Graham wrote:
The Government have been fairly clear that leaving the country to go on holiday is presently illegal. Whether the actual legislation is specific enough for that to stand up in court I don’t know, but it is certainly the intention that it be so.
Amazing if a democratic country can prevent people from leaving it, or even that an elected government attempts it.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Amazing if a democratic country can prevent people from leaving it, or even that an elected government attempts it.
Indeed. I have not been shy about expressing my views on the restrictions of personal freedoms.
However, making it illegal to go on holiday (presumably with the intention of returning soon) is not the same as preventing people leaving. If you renounced your citizenship and wanted out, I don’t think they’d try and stop you.
To restrict people’s freedoms at the draconian level we have now one needs a very good reason, and people believing that reason (or guns, lots of them).
As soon as people are unlikely to infect others (vaccination and test —> pretty safe) and unlikely to become ill (vaccination) there is no good reason other than “solidarity”, and we will rapidly approach the point where the government will lose control entirely. In isolated parts of the population, that is already the case.
In a democracy governance is mostly by consent, and, I think, at the moment, you would find the majority consent is for some quarantining of those arriving in the UK. It is just a feeling, but I think at the moment this is the way it is. In a few months time this may change, but I truly believe this to be the position in the here and now and I suspect this is the message the government is reading, with the hope it will change over the coming few months.
Solitary confinement in a tiny hotel room, possibly with no windows, or – as if often the case – with nothing to see outside but another wall, for 10 days, is actually pretty horrible. A lot of people would actually go mad, and I mean seriously.
A lot of people are going mad already, especially the young. I know a kid, about 20, who is on antidepressants. A very outgoing kid, always the centre of attention, and not been able to meet up with anyone for months. He is about to flip, and his parents are tearing their hair out.
They are talking about putting up perimeter fences so it sounds like you will be allowed to walk outside.
Not sure if this will apply to GA arrivals. They obviously won’t be able to organise that, but the police could come and pick you up. The problem is that you are very likely to catch the pox sitting in the police car!
The last time I looked at the U K website there were actually quite alot of workers exempt from current quarentine rules, are these also exempt from the hotel thing? From what I see the hotel thing is only fer certain countries arriivals anyway, not every arrival. Just remember what happened when France closed the border to the UK and all the trucks that were queued up – those are still coming and going without any quarentine at alll, or as far as I can work out even no C19 test. Looked at in such a context the hotel thing appears pretty pointless, especially remembering the part of the UK that the “UK varient” was discivered circulating first. (In inverted commas for a reason!).
In the GA context not many of us will be flying in from those countries…
Regards, SD..
Yes, many are exempted. It may well not affect GA at all. I would do a ski trip for example if I have to sit at home afterwards.
UK now planning to vacc all over 50 (32M of them) by end of April. This is necessary because 40% of ICU patients are under 60, with average ICU age of 60! (Radio programme this morning). So vaccinating only those “vulnerable” will just create a pool of infected people where new mutations will keep emerging.
Eventually everyone including kids will need vaccinating to prevent new strains emerging continually.
ICU stay 2wks average versus 1wk for the normal respiratory diseases.
On a lighter side of things. At Vigra (ENAL) the airline traffic has been slow as everywhere else due to Corona. This has lead to the car parking being almost empty of cars. It’s also been unusually cold lately. The airport employees took a firetruck and made a skating field on car parking 
Peter, that cartoon is very amusing. (I don’t know how to reproduce it in this post) It’s close to the bone, because in the real world, there are plenty of people who lap this stuff up.
Does anyone know of an authoritive site that responds to common beliefs including, but not limited to:
1) Covid is much less dangerous than the government say because fatality counts are hugely inflated by including everyone who tested positive regardless of what they died from.
2) All flu cases are being counted as Covid. (Apparently this is why there are few flu cases this year).
3) Vaccines have had almost no testing and are potentially dangerous. They also ‘alter’ your personal DNA with unknown consequences.
4) Vaccination is a ‘personal decision’ because Vaccination doesn’t affect transmission to others..
and, not last or least -
5) The whole thing is a population control plot by Bill Gates
-etc
I know it’s laughable, but unfortunately a significant proportion of our population do believe this stuff, sometimes because it’s a way of justifying extended family contact or other behaviours that are contrary to public policy but critically important to the individuals concerned.
People really do gaze into their screens ‘discovering’ Covid knowledge that’s apparently being concealed by Politicians etc. in order to further arcane agendas. Sadly this behaviour will, in the real world, fuel anti-vaxxing and will make it more difficult to control the disease. The result will be tragic and unnecessary consequences, sometimes involving individuals close to us personally. What to do?
Agreed, but:
Aveling wrote:
1) Covid is much less dangerous than the government say because fatality counts are hugely inflated by including everyone who tested positive regardless of what they died from.
Unfortunately your first “myth” is, or was, partly the case, at least in the UK, up until sometime last summer when the government changed how the statistics were compiled and the “28 day” thing was introduced. “how dangerous” is now backed up by alot of evidence showing relatively healthy people are not actually very ill if they contract C19, but ANY health condition (including higher age/weight) can make a big difference to how dangerous it is if caught. Most government’s vaccination plans are prioritizing based on this evidence.
Regards, SD..
