Quarantine

[75A]

If the government were really serious about quarantine, it would be a proper quarantine with no exceptions, or they would test everyone on arrival back in the UK, with a repeat test a week later to confirm that they were all clear.

But that costs money, doesn't it.

If the government were really serious about quarantine they wouldn't let anyone leave or enter the country at all.

 

[island]

The hotel quarantine system is still running after all this time. I wonder how long more it’ll carry on for – particularly given complaints of misbehaviour by security and poor sanitation on a number of the hotels.

 

[Cdd89]

We are increasingly an outlier in terms of international travel restrictions among comparable countries. Almost all other western countries not pursuing Zero Covid have never had any hotel quarantine system for arrivals from any country; the vast majority of destinations have no post-arrival PCR test from Amber-equivalent countries, and quite a few countries no longer require pre-departure testing.

Realistically, with the current levels of travel, it is not likely that anyone arriving indirectly from a Red List county would even be identified if they made a false declaration on their locator form. There simply isn’t the manpower to do so. When £1750 is at stake, as well as a truly horrific experience, I expect many arrivals may be choosing to commit fraud rather than complying.

 

[Watershed]

We are increasingly an outlier in terms of international travel restrictions among comparable countries. Almost all other western countries not pursuing Zero Covid have never had any hotel quarantine system for arrivals from any country; the vast majority of destinations have no post-arrival PCR test from Amber-equivalent countries, and quite a few countries no longer require pre-departure testing.

Realistically, with the current levels of travel, it is not likely that anyone arriving indirectly from a Red List county would even be identified if they made a false declaration on their locator form. There simply isn’t the manpower to do so. When £1750 is at stake, as well as a truly horrific experience, I expect many arrivals may be choosing to commit fraud rather than complying.

And for many, if they can afford the extra time off, it would be cheaper (and quite legitimate) to stay in an amber/green country for 10 days!

I think one of the reasons why quarantine hotels were introduced was that the self-isolation mandate has never required you to self-isolate from non-travelling members of your household, and they were perfectly free to go about their lives normally. And to be honest, if you allow self-isolation at home, it's difficult to see how it could be any other way.

But as always, it comes down to this notion that we can have zero Covid, or keep out new variants.

 

[Bantamzen]

And for many, if they can afford the extra time off, it would be cheaper (and quite legitimate) to stay in an amber/green country for 10 days!

I think one of the reasons why quarantine hotels were introduced was that the self-isolation mandate has never required you to self-isolate from non-travelling members of your household, and they were perfectly free to go about their lives normally. And to be honest, if you allow self-isolation at home, it's difficult to see how it could be any other way.

But as always, it comes down to this notion that we can have zero Covid, or keep out new variants.

I fear that red-countries and quarantines are just a means for governments to keep one one hand on future restrictions. The fear they can still generate about variants coming from abroad still seems to be enough to keep a significant proportion of the population under control & compliant. And as we have seen from the restrictions in coming back from France, they don't even need scary new variants to keep the façade going, older ones too can have a similar impact, even when they are popping up on islands thousands of miles away.

 

[Mag_seven]

I'm sure that there is an element of subliminal post Brexit messaging going on here along the lines of "look how we are now able to control our borders - this would not have been possible if we had still been a member of the EU".

 

[Richard Scott]

I'm sure that there is an element of subliminal post Brexit messaging going on here along the lines of "look how we are now able to control our borders - this would not have been possible if we had still been a member of the EU".

And the only people it's really affecting is the UK residents, some achievement on border control!

 

[Watershed]

I fear that red-countries and quarantines are just a means for governments to keep one one hand on future restrictions. The fear they can still generate about variants coming from abroad still seems to be enough to keep a significant proportion of the population under control & compliant. And as we have seen from the restrictions in coming back from France, they don't even need scary new variants to keep the façade going, older ones too can have a similar impact, even when they are popping up on islands thousands of miles away.

I think that most people have seen through the codswollop about France and the Reunion Beta variant. But unfortunately most people unthinkingly swallow the party line about restrictions being a 'necessary' evil.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 4 Aug 2021 ==


Edit: new post below
Several changes to the classification of countries coming at 4am on Sunday:

Moving from amber to green: Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Slovakia, Latvia, Romania and Norway

Moving from red to amber: India, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE

Moving from amber to red: Georgia, Mexico, La Reunion and Mayotte

Moving from amber-plus to amber: France

Most all as expected, though I'm pleasantly surprised to see some Central European destinations in the green list for the first time in a long while. Still a requirement for a day 2 PCR test though, which really needs to go (even if the rest of this malarky 'has to' stay).

Of course, the government wastes no opportunity to bury bad news, quietly announcing a near ⅓ increase in the cost of the 10 day stay 'at Her Majesty's pleasure' for red-list countries. Going up from £1750 to £2285.

Given that these charges are quite possibly unlawful under the International Health Regulations which the government signed up to (there's an ongoing legal challenge on that front) they really have some cheek doing this. And that's quite aside from the morality of taxing citizens 1 or 2 months' wages to enter their own country.

 

[VauxhallandI]

Amazing that India has gone to amber considering not so long ago we were told everybody was going to die in India...

 

[island]

Hotel quarantine price is going up next week to £2,285 for one adult, £3,715 for a couple.

 

[Mag_seven]

Please use this thread for discussion of Quarantine and other travel related restrictions:

Where will we be able to go Abroad restriction free from May 17th ?

With the rumours about the Traffic Light System to be introduced which Countries are going to "Go Green" straight away for Holidays ? Three early favourites have got to be Gibraltar, Iceland and Portugal all of whom have much lower "per 100,000" figures than the UK at the moment. Could it be...

www.railforums.co.uk