quite agree zero covid fantasy land approach will fall down when Oz, No etc finally open up and start importing covid

On the one hand, I'm majorly annoyed Portugal was dropped - I was ready to book flights to the Azores on Thursday last week

However...
The data for Malta refers to the resident population of Malta at the effective start of the season. If Joe Bloggs flies from the UK to Malta, he will likely spend time in shops, cafe, bars, etc in close-ish proximity to tourists from other countries as well. Infection rate in much of northern Europe (France, Germany, etc) are significantly higher than the UK. There is zero chance of people on holiday staying 2m apart from other tourists all the time - that doesn't even happen in my local supermarket where almost everyone is stone cold sober. The owner of a struggling restaurant who has seen business decimated in the last 12 months has a choice "squeeze people and tables together a bit, or go bankrupt" - I know what I would do, especially if local Govt regulations or enforcement wasn't too strict. Infection is going to spread between tourists in resort bars - whether we like it or not

The actions of the UK Govt seem to be highly unpredictable - but an effective "no foreign travel" policy will minimise infection rates in the UK

My guess is that UK Govt policy might start to liberalise in about November (assuming no 3rd wave) by the time the warm weather is over

essentially, based on that, this never ends, covid will be here forever, people will mix, infections will go up and down.

come autumn/winter as cases will probably rise again for the season, so measures here and on travel will likely ramp up again so I see no way out on that assumption

But the same things apply then. Tourists will always mix. Don’t forget it started spreading in Europe from ski resorts in Italy. Once people are vaccinated and the likelihood of going to hospital or dying is almost 0 then what does it matter if people are infected. It basically becomes flu.

Again, in principle I agree because people will complain either way. But, we have the worst of both worlds with an approach that can’t be reasonably explained. For example how Portugal ended up on the green list in the first place whereas Malta didn’t and still isn’t, and why places like Grenada and Cayman with no cases aren’t on it

DJ6
"The actions of the UK Govt seem to be highly unpredictable - but an effective "no foreign travel" policy will minimise infection rates in the UK"

This is part of the problem. We don't have an effective "no foreign travel". If there was, the government would come under increased pressure to bail out the travel industry. So they have the current farcical arrangements promising jam tomorrow.
I agree that the autumn is when travel limitations are likely to relax. By then all UK residents should have had the opportunity to be double jabbed and most of Europe, the US etc. will be in a similar situation, it will be difficult to continue the current approach. Then again, with this lot, who knows.

Important rule: Never believe your own propaganda!

Europe is on course to have vaccinated all willing persons by autumn 2021.

UK yesterday - 5683 new cases.. (from https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ )
France - 1164 (from https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr/d...e#block-266151 )

Now to be fair the French figures go up and down like a .....:oh: , and are highly day of the week dependent because of how the stats are handled but even so over the last week or two the daily numbers in France have been reducing rapidly and for the last two/three days have been below the UK figures...

On the subject of vaccination more anecdata - both >60 year olds (no co morbidities) in this household in France are fully vaccinated (Pfizer) and our youngest, 20ish with no co morbidities gets his first jab tomorrow.

this is where I don’t see a way out. Hancock saying about a variant that undermines the vaccine effort being the hurdle to reopening aviation and travel, But surely that can happen at any point? In say three years time in theory a variant may emerge that could evade the vaccine. What then?

One thing that is notable with the UK vaccination programme is that the daily jab rate has never really increased since mid January. The message the government has hopefully learnt is don't rely on the EU, India or other nations for some of your jabs, as they can't be trusted and to increase UK production facilities. India has withheld 5m jabs, as they need them, and I would expect the EU has leaned on Pfizer and Maderna to divert doses away from the UK. The UK can't complain seeing they have exported nothing but those 5m missing doses from India would be the difference between having all people in the first 9 vaccine groups fully vaccinated in time for June 21st with the 2 week required gap. Maybe Portugal and Malta would be in the green list now with those extra jabs?

https://i.imgur.com/GqF9VwG.jpg

Gibraltar has been vaccinating Spanish workers, which is why they show 114%
https://i.imgur.com/PsYS8l2.jpg

Just wondering... but is the UK Govt possibly thinking that with COP26 in the autumn when Boris will want to be seen to be making a big carbon reduction pledge... that it's helpful if Covid can be blamed for some of the travel industry going bust instead of blame going to a future CO2 tax ?

Well they are certainly using Covid as cover for Brexit issues so it can’t be ruled out they would use it as cover for other things, but the reality is I think just incompetence rather than a grand scheme

The big problem with these theories is they rely on everybody keeping their gobs shut. Give me cock-up over conspiracy anytime.

Spot on. They couldn’t cover it up long enough. Half the civil service hate the Gov so would leak it immediately. It’s predominantly incompetence.

Yet they have a 16 point lead over Labour which says a great deal about that party although I think they would have been tougher on travel than the Conservatives. The Indian variant in the U.K. was down to being weak on restrictions.

They do, but this just shows up the problem with our system which locks out alternatives and makes most votes wasted. Our national elections aren’t national at all, it comes down to literally a few thousand people in about 30 seats. And the narrative of the huge majority with extreme power and the ‘popularity’ of Johnson masks that far less than half of people voted for them or like him. Plus with the bulk of the media being controlled by those allied to the Conservatives it makes what is clearly plain to see - as per contributors above - invisible to the bulk of the population. Without wishing to be condescending, I bet most voters in Hartlepool are completely oblivious to what is unfolding in Northern Ireland