With what the German politicians are discussing and quite surely will decide today (basically opening up everything for people who are either vaccinated or went through the disease), two things will happen:
1. AZ is completely banned from the German market. As the time between the two shots with AZ in Germany is 12 weeks, you would miss the entire vacation season if you accept AZ. Nobody would do that
2. Covid parties will be the new big thing for German teenagers.
Honestly, as a father of a teenager, I have no f*%&$§ clue how I should explain that to her:
She will be still in lockdown for an indefinite time (there’s not even a vaccine licensed for <18 yet) because she basically complied with all measures so far.
At the same time some of her schoolmates who never cared about masks, contact restrictions, etc. did constant parties and therefore got infected early on. They will now be rewarded for non compliance by a total lift of restrictions.
Is there not a third, more likely, outcome, namely that anyone who values liberty in Germany (and that’s all of the German people I’ve ever known) will read the “lockdown” regulations carefully and find a work-around?
At the same time some of her schoolmates who never cared about masks, contact restrictions, etc. did constant parties and therefore got infected early on. They will now be rewarded for non compliance by a total lift of restrictions.
Nothing is really fair in nature. You survive or you die. Corona is nature, culture and society are not. Besides, what alternative is there? Kids being punished for acting like kids?
More stupid “non divisive” politics here. The “traffic light” system has been announced.
No mention of anything to do with vaccination status. Unbelievable stupidity, but done to prevent public disorder because the younger people aren’t going to be vaccinated until a lot later.
And the pre-departure test (the one you do in the other country, before the return flight) remains! That’s incredibly risky, because if you test positive you obviously can’t fly back home and, depending on where this is, could be locked up in some “supervised quarantine”.
The quarantine here is down to 5 days with 2 tests but the tests are so slow to process that some high % of people are sitting out the full 2 weeks.
Malibuflyer wrote:
They will now be rewarded for non compliance by a total lift of restrictions.
I doubt that. At least here people who have had Corona will only be exempt from quarantine for instance for 3 months, so for many that time period has passed and they are back to square one. They do need one shot of vaccine only though.
However the problem with the kids who can’t be vaccinated will throw a massive spanner into the summer holiday market. I wonder how and if they are going to figure that one out.
Looking at the British traffic light system, we might well get the same story elsewhere: PCR tests will still be necessary to travel, vaccined or not. Which, as Peter rightly says, makes travel a very uncalculable thing: Who would like to be isolated for an undetermined amount of time in a foreging to him country with a potentially dangerous disease? Also, even for people who are vaccined it is not impossible to be tested positive…
I guess the travel industry still faces a very insecure immediate future.
The real problem is the pre departure test, but while everybody here “gets it”, for some reason the “dumbo” media has not picked up on that this will kill the holiday business for anyone but retired people who don’t mind getting stuck in a govt run solitary confinement institution in some far away country and be made to pay some crazy rate for it (~£170 per day in the UK).
Fortunately there are trivial ways to avoid this risk if flying by GA. The feasibility depends on how exactly the law is written. If entering the UK without that test is a £1k or £10k fine, that’s a problem. But if the fine is on the airline, that’s ok. Obviously they will be looking to implement this on all three i.e. airlines, ferries, and the channel tunnel train.
None of this makes any sense.
Once the vulnerable part of the population is sufficiently protected, there is no reason for any restrictions
- restricting LEAVERS makes no sense. Of course, the ‘receiving’ country might have entry restrictions
- restricting RETURNERS and GUESTS makes no sense. The population as a whole is sufficiently protected. With effective lethality well below 0.1%, you could use the same argument for mandatory flu testing and travel restrictions.
The one thing that makes sense is testing and isolating infected people at some point – but that should apply to EVERYONE, not only to the x% of the population that happens to return from that scary place called ‘abroad’, but to the 99% of people that return from ‘the pub’ and ‘work’, where most of the transmissions take place.
If you use the ‘there might be variants’ argument to restrict, you may as well keep everything closed forever.
It doesn’t make sense, but there must be reasons for this line of action.
As with so much in the management of this crisis, the real reasons for something probably can’t be published, so we have to guess.
One thing is the Indian strain, which is a lot more infectious. In India, whole families are routinely catching it, which didn’t happen here previously. OK; there are likely lifestyle differences. And maybe “they know” the vaccine resistance is reduced quite a lot? Almost everybody likely to get seriously ill in the UK has now had both doses
Another reason suggested is that they want to make sure the huge amount of money locked up is going to be spent in the UK and not abroad. Well, every country will be trying that…
The pre-departure testing is a Really Big Thing. Think about it. Imagine say 100k Brits in Greece, and some % testing positive. That’s a lot of Greek hotels which would need to be run by security staff – probably the Greek army. But before that, “somebody” has to organise the tests, because airline passengers will have the return flight firmly booked, can’t usually change it, and will need to be 100% sure they can find some clinic (yeah, on some Greek island!) where they can get the test done. Is Greece going to organise all that?
It would not surprise me if the pre departure test requirement disappears, and is in there now only to prevent people booking holidays.
But still the thicko media has not picked up on this…
OTOH, there are “half statements” from the DfT minister that the NHS App will become a vaccine certificate for foreign travel. This whole area is difficult for the govt, for the reasons above. They are evidently waiting for public opinion to become solidly behind it and then they can ditch the “haves and have nots, therefore nobody should travel out of national solidarity” argument.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
At least here people who have had Corona will only be exempt from quarantine for instance for 3 months, so for many that time period has passed and they are back to square one.
Not in Germany – there is no 3 month limit…
Mooney_Driver wrote:
However the problem with the kids who can’t be vaccinated
Absolutely: The only way for people under 18yrs. to get rid of contact restrictions in Germany is to acquire Covid.
Cobalt wrote:
not only to the x% of the population that happens to return from that scary place called ‘abroad’,
One could argue, though, that going to work or buying groceries is a bit more important than getting drunk in Magaluf …
I think it is all just a smoke screen until they can roll back any travel restrictions. Having returned to the UK via Heathrow about a month ago and waiting at least two hours to get through immigration where it was otherwise a ghost town, I can confidently state that UK airports don’t have the infrastructure to run all all these checks, not unless you’re happy to wait 8 hours or so.
BTW, They had already laid on extra staff to replace the automated passport machines and it still took forever with the red list queue just over two metres away…
