Coronavirus (2021) thread

[feedthegoat27]

Matt Hancock said so explicitly in January, and again on Feb 11th that it was too early to book holidays and that people should be patient. Subsequently, rather than being more bullish, the opposite is true and he's suggested as recently as yesterday that we don't know whether families will be able to travel abroad "from July".

Furthermore, on Monday shares in IAG and RR fell after the government (Helen Whately, social care minister) said "My advice would be to anybody right now is just to hold off on booking international travel."

Earlier this week, Boris Johnson: "All I can say is it’s just too early to say and my advice is to everybody to wait for the global travel task force to report."

Ah right, I'm assuming you meant advice as in a formal standpoint, not just the opinions of a few in power.

The roadmap, set out by the Government, states a return of international travel no earlier than May 17th.
I think that is the correct advice to soak up, and not the off the cuff comments of individuals like Johnson and Hancock.
The roadmap is the Government advice.
The opinions of Hancock/Johnson is the opinions of Hancock/Johnson.

For clarity, I don't think it will return in much or any capacity by May 17th, but it is absolutely not going against anything or breaking laws to take a punt for then.

Probably wiser to await the findings from the travel task force first though.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Brits go from extreme confidence to extremely tetchy in short spaces of time, don’t they?

I don’t know about France or Germany but in Spain each autonomous region has the autonomy and power to administer the vaccine rollout as they wish. So tell me exactly why regions like Galicia and Andalusia, two places that will be absolutely desperate for a full tourist season this year, paused the rollout of the AZ vaccine? What have they got to gain from politicizing a vaccine?

Eventually other regions and then the whole country also suspended it. The tipping point was the death of a 43yo old woman in Andalusia who died shortly after having the vaccine.

This is all being so over hyped. Some European countries wanted to do some more testing after some abnormal results. They suspended the use of it and are now satisfied and back in full flow. A few days in the grand scheme of things isn’t the end of the world, time will be caught up and Spain still intends to vaccinate 70% of the population by the summer.

And in terms of this damaging the reputation of the vaccine, well those skeptics that aren’t just conspiracy nuts will be grateful for the extra testing, surely?!

They were over-cautious IMO. There had been millions of AZ doses already administered at the point of suspension and only a handful of blood clots. Even if there proved to be a direct causal effect, logically it made no sense to pause, since the numbers of people vaccinated during that period would consequentially produce an even more tiny number of clots. But look at the infection numbers in Europe, the impact of not vaccinating could be very high. Not to mention the question mark this put in many peoples' minds about "is it safe". It was just silly IMO.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Ah right, I'm assuming you meant advice as in a formal standpoint, not just the opinions of a few in power.

The roadmap, set out by the Government, states a return of international travel no earlier than May 17th.
I think that is the correct advice to soak up, and not the off the cuff comments of individuals like Johnson and Hancock.
The roadmap is the Government advice.
The opinions of Hancock/Johnson is the opinions of Hancock/Johnson.

For clarity, I don't think it will return in much or any capacity by May 17th, but it is absolutely not going against anything or breaking laws to take a punt for then.

Probably wiser to await the findings from the travel task force first though.

What a waste of time these discussions are.

I made the comment that it was stupid of Simon Calder to be saying "Off you go and book your holidays". And after long posts, you conclude:

"Probably wiser to await the findings etc".

Well yes, I agree.

(And BTW, no-one mentioned the law. Well I didn't - that was you. I said it was not advised.)

 

[jay_mcfc]

They were over-cautious IMO. There had been millions of AZ doses already administered at the point of suspension and only a handful of blood clots. Even if there proved to be a direct causal effect, logically it made no sense to pause, since the numbers of people vaccinated during that period would consequentially produce an even more tiny number of clots. But look at the infection numbers in Europe, the impact of not vaccinating could be very high. Not to mention the question mark this put in many peoples' minds about "is it safe". It was just silly IMO.

I don’t disagree in general. I just don’t see what regions in Spain that are as desperate as anyone to get back to normal this summer would pause the rollout without doing it in the best of intentions. I’m pretty sure they couldn’t give a fuck about where the vaccine was invented.

 

[unicorn]

Hospital data is OK news. Numbers have fallen in England again in both patients and ventilators - though the NW fall is still on the slow side it did go down in both today also by 26 and 2 respectively.

Just failed to go sub 4000 in England - down 240 in day to 4005 patients. Ventilators fell by 34 to 613.

Full breakdown by regions and UK later as usual.

Good steady progress on hospitalisation makes the stalling of cases much less relevant to our assessment of the impact of schools reopening, I hope.

 

[Bluemoon dan]

Where is the government advice saying not to book holidays?

It is currently illegal to travel abroad for leisure reasons, it is absolutely NOT illegal to book a foreign holiday.
Just like it isn't illegal to book a gig ticket even though those types of events aren't permitted yet and are also subject to the unknown.

Had he been telling people to go to the airport and jump on a flight then yes that would be wholly irresponsible, but he wasn't.

I saw the clip (Calder really divides the industry)....he was probably being a bit OTT on his confidence of things being ok but the sentiment of his message was correct; if you book a package holiday through a reputable agency/tour operator then there are, ultimately, 2 eventualities.....it goes ahead and you have your holiday, or it gets cancelled by the operator and you can claim a full refund.

His comment about a refund within 14 days was unnecessary....technically yes as that's what the law states if you are cancelled by the operator, but in reality it can be longer than that as you've experienced yourself. Things are a bit better on that front this year, and the main players like Jet2/TUI are relatively quick with the refunds. Some are still slow though.

I must point out though that he didn't say the customer can cancel and get a refund, it would have to be cancelled by the operator for a refund entitlement.

International leisure travel will restart at some point, be that in May, July, October or 2022.
Many people are looking forward to its resumption when permitted by the Government.
Just like people are looking forward to having a pint down their local, or going to watch a film at the cinema when things like that are again permitted by the Government.

If people want to take a punt on a responsibly booked package holiday, gig, event, whatever this summer then good for them and crack on.

Pretty much this. It's a punt but it's not an unreasonable one. Solely because if they do say on May 17th or whenever it is that they are allowing foreign travel again, the prices for holidays will rocket. Take the chance now whilst it's a bit cheaper.

 

[Rammy Blue]

I don’t disagree in general. I just don’t see what regions in Spain that are as desperate as anyone to get back to normal this summer would pause the rollout without doing it in the best of intentions. I’m pretty sure they couldn’t give a fuck about where the vaccine was invented.

Surely that was just the domino effect though? Germans and French stopped, so we will just follow until we hear otherwise as it seemed the logical step.

 

[feedthegoat27]

What a waste of time these discussions are.

I made the comment that it was stupid of Simon Calder to be saying "Off you go and book your holidays". And after long posts, you conclude:

"Probably wiser to await the findings etc".

Well yes, I agree.

(And BTW, no-one mentioned the law. Well I didn't - that was you. I said it was not advised.)

If you're thinking of booking as early as May then yes I'd say wait for this task force review but equally I wouldn't put anyone off a punt as long as its booked correctly. Lets be honest, if you're booking for May then its in hope not expectation.

If you're thinking further into summer then fill your boots, as Calder was saying.

Book responsibly and the risk is minimal.

You're saying Calder was irresponsible and going against Government advice; the first bit is subjective (I don't think he was but could see why some might think that) but the 2nd part absolutely wasn't true.

 

[M18CTID]

Vaccine passports really are a bit of a joke. What’s the point other than to fuel conspiracy theorists when it doesn’t stop you getting and passing it on.

Stops you getting seriously ill and clogging up the health service in another country though

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

I am sure that's why they have not been even more explicit. I am sure they wanted to say "Fuck No", but realise just how damaging that would be to said industry.

But the advice they are getting from Sage is that international travel this summer is looking extremely unlikely.

Their handling of this issue and the treatment of those working in this sector has been appalling.