Interesting to see on this IATA website that the UK and Mexico seem to be the only countries with their doors wide open at the moment. It is almost as if we are trying to beat the world in numbers of deaths.

https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/int...1580226297.htm

You do realise 2000 cases per day means one in every 34,000 people in this country is getting the virus. That would be one person in 188 full A320 sized aircraft. Given that the number will inevitably decrease in the next five weeks, I’d imagine countries like Spain and Greece who are heavily reliant on British tourists to keep their economies afloat would take those odds.

The Minister of Tourism for the Canary Islands, Yaiza Castilla, is far from optimistic on the arrival of visitors from July 1 and maintains that the return to normality will be slow and not without complications. Castilla, recalls that despite the positive elements, the outlook is not at all clear and many aspects still need to be clarified. With the data available, the forecast is that the presence of international tourism in summer will be of a residual nature compared to a normal season and the Canary Islands should focus in the short term on local tourism and some peninsular tourism and strive to deliver a start in winter in a “solid and safe way”.

Spain and Greece are reliant on tourists full stop. Not just UK ones. They could reasonably decide to ensure the safety of German etc tourists by eliminating those from higher risk areas such as the UK and Sweden.

The first, even local, outbreak in any Costa will kill the rest of the season

There seems to be a sense of British exceptionalism among some posts. The world no longer revolves around us.

Vokes - the positive test cases reported by the Department of Health do not include the number of people staying at home while coughing away. The question for Spain is whether 2,000 cases per day represents a very small tip or a large chunk of the iceberg. If 2,000 positive tests is accompanied by another 2,000 other cases which weren't identified, then it's still 1 person in 94 A320s - ie an acceptable risk. If the number of unidentified cases is significantly more, then Spain might want to be more cautious.

The other factor is the capacity of hospitals to deal with a local spike in Covid cases. I suspect that the likes of Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia could cope, but somewhere like Lanzarote or Mallorca which have modest year-round populations combined with a seasonal surge of mainly healthy people (people who are ill tend not to fly) who typically need just minor treatment (bumps, bruises, etc) could not, thus a greater need for caution

On a point of context, the numbers of new cases reported daily by each country is a function of the number tested that day. One country reporting, say, 600 new cases out of 50,000 tests would be faring no better than a country reporting 1,200 new cases from 100,000 tests, even though at first glance (all that the media ever seem to take) it might appear so. The trouble is I haven't been able to find daily testing numbers for other European countries in order to judge how badly UK is actually doing by comparison. Does anyone here have access to that information I wonder.

Given that everybody can get a test these days, the gap between the "confirmed" cases and the actual cases should be closing. 2000 confirmed cases today is going to mean significantly fewer actual cases than 2000 confirmed cases in April. In any form, these numbers are coming down and have another four weeks to come down further.



British tourists make up the majority in a lot of resorts in Spain. Without the British, the industry suffers. Call it what you want, it's the truth.

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The trouble is I haven't been able to find daily testing numbers for other European countries in order to judge how badly UK is actually doing by comparison. Does anyone here have access to that information I wonder.

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As of yesterday, the UK has now done more tests than any other country in Europe, and is third in the world behind the USA and Russia. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ is a good source of information, including the all important deaths per million population figure, much to the annoyance of the sensationalist drama queens in this thread that can't see past the raw death figures.

Yes, I know that website and was hoping to use it to obtain the daily numbers for other European countries. The trouble is that the 'Total Tests' for Spain, France and Germany have not been updated for at least two days - they obviously must have carried out a large number of tests since the total numbers currently shown on the website.

Not strictly true. There is a longitudinal study ongoing at the moment where 10,000+ people chosen at random are being tested regularly, whether or not they have symptoms, and as far as I am aware, these tests form part of the UK daily figures. That said, it only forms 10% or so of the total daily testing in UK. These people may, or may not be coughing away, and of course may or may not be asymptomatic.

And the testing of everyone at Weston hospital showed that a large majority of the positive tests came from people without symptoms, but obviously still infectious.
​​​​​​Several posters are assuming that the numbers will continue to fall over the next weeks, and that we can safely plan on that basis. I and others, including the epidemiologists, think that we should wait until we have the situation clearly fully controlled. The chaos if thousands book holidays which then have to be cancelled....

Perhaps we should only allow self catering accommodation?

As the Canary Islands tourism minister said, very limited this summer with a view to a full winter.

Easy for them to say that when Winter is their busiest season. I don’t think you’ll get anybody responsible for tourism in the Balearics saying the same.

And yes the number will go down. And life will go on.

True, but increasing numbers are going to the Costas on winter also. With global warming, I don't know why anyone wants to go to the Med in summer.

Palma de Mallorca city centre in January can very easily be cold, rainy and miserable. Beach would probably be a complete non-starter

The number of deaths in Italy was much higher than could be recorded in real time.
If you read the article below you will find a comparison between the recorded Covid19 deaths and the total number of excess deaths.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...article-link-6

In summary, Belgium has no xs deaths. Many other countries, inc the UK, have quite a lot of xs deaths, but in Italy the real death rate is twice the declared number.

BBC - Coronavirus: How safe is it to get on a plane?

Under the current circumstances who in their right mind would want to go abroad from the UK ? Currently the FCO still advises against it, countries like Greece and Spain have banned us. If you got to your destination you might have to quarantine, social distance etc etc. It would be the most unrelaxing experience and a holiday from hell. Then travel home and spend another couple of weeks in quarantine, all the time wondering have I caught it ? There are so many stories about being safe in an aircraft, people will be paranoid if someone sneezed or coughed in the aircraft. Have heard that some airlines are going to make it mandatory to wear face masks, example five hour flight, no food or drink, permission to use the toilet. It's a nightmare ! But I guess there will be some who will try ?

Not for me, I am waiting it out, my family is far too important to risk them !

If quarantine-on-arrival is dropped by the UK Govt, I'm beginning to think a summer holiday in rural Sweden could be a good option.

''Under the current circumstances who in their right mind would want to go abroad from the UK ?''

I for one would be happy to come back here to Tenerife, where yesterdays figures were 2 new cases and Nil deaths, 14 days quarantine in my apartment and then feel safer than in the uk. Listening to friends that have made the journey to/from uk on that 'dreaded' plane was not as you describe but was quite orderly. but each to their own and I would have no hesitation in making the journey.

Spain has delivered a huge blow to British tourists who have their sights set on a Spanish summer holiday this year.

THE country’s Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism Reyes Maroto has stated that the UK’s Covid-19 statistics must improve before Brits can return to Spain, but welcomed tourists from low-risk coronavirus countries like Germany and the Nordic states. In an interview with Efe yesterday, she pointed out that “holidaymakers from the UK would have to wait to come to Spain until the country’s coronavirus statistics improve,”

Although Maroto has spoken with tour operators like TUI and Jet2holidays, she is adamant that the UK’s health statistics must improve before holidaymakers can come back, pointing out that “the British authorities are also advising against international travel, so tour operators in the UK are at a standstill right now.”
According to Maroto, it’s vital that the “first tourists to Spain are at the same stage of the pandemic as us.” So she plans to welcome holidaymakers from low-risk Covid-19 countries first, particularly if Spain can open its doors to international tourism in mid-June, thanks to the ‘safe travel corridors’ concept. If the safe corridors concept can be agreed, “Spain will prioritise and welcome tourists from countries with low rates of coronavirus, such as Germany and some Nordic nations,” confirmed Maroto.

Spain could potentially start to welcome international tourists from mid-June to areas that are safe and ready for international tourism, like the Baleares and Canary Islands once the safe corridors are approved. Some of the islands in both territories are expected to enter Phase 3 of de-escalation on Monday June 1, which are well ahead of most of the other regions in the country. They include La Gomera, El Hierro, La Graciosa in the Canary Islands and Formentera in the Baleares.

Ericlday, this may be true now, given that we're some weeks behind Spain, and will probably still be the case mid-June, but given that the U.K airlines are realistically looking at a Jul start, we'll probably be in a whole different picture by then.

I think that probably is too strong a word. The current trends do not suggest that numbers will have fallen to a level any sane European government would consider safe.

Looking forward again to arriving at the Cristiano Ronaldo Madeira International Airport, 24July,can't come soon enough,05/23 wonderful.

The last two posters are quite free to make a personal risk assessment on the danger of travelling in a confined space with 180 other people to a place with little or no virus.

The governments of Tenerife and Madeira have to make an assessment of the risk to their communities of receiving planeloads of visitors from the virus hotspot of Europe.

The governments of Tenerife and Madeira will also have to make an assessment of the socioeconomic impact to their communities of having their largest industries, and associated jobs and livelihoods decimated by an overcautious approach to a virus that is largely dying out in Europe.

Change the record, inOban. Spain had more deaths per 1000 population than the UK, and it looks like Tenerife is happy to let people in from the mainland. Maybe listen to facts instead of believing everything you see and hear by "experts" on the news. Hearing somebody say "the UK has more daily cases today than when we went into lockdown" by a so-called expert on Sky News this morning was enough to reach for the remote.

I know that it's getting late, but that statement on Sky need is factually correct isn't it?
It does not matter what the infection rate was 8 weeks ago. It's the current rate that matters. It seems that many Med destinations have decided that, balancing the risk to their tourist economy vs the health of their residents, they can accept visitors from those places which now have consistently low rate of new cases. The UK is not such a place at present and unless things suddenly improve, won't be for longer than we would wish.

You honestly believe more people are being infected now than on March 23rd? :ugh:

As often is the case it's a matter of raw numbers not giving the true picture. On 23 March 6,500 tests were carried out and 1,427 were positive; that's 21%. On 30 May 115,725 tests were 'carried out' but lets reduce that to maybe 90,000 real tests and 2,445 of those tested positive; that's 2.7%. Imagine how many positives would have resulted from 90,000 tests on 23 March - obviously hugely greater than 1,427. That says to me that there were far more new cases on 23 March than there were on 30 May.

A stat I saw suggested at the peak you had a 1 in 40 chance of getting the virus on a given day, whereas now it’s 1 in 1000, that’s the problem with the infections chart as it doesn’t factor in as you say the completely different levels of tests.

Some Italian doctors today seems to think the virus is now severely weakening too so fingers crossed.

Or possibly that the criteria used to authorise a test in March produced a high positive rate, while the current criteria, testing everyone in a hospital, say, produces fewer positives?

We don't know, and it doesn't help to pick those speculations which suit your wishes.

I think that we can now assume that the data from every country in western Europe are accurate and the differences in the ways they are collected are understood. It is quite clear that the UK currently has a higher rate than in our usual destinations.

Yes we do know. At its peak over a thousand people a day were dying in the U.K. These days it’s around 200, as per the official statistics for recording the deaths, many of which would’ve happened weeks ago. Add to that the average time from infection to death (around three weeks). So many of the 200 or so people dying today, which is already over 80% down from it’s peak, would’ve been infected over four weeks ago.

If you really believe more people are being infected today than on the 23rd March, I highly suggest turning off the TV, especially when your doom-monger in chief Nicola Sturgeon is blowing hot air.

I couldn't agree with you more.

I couldn't agree with you more.

I couldn't agree with you more.

There seems to be some confusion here
This discussion started with a post about cases. A case only arises at diagnosis.
I made no comment about the rate of Infection. Infections will not become cases for at least a week, usually much longer.
Another factor which is rarely mentioned is that, I assume, hospitals will surely have got better at treatment so that fewer are dying?

​​​​​​The data seem to most people to show that the rate of spread declined rapidly as soon as we began social distancing, but that this decrease seems to be levelling off at a level which is too high for effective track and trace systems to manage.
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1. There's a fair chance that there were around 80,000 new infections per day at the peak ( around 23 March) and around 8,000 today.
2. 8,000 is a high number ; R of 0.7 to 1.0 is a high number ; track and trace may not be able to cope with that ; track and trace is not ready ; overall it's quite a risky strategy.

an overcautious approach to a virus that is largely dying out in Europe.

No, it's not dying! It has been contained and thus the number of new cases have been reducing. Lift all the restrictions, cancel social distancing, go back to packing them in at theaters, concerts, discos, bars etc., etc, and see what happens!

Quarantine arrangements
 

Apparently during the UK's 14-day quarantine period those entering the UK from abroad will be allowed to go shopping for food and use public transport. So unless every traveller is followed around by a Border Force officer how will this prevent someone visiting the pub or cinema on their way home from Tescos after buying a sandwhich?
Critics round on No 10 over 'ridiculous' rules for 14-day quarantine

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...y_to_clipboard

So it’s not a quarantine then. What a nonsense!

Sigh - you can use public transport to get to you place of residence if there isn't any other way of doing it - similar for getting food. Doubt there will be many pubs, cinemas open?

Absolute nonsense, this is a clear example of policy being formulated on the hoof, with no thought being given to how it might be enforced, or of it's consequences. Government would appear to be looking for ways to back itself out of this corner with a policy that might go a bit like the old joke "when is a quarantine not a quarantine?....when it's brought in by the British government!"

The reality is that there is, as so often here in UK, more than a whiff of "British exceptionalism" in believing that we can control who comes or goes where, and under what restrictions. With the reality of the UK's daily new infections running at much higher level than most of Europe, and much of the Far East and Australisia, the situation is that it is the British who will be banned from entering most countries, and would be visitors to the UK from those countries quarantined on arrival back home. British MPs are going on about having Air Bridges with Australia and NZ...does anyone really think either country would participate with UK given the disparity in levels of Covid-19?