All virus can be serious to the people getting them. Majority of people infcted with this so far are recovering.

This Virus is a lot less serious than 1918 Flu pandemic, the population of the World was 1.8 billion, 500 million caught it and between 50-100 million died. A death rate of 10-20% and close to 30% of the population being infected. On a similar level today it would see 2.2 billion infected with between 220 - 530 million people dying.

1968 Flu pandemic killed between 1-4 million people on a population of 3.6 billlion.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-new...-39663467.html

Guess that one in answered and appears dodgy santiser is out there ....................... in this case from Turkey.

There is a great deal of dispute about the death rate - maybe as low as 17 million - and the actual cause of death which may well have been secondary bacterial infections in the vast majority of cases. You simply cannot compare the death rate among overcrowded malnourished people in 1918 with 2020.

Yes you can but it doesn't suit the agenda of those pushing "worst pandemic ever" story. Many of the UK cases have already been flagged as having had significant underlying conditions meaning Covid was present but not necessarily cause of death but they tested positive. If that is case with UK then guaranteed it is similar in other countries.

On sheer numbers alone it is not even close.

Is anybody pushing "worst pandemic ever" stories? I haven't see any.

I'd hope we are better at dealing at these sort of things than 100 years ago (and how accurate was the record keeping then?)

ACI Europe warning of the "collapse of significant parts of the air transport system" with 193 of the continents airports facing insolvency in the coming months if passenger traffic does not start to recover by year end.

I'd want to see some pretty good data backing up the claims of ACI Europe if they are not to be regarded as being utterly alarmist...

The word "scaremongering" comes to mind. I expect some governments and local authorities will fall for it. That's not to belittle the situation airports find themselves in at the moment, but the upshot could be that for a number of airport businesses that are commercially marginal covid-19 may just hasten the inevitable.

ACI represents over 500 European airports. I wouldn't be at all surprised if 40% of those were looking insolvency in the eye.

Is that all I would say. Income streams are dead, costs still being incurred and no likelihood of a recovery in the short term. Many airports are Zombie airports at the moment requiring Govt or Local Authority funding to even turn on their lights.

There is talk of Grant Shapps changing the criteria for requiring quarantine on arrival in England from 20 cases per 100,000 over 7 days to 100 cases instead - ie 5 fold increase

I have no idea if this will happen or not, but looking at data in Europe, I can't see anywhere that will suddenly become available for unrestricted travel which is not already available - ie we still get just Canaries, Gibraltar, Greece, and Sweden. Everywhere else either has over 100 cases, or has quarantine for arrivals to/from England or requires proof of a recent negative test. Even Greece has a quaratine/testing requirement on quasi-random pax arriving by air

Can anybody else identify places that become available for unrestricted travel to/from England under this possible policy change ?

South Africa they are looking at I believe,and if you haven't flown in S.A. you haven't flown!

Amen to this!

It would certainly open a lot of Winter sun destinations, many of which will throw their doors open for the tourism income, if they haven’t already. Places like the Dominican Republic (whose cases are now almost as low as the 20 threshold) and Mexico are already open more or less without restriction. Where did you hear about this, out of interest?

I’d be betting on Jamaica coming off the naughty list tomorrow.

I know some on here think he's a twit, but he's probably better connected off the record to people in Govt as a well-known journalist than many of us who read this forum...
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel...-b1347862.html

To be honest, taking Denmark off the red list was an indication that this is already happening, as it was around 57/100,000 last week.

Certainly a positive step if true (except to a few regular contributors to this thread, who will no doubt be aghast). In fact, continued restrictions in this country and a more sensible approach to quarantine regulations may lead to the spike in demand that the industry desperately needs.

I wonder how many larger families will be booking trips abroad just to be able to spend Christmas together.

Common sense has finally broken out. But I’d be mightily pissed off if I was one of the 20% of people who quarantined for 2 whole weeks from one of these marginal locations, for the government just to move the goalposts.

Cyprus and Lithuania go onto the naughty list. All countries already on the naughty list will remain there

Gets more crazy as each week goes by..other countries must be laughing at us ....cannot be any worse than here in U.K. 🙄

Any new cases brought into the UK will start a new Covid 19 infection source that can spread out of control. It was how we got infected in the first place. Even if Brits abroad did not mix with the locals they will be mixing with each other in bars etc. Germany was blaming the return of holidaymakers for its rise in cases.

It doesn’t make a difference. The virus is already ingrained in the population.

But the additional cases brought in will still have to be eliminated. The UK was one of the last countries to introduce restrictions and was condemned. Now they have tough restrictions they are still condemned. It is not only the English government that has travel restrictions it is the 4 nations but no mention of that here.

Their is also the dilemma of us infecting others while on our travels.

While we can travel to the Canaries much of Spain now can’t. We live in strange times.

According to the Financial Times the virus variant which is responsible for up to 80% of current infections in Northern Europe inc the UK originated in Spain. It was first observed among farm workers and was spread throughout Europe by returning holidaymakers.
For the second day running the world total of reported cases has exceeded 500,000, double what it was about 6 weeks ago.

Sadly if what one of friends indicate is true, Gatwick has told 600 staff members they will be made redundant.

Sadly there is Xenophobia at work in many countries wanting to find victims for anger.

It could just as easily have been released from Fort Detrick in 2019 when it got closed for a period because its safety standards were found out during an inspection. Everybody can come up with multiple theories and most will be wrong.

News reports appearing suggest that Boris Johnson will announce a more strict form of lockdown in the first week of November

So when the country is placed into a second lockdown will a holiday aboard to say the Canaries be regarded as essential travel when a trip to the English coast will no doubt be banned. Bear in mind people will need to travel to the airport and then mix with other people, which is what a lockdown is meant to prevent.

Because there is a careful balance needed between protecting people from Covid and protecting them from the associated economic downturn.

We probably eased off too soon, too quickly. The answer from the Far East etc seems to be lockdown hard, close borders, ruthlessly track and trace. Nobody said it was easy.

This is just a total nightmare. We know that the last lockdown worked in bringing down the numbers but then it comes back again as restrictions are relaxed and more people ignore the new tiers. I watched the interview of an old guy who lives in a tier 3 area. He now goes to the betting shop and pub in a different area to get around the restrictions stating that rules are meant to be broken.

We are now entering winter so what hope is there that this won’t just carry on to the Spring. We will hopefully have a vaccine by then but some here have already stated they won’t have it. Let’s hope that attitude is not nationwide.

I see a bleak future.

If you don't ease off then you are in a police state where police cannot cope and people ignore eveyrthing.

Friends in Republic of Ireland indicate that they eased off BUT kept pubs closes predominantely in Dublin thus keeping any weekend trips out. There has been a huge rise in cases but many can be traced back to sport / house parties or it appears by one person coming back from holidays and not isolating then infecting 60 people. Lots of cases close to the border as different rules in NI because DUP didn't want to do same as Dublin.

Bojo clutching at straws and copying people again and again. There is no strategy only a complete knee jerk reaction all the time.

I have used motorways since March as working in West Mids, they are back to normal and have been for 2 months. Full lockdown was inevitable but who the hell pays for it all is anybodies guess.

Compliance is the issue here.
In Hong Kong, one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Compliance is total.
Only HKG citizens can enter. Tested on arrival- Negative test means 14 days strict quarantine- positive means taken to an isolation hospital.
Quarantine means being tagged with GPS tracker & if you break quarantine it is a compulsory £2,500 fine AND 6 months in prison- no argument, no quibble- instant.
However, the result is the city is operating as normal, shops, bars, restaurants all full, busy streets. Masks & distancing compulsory.
They do get maybe 2 or 3 new cases of Covid a week- all imported and all detected at the airport.From the moment you step foot in HKG you are monitored, tracked, traced every single step until your quarantine is up- but then you are free.
Ironically compliance and control equals better freedoms & safer environments.
Unfortunately, even after 7 months & billions of pounds the UK have never had any effective track & trace or monitoring of self quarantine.

We don't even have compliance from our own Government advisers or MPs- so that's our issue- we make rules to look like we are doing something but fail to comply at all levels.
Part of the UKs box ticking culture.

In truth that is a huge issue. Cummings should have been suspended or dismissed because it sets an example to all. Our near neighbour dismissed senior politicians because they went to a golf day / dinner. Friends over there said it set an example to all.

So we are quite happy to slag politicians off as being incompetent but then use their indiscretions as an excuse to not follow the rules ourselves. Hypocrites.

Time for people to grow up and take responsibility for their own actions rather than looking for excuses to do what they want.

Seem to remember some SNP MP refusing to resign after travelling not only down from Scotland with symptoms but traveling back after testing positive. Best not to mention that I guess when making a point.

And you would have done what? All over Europe countries are now introducing lockdowns, are they all knee jerk reactions?

Who are the hypocrites though ? People pretty much followed the lockdown. As someone who worked away from home all during lockdown 1 there was little movement anywhere and I was on motorways quite a bit as well. When people saw politicians doing what they like along with celebs and zero happening they took the view of WTF should I follow the rules when everybody else doesn't.

Govt sacking people employed on public purse gets a clear message that it applies to ALL. It applied in other countries but not in UK.

People do but they insist that those making the rules also follow them. When they don't people take the FU option on rules and apply their own.

Our near neighbour in question is Republic of Ireland, Scotland / Wales / NI are regional assemblies not Govt despite what they call themselves.

Ah so now it is comparison to what EU countrys do. There is no UK plan, never has been, never will be.