like it is going to be a close finish between Belgium, the USA and the UK and my money is on the USA to take the gold and a toss up between Belgium and the UK for silver and bronze. You can't rule out the outsider Brazil so it could be worth a small each way punt on them if you can get good odds but I wouldn't risk a big bet. Nobody is absolutely sure how seasonal COVID-19 is but as we go into summer the southern hemisphere are going into winter so that might allow some of the southern hemisphere countries to get more into the game.

Warwick

[Kamisiana]

You missed out the original key player China

[Kilkis]

China were certainly first out of the gate but fell at the first fence. They have only managed a total death toll of 3 per million population and have been recording very low numbers of new cases per day since early March so they have no possibility of catching the leaders. Certainly in the 100-1 bar category. Even if you argue that you should only count Hubei Province they are not in the top 30 deaths per million population.

Warwick

[Rick]

“Brits heading to Greece this month will have to quarantine upon arrival - unless they are travelling from a select few airports, including Bristol.“

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/tour ... nt-4192126

[Kilkis]

It's definitely one of those good new - bad news articles. First the good news, in the headline, "Tourists travelling to Greece from Bristol won't be quarantined". Now the bad news, further down the article, "There do not currently appear to be any direct flights from Bristol to Athens during June" and "Some flights stop off in airports that are also on the EASA risk list, meaning quarantine might still be necessary." They might have helpfully concluded the article with, "Please ignore the information in the headline"?

Warwick