People arriving in the UK from Austria will also need to quarantine

All the new country entrants in total have far less cases than the 1132 UK cases reported today.
i appreciate its in relation to population but I do think we have to have a reality check here. In the U.K. its 1 case per 670 people so 20 times that it’s 1340. My community has about 350 population so .5 a person is the trigger. Do you really think that such a small chance meeting is truly a pandemic, we all take extreme measures to avoid such a random meeting. Society has to get a grip here before we all disappear into a giant black hole

3rd holiday attempt after Tenerife and France became no go's.

Arrived yesteday :ugh: and nope I will not be rushing to the airport or anywhere else only a bar for a cold one.

Boss did have a talk before I went, "Make sure to bring laptop home, will see you in about a month and enjoy the holiday" this was in front of HR, then added privately, "Staying there another 2 weeks and self isolating were it possible would be something I would do as well :) ". Sadly not able to do that but as area we working in is probably going to go into lockdown then we judge heading to Morrison's for lunch more of a risk that Croatia.

Racedo - which country are you visiting ?

Sorry DJ assummed it was obvious but maybe not................. Croatia and weather is hot hot hot :)

Just what we need:

The R number - the rate of reproduction - of coronavirus in the UK has risen to between 0.9-1.1, according to the Government Office for Science and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage). The figures suggest there is a risk that the overall coronavirus epidemic in the UK is growing, government scientists say. (BBC News)

Issue is that in April testing was bad and those going into hospital were ill and dying. Now 250,000 tests a day and 1,000 infected with few going into hospital and few dying. Most getting it now are younger and not requiring hospital.

Which makes you wonder how many people have had it and not known, when they were only testing people with clear symptoms.

STA Travel have collapsed. Pretty surprised no other major agents to date have folded. On reading the news story about it I also found Qantas are not returning to trans-continental until Q3 2021.

Planner - I think you mean *intercontinental*, not *transcontinental*

The "interesting" thing about the number of new cases rising is that it does not seem to be matched by an increase in new hospital admissions for covid-19, as if those being infected now are asymptomatic. So where does that leave us? WHO now saying that we should be able to eliminate the virus within 2 years - 2 years from now,or 2 years from the first case being reported/detected? Wouldn't it be easier to get the entire world to agree on total lockdown for 2 to 3 weeks immediately, and if that doesn't kill it off then nothing will..... either that, or we all carry on as if things were normal on the basis that most likely, those who will be affected by it have already been infected

I make it around a 4% hospitalisation rate from positive cases at the moment. Is that about right? Is that a lot lower than at the peak?

So yesterday we had the WHO saying that COVID-19 should be eradicated within two years and this morning we have Sir Mark Walport, a member of SAGE, saying that "the virus is going to be with us forever in some form or another and almost certainly will require repeated vaccinations." It's bad enough that the Government seems to send out mixed messages but if the scientific community offers two totally contrasting scenarios of the future within 24 hours, it's no wonder poor old Joe Public is confused.

Spot on Expressflight! I guess the truth is that nobody knows any more than you or I.

Both are correct. The virus will almost certainly not be eradicated, there are very few viral diseases that have been truly eradicated, but to the extent that it may be weakened as a result of mutations, or that herd immunity makes transmission les easy for it (the virus), or indeed one or more of the vaccines may be efficacious and again reduce infections to manageable levels; or indeed all three. Vaccination won't be the answer if enough anti-vaxers refuse to have the vaccination, and there are enough dimwits and conspiracy theorists posting garbage about immunisations on the interweb to make that a very likely scenario.

The problem with Joe Public is that not everyone has the intelligence to listen to and observes rules (or is it guidance, or perhaps advice - in UK, who knows?) and some are just too darn right selfish to bother complying because it gets in the way of what they want to do at any particular time.

The two statements are not contradictory. As a result of modern technology, mainly vaccines, the pandemic will be over sometime next year. However the virus will remain and will gradually mutate, and it's likely that any vaccine will not give immunity for a long time , so periodic revaccination will be needed. I assume I will get it along with my annual flu jab.

Lets remind ourselves that the idiot who projected 500,000 dead was responsible for slaughtering was it 2 or 10 million animals at the height of Foot and Mouth based on his predictions and couldn't keep his **** in his trousers while lecturing everybody is still around.

Govt ministers and civil servants including PM caught it by ignoring rules, Govt rules pushed nursing homes into accepting people tested positive with Covid-19, with said nursing homes not having PPE.

The list of sheer incompetence goes on including destroying the economy.

But Joe Public is responsible rather than a clueless inept Govt who refused to act again and again when its members breached every guideline. Nobody trust BOJO or his Govt because they have been wrong so often and why bother following Govt edicts when Govt refuses to.

But it was Joe Public who elected them. Not even s Corbyn-led coalition could have been so useless.

Yes indeed, Corbyn and Dianne Abbot and co would have done a great job steering the country so it avoided Covid. There would have been no care home deaths, no recession, no shortage of PPE. These problems would just have been issues in the rest of the world but not here.

You will find that many countries had and still do have major problems with nursing homes. It was not just an English problem like you are implying. Closer to home Scotland had major problems.

I would be interested to know what you would have done to save the economy seeing the whole world has a wrecked economy?

As you say Joe Public is indeed the cause of the pandemic. This government was slow to react but there would have been no appetite for a New Zealand approach which contained the virus by shutting itself off from the rest of the world.

No holidays would be allowed in Croatia if you lived in New Zealand, not even for recedo.

LTNman

Well said.

How anyone can say that a different Government would definitely have done a better job is surprising to say the least. Look around the World and you will find that most governments have made many mistakes along the way in trying to grapple with this appalling pandemic, for which no one was prepared. One huge advantage that New Zealand had was its relative isolation while Britain is one of the World's largest international travel hubs which put us at an immediate disadvantage at the start of all this.

A contagious outbreak of 20/20 hindsight seems to be a side-effect of this pandemic

Whether we think another Government would have saved us X number of deaths or done Y better or faster is quite immaterial, I’d prefer for those on here supporting or defending the Government explaining to me how ‘awarding’ millions and millions of £ worth of untendered contracts to friends and acquaintances is appropriate behaviour? Especially as a number of said contracts relate to PPE, track and trace etc which have been unfit to use or which have failed, and for which the recipients of such awards have no or little experience in the relevant fields.

Estonia puts the UK back on to the naughty list from tomorrow, with quarantine required for those arriving from the UK. Latvia and Lithuania did the same thing over the last week

June passenger figures per CAA:

Heathrow 350,425 down 99%
Luton 63,457 down 96%
Stansted 59,192 down 98%
Aberdeen 42,525 down 84%
Manchester 39,924 down 99%
Gatwick 28,910 down 99%
Edinburgh 19,050 down 99%
Belfast Int. 14,896 down 98%
Birmingham 13,594 down 99%
Glasgow 11,476 down 99%

Blackpool 1,463 up 1% (the only increase)

I’m surprised this revelation hasn’t been met with outrage. Yet.

How could they have done worse ?
Thousands dead, Economy destroyed, zero trust in public services and a Govt full of propoganda. Hell if a fiction writer wrote that a UK Govt could do this and asked man in the street they would be called mad.

Bojo is PM of UK & NI not England and responsible for the lot.


Govt incompetence that was evident from the start has been the cause. A lingerie model (Caprice) was abused on TV by medical personnel for daring to suggest in March that UK should follow Singapore / Japan examples of requiring face masks. Claimed it could not stop the spread but in July it can apparently.

As Hitchens in the Mail asks "How many people of the millions forced to destroy holidays and return home have been tested positive for Covid-19"...................... don't expect an answer from Govt but still it was happy to get revenge on anybody who ignored them.

Croatian Govt had a ready response to Slovenia and Austria who threatened to shut borders it seems, "screw what is left of our tourist industry and we will auto quanantine anybody going on wintersports in Slovenia and Austria", seems to have worked as well.

UK Govt still has no policy just reaction after reaction and anybody questions it gets labelled with "willing to see people die" while those who did it get off in the media.

Standard behaviour and MSM keep quiet as editors don't get knighhoods for finding out Govt are crooks.

BoJo has no responsibility for the delivery of health and social care in Scotland, Wales or NI. Fortunately.

The health of Scottish people in general is lower than that of the English, but don't let the facts get in the way your usual polemic Scottish good/English bad rhetoric

I was merely stating the actual position. I was not being in any way polemical and am not in general a supporter of the SNP. Of course our general health is poorer, but most independent observers outside the UK have said that Scotland has managed the pandemic better than Westminster.

So now we're reduced to partisan party-political bickering. How depressing.

To my knowledge, none of the main party leaders at the last General Election were medical doctors (Johnson / Corbyn / Swinson / Sturgeon). None had any obvious experience in handling a pandemic.

In the early days, we relied simply on the best medical advice available at the time - from the familiar academic figures who appeared in the government's TV briefings which ran for several weeks. My understanding is that this same team of experts would have been the advisers to UK politicians comprising whichever government was in office, so presumably the exact same advice would have been presented to whichever politicians were in charge. And which PM with a non-medical background would have been fool enough to second-guess their recommendations? It is easy to forget that all the main political parties were fully onboard with the measures introduced in those crucial first three months (or longer) of the crisis. They would most certainly have made the same big calls on the medical response. Economic measures may well have differed of course - that is open for debate. But the response to containing the virus itself enjoyed general cross-party political support.

It is easy to criticise issues sourcing PPE, ventilators, surgical gowns etc at short notice. But these were items suddenly in unprecedented demand on a global scale with some countries adopting unscrupulous measures to obtain supplies. Such as diverting cargos intended for other countries and halting exports overnight. Anger towards ministers charged with addressing these shortages were not a UK problem in isolation: criticism over this was the norm in many countries. Governments generally are on a hiding-to-nothing in a crisis of this sort. Mistakes are seized upon by bitter critics; things done well overlooked. Here in the UK, the country didn't run out of ventilators (despite media insistence that this was likely). The hospitals DID cope (despite media hysteria that they would be overwhelmed). The government did deliver the Nightingale Hospitals within a remarkably brief timeline - an amazing feat. It is simply fortunate that the Nightingales were never required on the scale initially envisaged ... or maybe ministers actually deserve some credit for that outcome?

Yes, there were some PPE supply issues, but don't forget that vast quantities of the items required were successfully sourced. The shortfall was at the margins. And much of the hysteria surrounding PPE shortages was exacerbated by a damning BBC Panorama documentary which has since been the subject of an investigation. It was allegedly infiltrated by a hard-left activist group who played a role in putting forward selected staff for interview. According to reports, "all five of the doctors and nurses Panorama chose to interview were longstanding Labour Party activists or supporters." This information "was not shared with viewers". You can google lots more info on this topic and the left-wing backgrounds of the NHS staff selected for interview on that programme if you wish. But when laying into one party in particular over PPE supply constraints, we must check that we are using real facts - not agenda-driven propaganda - as our frame of reference.

Note that this post is a reminder to seek out the facts and maintain balance. It is not an endorsement of one political party over another, though I do find it distasteful that some seize upon the C-19 crisis to push for party-political advantage.

FWIW, my own views on the UK government performance is mixed. I'd suggest that Health Secretary Matt Hancock has performed generally as well as anybody could have in the situation he faced. In contrast, Rishi Sunak has completely abandoned the airline industry from the start ... I suspect he prioritises personal eco-extremist sympathies over helping the aviation sector. No doubt he will one day pitch for the leadership based upon his impeccable green credentials. Rest assured, I'll be lobbying for the guy to be cast onto the backbenches for the remainder of his career. He has been a disaster.

The reality is that some ministers have done well, some badly. Across all political parties. And in governments globally. In the UK, Boris Johnson's style is to act as a figurehead who delegates the real work at the 'coalface'. This is why we have seen some ministers and their departments perform exceptionally well whilst others have floundered. Those who have done well / badly are of the same party allegiance. Perhaps Johnson could assume a more proactive role in cases where departments appear to be working at odds with each other: Priti Patel at the Home Office urging mindless blanket quarantine; Grant Shapps at Transport lobbying for sensibly-applied safe travel corridors. It is pretty clear it wasn't him applying these mad new quarantine directives at afew hours notice.

We in the aviation industry need to pull together in pursuit of a balanced science-led approach to overcoming C-19 medically, whilst lobbying for robust financial support for the most heavily-impacted sectors to see them through the crisis. We users of this site all recognise the extent of aviation industry jobs on the line resulting from the relative absence of government support during this crisis. We must not allow a free pass to individual ministers with secret admiration for the extremist 'Extinction Rebellion' agenda to devastate this industry in the name of battling against (essential-to-life) Carbon.

Well written and balanced critique. Thanks.

Just heard on Sky News that a viable and working vaccine could be as late as winter 2021 (so thats end of 2021 leading into 2022). Another summer and 2 winters of Covid-19? Without special provisions, I struggle to see how even the major legacy carriers can survive this.

Or maybe, the virus will have weakened by then to the point that a vaccine is simply not needed. Some would say the the incresing infection rate, but curiously, not matched by an increasing mortality rate or even in increase in hospital admissions would suggest we're maybe near that point now !

A well-balanced contribution from Ozzy, above.

I have stood (unsuccessfully) at two general elections. If my party had won, or entered coalition, it is possible I may have found myself faced with some of these decisions. I am not a doctor, or epidemiologist, or mathematician. I would have had to consider the advice I was given, questioned it as effectively as possible, but then put my neck on the line, making decisions that would certainly mean life or death for lots of people.

I would have known that the scientists were themselves working at the cutting edge of knowledge, as this virus is new. Much of the information they gave me would have been contentious. I would have been presented with passionately-argued alternatives, often completely contradictory.

For this reason, I am more sympathetic with the politicians than most. All the armchair critics have the right to express their opinion, but it is the politicians who make these choices, and all we can hope is that they do so with the best of intentions.

It is a sad fact that this thread has become more of an outlet for Tory bashing by people that just want to make political points no doubt as they like an audience and it makes them feel better.

There are not many countries where the population of that country think their government has done a good job. I follow Spain in detail from Spanish media reports and from people living in that country. Spain had one of the world’s toughest lockdowns yet after just a couple of months of it ending the virus is out of control again and according to the press and the locals it is all the governments fault, as they opened up the economy and tourist industry too quickly. The fact that their own behaviour has paid a major part in the spread again has been lost on them.

The UK government was criticised here regarding the quarantine requirements for Spain introduced on July 28th and particularly the Islands as it was not selective but national. Other countries soon followed including Germany in local bans but I note that Germany is now blaming a rise in numbers there from returning tourists so has introduced quarantine requirements from the Mediterranean Islands.

This is worth a read for those that said the government acted too quickly.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-tourist...ays/a-54580330

Just for balance...

The title of this thread is Coronavirus Impact on Air Travel - the performance or otherwise of the Govt in tackling the virus is a subject of many threads in Jet Blast.

In point of fact, in putting The Balearics on the risk list, Germans returning are required to take a Covid test, and those returning who are positive will have to quarantine until they receive a negative test to the best of my knowledge (the DW piece infers this too). Nothing wrong with that; in point of fact it's what the UK should have been / should be doing for months now, but isn't. The Italians are doing similar.

Of course the whole airport testing thing falls flat on it's face when positive results aren't being given to people, as has been the case in Bavaria.

Could you expand a bit on what you mean by 'most heavily impacted sectors'? Do you think IAG, Ryanair, Easyjet, Ferrovial and MAG will all get together in the same room with Sunak and Shapps and ask for the same thing? And when you say 'see them through the crisis' do you envisage life after 2023 being somewhat similar to life before? My impression is that IATA are predicting business travel may not the same again for a long time and the market will have to adapt structurally to a change in the shape of demand.

The problem with this is the Coronavirus Impact on Air Travel IS political. From how it’s managed on a domestic level to how it’s administered cross-borders. Whether one voted blue, red, yellow, green or purple things have happened that objectively cannot be defended without knowingly being complicit and in terms of support for aviation specifically the current U.K. Government has a lot of questions to answer.