Lundy Island - closed due to foot and mouth

[QDMQDMQDM]

The country has now, officially, gone insane.

Tried to go to Lundy today, but they are not letting any aircraft land due to the Foot and Mouth outbreak.

I cannot believe it.

[airborne_artist]

Utterly, utterly barking mad.

[Newforest]

Or moo-ing or baa-ing mad!

[QDMQDMQDM]

Barmy Britain.

[Shunter]

There goes this month's free landing voucher then..

[Whirlybird]

A pity, but sounds eminently sensible to me. If I owned Lundy I'd do exactly the same.

[QDMQDMQDM]

Eminently sensible?! Paranoid and jobsworthy, more like.

This country has developed a totally distorted perception of risk and I think this is one manifestation of it. I don't see that the Republic of Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands or the continent of Europe has banned light aircraft flights from the UK.

[airborne_artist]

Whoever came up with the idea has either been very badly advised, or has no idea at all about virology. Cars are passing through the surveillance zone and then driving to France, for example. Air passengers are not being disinfected before or after travel even if they live next door to the farms where F&M has been found.

[shortstripper]

It might seem OTT QDM, but why should your pleasure risk their livelyhoods?

Personally I'd prefer to see a complete clamp down for the first couple of weeks, to virtually eliminate risk of spread. That way (as seems to be the present case) it is all over very quickly, rather than dragging on for months like last time. If I owned an island that could easily be bio-controlled, I'd do the same. I'd have certainly gone further than the gov and closed footpaths in the restricted area, and indeed did close our permissive paths here. We've opened them again now, but still ask those walking them to dip there feet in the disinfectant supplied (but you'd be amazed how many do not! :ugh:) Luckily, the way this outbreak is going, it will all be over soon and we can get back to normal.

SS

[QDMQDMQDM]

It might seem OTT QDM, but why should your pleasure risk their livelyhoods?

I don't give a stuff about not going to Lundy for lunch. I just think it is symptomatic of the present state of British paranoia.

[shortstripper]

If your job, and with it your home was on the line (like mine) ... you might be a little paranoid too!

[QDMQDMQDM]

As a rural GP in a highly affected area, I can tell you that in 2001 a lot of farmers did very well indeed out of foot and mouth. The compensation may not be so good this time, but who knows.

Anyway, the likelihood that foot and mouth is going to be spread by light aircraft from a tiny outbreak related to vaccine production is so ridculously, vanishingly small that it is laughable.

[shortstripper]

As a rural GP in a highly affected area, I can tell you that in 2001 a lot of farmers did very well indeed out of foot and mouth. The compensation may not be so good this time, but who knows.

And as a rural GP in a highly affected area, I find that attitude awful! In 2001, a close friend's father topped himself when he lost his entire flock of sheep. How do you compensate my mate for that??? Another lost his herd, having taken over from his father only two years previously. Yes he was compensated, but it certainly didn't cover loss of earnings ect, just the cost of replacement cattle.

I take your point about the very small risk, but given the incubation period of the disease, the complete picture doesn't always become apparent for at least a couple of weeks ... as a doctor, you above most, should appreciate that :hmm: Imagine if me as a dairy farmer, flying from a grazed strip decided that the risk was small so carried on flying into and out of other farm strips (or to Lundy), then two weeks later my herd did indeed go down with the disease. Imagine how much damage I could have done spreading it about! Yes the risk is tiny ... but it IS there. Ok, it does look like we're in the clear, but that is not the point as nobody has officially so so just yet!

SS

[QDMQDMQDM]

And as a rural GP in a highly affected area, I find that attitude awful!

You might, but it's true. I am sorry about your mate's dad, but the big problem around here was for people whose herds weren't slaughtered and who had to live with movement restrictions. If your herd was taken, financially you were OK and some did extremely well. There was talk here of people infecting their own farms on purpose and I wouldn't be surprised if some did.

Yes the risk is tiny ... but it IS there.

Precisely. The risk is tiny. Closing Lundy to light aircraft to prevent foot and mouth in the current situation is absurd and out of perspective. It is the kind of thinking increasingly prevalent in Britain which views any risk of anything as unacceptable and displays a complete inability to keep things in perspective.

For want of anyone better, I blame the Daily Mail.

[shortstripper]

I think we'll have to agree to disagree over this one.

Whilst I agree about the general British symptom of over reaction to risk, and the increasing nanny state culture, I think your view on Foot and Mouth is rather cynical and does make me wonder why you are so bitter? Yes, there are always those who abuse compensation scheme's, but most farmers certainly DO NOT want their herds slaughtered out for what amounts to a fraction of what they will loose. The only ones who would IMHO, are those already considering leaving and have no desire to restart their farming enterprise. The compensation for F&M culls was based on a percentage of herd value, and certainly didn't pay out for the lost earnings in the months that re-stocking wasn't allowed. Why (other than those getting out) would anybody prefer to get maybe 85-95% of the value of what they already have and loose earnings in the meantime??? I also fully understand movement restrictions and the problems they cause, I am after-all a dairy farm manager and as I grew up on Dartmoor, I know your area and its farmers too.

What I can't understand is why anybody would be so worried about a couple of weeks of hardship in order to prevent months of suffering and financial loss to UK farmers? Over reaction maybe ... but probably a more sensible over reaction than most, and very likely short lived.

SS

[QDMQDMQDM]

As I have said, I don't care about not going to Lundy for lunch for a few weeks, but am just irritated at yet more British over-reaction. I think the country is becoming rather pathetic and laughable in its over-reaction to nearly everything and inability to live with any degree of risk and uncertainty.

I'm not bitter in any way about foot and mouth 2001. Why on Earth would I be? I am simply calling it as I saw it as a peripheral witness. You may not like it, but that's how I saw it.

[shortstripper]

Fair enough.

[eyeinthesky]

QDM x 3:

I'm with you. Just cast your mind back to the floods in Gloucestershire the other week. They were described as : a humanitarian disaster!!

Several thousand people were without running water for a few days. That's hardly a humanitarian disaster. Ask the average displaced family from Darfur what one of those is!

I hear also that trees which breathe life into larger cities are being cut down in their swathes because of fear of claims from people tripping over raised flagstones caused by their roots or branches dropping on their cars..:confused: