1000 km
 

Whilst it is clear that there are flare-ups in some areas of Mainland Spain, flare-ups that are certainly cause for concern, Covid 19 is firmly under control in here the Canary Islands. In Lanzarote for example, we have 11 active cases.
2 being English tourists with the remainder being 9 people from a boat bringing illegal immigrants from the African Continent.
Flights and Holidays from thev UK are stiil permitted but the 2 week quarantine rule still applies.
The Islands are located 1000km from Mainland Spain, the Covid numbers are extremely low.
The decision to include them in the quarantine rules, seems like a badly thought out, knee jerk reaction from a government, who throughout this entire crisis, has appeared at times, clueless in its actions !

This does not seem right..
 

Turkey has a similar increase in the number of cases of coronavirus reaching 927 cases compared with Spain’s 971. Will Raab impose the same quarantine restrictions on U.K. holidaymakers returning back from Turkey?

Which is why we have to reopen the economy cautiously, minimising the risks of further waves and restricting freedoms in order to manage the risks while running the economy. So travel and tourism is caught right in the middle of that.

At the moment there is a reasonable chance of a successful vaccine, If that bet fails then we move on to living with the virus long term and that will change the shape of international travel among other things, not because of Governments but because of human behaviour.

Please do not make me laugh...
 

You can blame MOL for loads.. but this... come on... stupid people whodo not know how to behave....

Population of Spain is 47m while Turkey is 83m
The important things is cases per million of population - ie you worry more if similiar number of cases in a small population than a big population. A country with a bigger population would be expected to have more cases

927 cases in 83m people = 11 cases per million Turks
971 cases in 47m people = 21 cases per million Spaniards

Yes they can have it both ways
 

Actually the media can (and do) have it both ways, regularily. That is perhaps why the political system is becoming increasingly disfunctional a process that has reached its apogee, or should that be nadir, in the US. When everything - the prudent and the inprudent, the consistent and the inconsistent, the rational and the irrational is criticsed in the same way it opens the door for politics completely disconnected from evidence, facts and analysis.

Clearly this is a disaster for all business connected to international travel. Anything but the most essential travel is going to be seen as unnacceptably risky for most.

Nobody is much interested in which way the media are having it. This is really happening, regardless of which spin you put on it.
It is disturbing, on an aviation forum to read the point of view that you can't be too fast AND too slow to deal with a problem, or that your response could be inappropriately active AND inappropriately inactive.
So it is no good excusing government response with "Damned if they do...".
You need to do the right thing at the right time. That's why they are in the left seat!

@16204

You seem to have completely misunderstood the point of my post and that of ATNotts.

Everyone woudl agree that the government should do the right thing although I don't think everyone would necessarily agree what that is, and it often isn't clear.
I think decisions abput Covid19 should be biased towards a faster response and more action than less action as regards trying to control transmission for all sorts of reasons not relevant to this post. However the point of my post is that whatever the government does even if it is in line with experience and expert opinion they will be criticised and the point of ATNotts post and my post is that they will be criticised for those decisions even when the same media outlets were calling for the decision concerned and criticising them in the immediate past for not making the same decision. This is the reality and I don't think you should be disturbed by reading it on a forum, aviation or otherwise.
What you should be diusturbed by is the corrosive affect this uniform treatment of all actions justified or unjustified, reasonable and unreasonable is having on the political culture and governance of western democracies generally.

But is this the calculation that the Government is using? Doubtful. Turkey hides it’s official number similar to China yet this Government designates it as a safe destination knowing fully that this is a lie.

If the data cannot be relied upon, then we are into the realms of guesswork and it becomes impossible for ordinary people without access to MI6 to form any sort of conclusion

Piggyback:
Unjustified or unreasonable actions should attract scrutiny. That isn’t really corrosive to democracy.
If I misunderstand your stance I apologise. ATNotts seemed to suggest that some actions were criticised for being too slow, and some for being too fast. Yes, I believe this is the case, regardless of the media position . There’s no inconsistency in these criticisms.

As has been said, it is possible to fly from the mainland to the islands, and there are undoubtedly lots of Costas holiday-makers who would do that to avoid 14 days quarantine in the UK with loss of earnings.

I keep reading claims that Turkey and/or China are lying. I've yet to see any evidence. The usual check is the number of excess deaths above the normal for the time of year.

As I have posted on the Jet2 thread, i realised this morning why the Balearics and Canaries can't be exempted - and it's probably down not to risk, but to the Home Office arrival declaration form that has no field to enter the region or city that you are returning from; just the country. I would lay a small bet that when the IT people have added a new field suddenly, hey presto! quarantine rules from the Spanish Islands will be lifted.

I don't think that's the reason. The system seems to be able to cope with a restriction on Portugal, but one which exempts arrivals from Madeira and the Azores.

What happens to aircrew that have returned on a flight from Spain?

I hadn't realised that Madeira and The Azores were exempt. That blows my theory out of the water.!

I have just checked the gov.uk website, and neither The Azores nor Madeira are excluded, unless I am missing something.

Turkey has been silencing it’s nurses and doctors, many have been arrested for speaking out about the dire situation in Turkey. Access to social media has been severely restricted and those found posting any negative comments about the virus or that of the governments handling have been arrested and their posts removed or had threats against their person and families. There are many documented cases by various NGO’s whose reports are available across the Internet. Istanbul has in excess of 40k extra deaths in the first three months of this year.

Modern media
 

All actions should attract scrutiny, for how do we know it is reasonable without scrutinising it?
What has corroded public discourse and politics is it doesn't matter what policy is followed it will be strongly criticised in emotive terms and it will be criticised in exactly the same terms whether it is reasonable or unreasonable. Moreover it will be criticised in the same strong terms even if the latest policy is following the advice given by the media in the last round of criticism. This has eroded faith in evidence, politics and the political system, experts, science in general and helped to undermine any consensus, common ground or cooperation between political rivals. You can se ethe results in the US and it is not a healthy situation. Constructive balanced criticism is not an issue. Synthetic outrage at everything trivialises and infantalises what are important decisions.

The policy was quite clear that countries/territories could be added/removed from the list of exemptions to the general quarantine requirement at any time in response to Covid case rates abroad.

Whilst I accept that they have adopted a rather wide interpretation of country/territory by including parts of Spain and other Spanish territories that, on the face of it, don't appear to be exhibiting increased infection rates, they have done exactly what they said they would do, and in a timely fashion. I don't think that could be described as a 'major reversal of policy'.