The 14 day lockdown in New Zealand is working well. Locked in a room in a 4 star hotel. Fed and watered and policed by AVSEC.

Arrived LHR on 24 Feb from Perth via Doha, and really, really surprised to not face any temperature testing, or even receive handouts. This was after the Viking cruise line had warned all intending pax that they, (VIKING), would not accept anyone transiting HKG or Macau and from any China port - without a 14 day 'quarantine' period, and there would be pre-boarding temp testing for all. We were further surprised to read about, and watch, the denigration of 2 schools voluntarily locking down after staff tested positive.

quarantine. 1.n
(period of) isolation imposed on ship or persons or animals to prevent infection or contagion

Now in recent times, the very essence of 'quarantine' has been diluted by weak-kneed, bleeding political hearts who have coined the truly disgraceful concept of post-entry quarantine. Under this system, the disease is allowed entry - and then, (when we are absolutely, positively 100% sure, that it really is the feared disease : we'll take action. Too late by then!

As a former plant pathologist who has dealt with plant disease/insect epidemics, I cannot believe the lack of will to target or profile any biosecurity threat, and to hell with wounded national egos if one country decides to block all movements from the threat. That's what makes quarantine effective. If a few dictators are offended ...... tough! Western nations need to grow a pair of balls!

Minor correction - THIS Country needed to grow a pair. Its too late now.
in any case, this 'easing' of Lockdown has nothing to do with the virus passing and Everything to do with 'business' and money. Whats a few more thousand dead people to 'business'?
As long as the money starts to roll in again - -
End of Sunday rant.

Exactly like some other countries

by ships. same idea, it just took longer to spread from country to country ..

In other countries where this is already in force, lay over crews are confined to their hotel rooms.

Worth a repeat viewing?

I retired in 1997 and am still alive, so I hope to last a little longer. Good luck to those still hoping to continue.

The Government haven't even said this is going to happen. As far as I can tell it's come about as a result of a leaked conference call to industry on Saturday morning. It's probably useful to have a guide to UK policy making:

1. Daily Mail starts rant about something usually connected to foreigners/immigrants/brown people or all three (ie Meghan Markle).
2. Government floats idea for radical policy in the media or to industry
3. Wait for further high brow analysis from the Daily Mail to see if there's a positive or negative reaction.
4. Depending on outcome either issue denials or proceed accordingly.

In this case, I see they're already denying it, so I'm going to assume it's not happening. If it does happen, it will be too little, too late now I'm afraid. Britain is riddled and it's come about as a result of Government dithering. I think you really have to wonder what is going on when even Greece is looking at us and thinking "WTF"?

Spot on. It's in a gross misrepresentation of the facts to suggest that an acknowledgment that economic reality dictates that all lives cannot be saved is akin to a policy of eugenics and euthanasia. People are displaying an incredibly childish level of naivety if they honestly believe that economic considerations won't, in the near future, outweigh prolonging a few (in statistical terms) lives. We're already seeing that in the USA.

BS. A recent study taking into account their pre-existing conditions found that CV-19 victims died on average 13 years younger if they were male and 11 if female. A lot of people are losing their lives long before they otherwise would have. Medical staff are dropping like flies too.

You might think making things a lot worse is a price worth paying, but people who are actually in charge do not. Sorry, democracy and all that. Your position is not shared by a majority or plurality of voters.

It's also a fallacy that you'd save the economy by re-opening virus be damned. The amount of sick will go up, fear will go up, the economy will still be in the sh!tter. People don't act and spend as normal in a pandemic.

It’s not euthanasia, it’s a fact of life. We’ve made huge medical advances, particularly recently, but no one can live forever and it’s an unavoidable fact, the older you are, generally the lower your resistance to disease. It’s wonderful when you get these fantastic news reports of 99 year old beating Covid - bring it on! - and of course we should try and save lives, but I do wonder how many people on here have been in either a geriatric ward or care home recently? My 88 year old MIL died at the beginning of March with Myeloma and dementia. The desperately sorry state she and other patients were in, it’s no surprise that’s where your greatest casualties are going to be. If carers weren’t feeding them every mouthful, reminding them to drink, taking them to the toilet, they wouldn’t be still be clinging to life as it is. Very, very few people actually die of old age - it’s usually pneumonia, cancer, flu etc. We can’t stop these things completely!

I don’t know why some people see this as a conspiracy to cleanse the world of the elderly. One only has to see the speed and virulence a dose of Norovirus (a minor inconvenience to the young but potentially deadly to the elderly) takes to go through hospitals and care homes to understand just by having a vulnerable group together is unavoidably going to create its own problems.

By the way, don’t believe all the propaganda regarding the NHS you see in the media either. I have friends and family ‘on the front line’ and they are twiddling their thumbs and itching to get back to routine surgery etc as they are spending a lot of time standing around, just in case. A number of them are surprisingly against any further extension of the lockdown too as they can see the long term damage it’s doing to the health system.

Absolutely spot on. Had begun to think that the lunatic asylum had opened their doors. The UK has no clear strategy. We have dithered and vacillated between solutions. Policy is clearly determined by the Daily Mail and its likes. There was a post yesterday on FaceBook showing a photo of Flight tracker with a 330 from Wuhan exclaiming absolute horror that we should be allowing such a thing. The ignorance of people is staggering when they cannot see that Wuhan had no new cases in the last few days and we have over 5000 a day.

The route out for aviation will require cooperation between countries who have managed to control spread. None that have will allow contagion from the likes of us.

But it appears that it is not just the elderly who are dying. Members of th BAME population are up to 90% more likely to die than white people. In our modern world it is probably acceptable to let a few old people pass away - but what about all of those BAME people. There would be a public outcry!

agree with Paul...
the problem, is the population gets old everywhere, and retirements are expensive....unfortunately, we should not focus on old people.

I appreciate that we can only play the hand of cards we have been dealt, in this case CV-19, but I do wonder if "the team" would be similarly relaxed about this if we were looking at a re-run of Spanish Flu...

crew are mostly exempt from quarantine rules as per ICAO/EASA circular to governments.

Looking at it from a purely UK aviation angle, is it such a big deal? Were all the airlines gambling on 100% load factors next month?

I don’t think any of the companies involved were expecting much in the way of positive happenings before autumn/winter and have been planning accordingly.

There are also the small matters of: a) it hasn’t been officially confirmed yet and b) non-one knows how long it would go on for, if it did go ahead. Not to mention if accurate and quick testing in situ for the virus and antibodies becomes available, then I’m sure we will switch to that as soon as the numbers make sense.

Not sure what the circulars say but whilst it appears that generally "native" crews are exempt and can go home post duty (though perhaps having to observe some form of isolation) there are very definitely a few countries, and especially one or two in the Far East, where crews on a layover are confined to the slip hotel or even confined to their rooms, the situation exactly as described by Gypsy.

I've lived that particular aspect of "the dream" in the last few weeks......

[QUOTE=BehindBlueEyes;
By the way, don’t believe all the propaganda regarding the NHS you see in the media either. I have friends and family ‘on the front line’ and they are twiddling their thumbs and itching to get back to routine surgery etc as they are spending a lot of time standing around, just in case. A number of them are surprisingly against any further extension of the lockdown too as they can see the long term damage it’s doing to the health system.[/QUOTE]

This is strange but true. I have been taking my ancient relative to hospital (small city) every week since this started. It is amazing watching the tumbleweed blow down the COVID19 free parts of the hospital. CAT Scan sir, yes please anytime now is fine! Same with our nursing friends who, in different parts of the UK, have a very low workload just now. I'm sure its different in London, Brum etc. but I suspect a great many people are not getting routine treatment they need. How many of those will lead to fatal consequences? The only way we'll know is from the Excess Mortality figures, and they aren't available yet.

No one size fits all in this pandemic.