I think the vast majority of much younger people have been amazing. We know Covid is an extremely small risk to this group and yet they have respected pretty much everything asked of them. Inevitably there are some exceptions and even more inevitably these have been well publicised, but I dont think this is anything like representative of the majority.
In some respects I would argue that it is some of the older population that have let the side down!
I think you forget that that is exactly what everyone under the age of 50 has been doing for the last year. The majority has been sacrificing for a minority. This is something that isnt being widely talked about outside of social media.
Well, there are multiple angles on this.
Looking at the stats from 2020, it is obvious that the scenarios where foreign holidays brought back the virus were ones where “high density socialisation” was taking place. Basically exactly the same as does it back home 
You don’t need a rocket science PhD to work this out.
And this £5000-fine law is to stop that tourism, which is mostly young people, but the older ones, who don’t socialise heavily on holidays, and would often – especially now – choose self catering and generally keep out of the way of everybody else while seeing places, are paying the price for it.
It also stops GA travel which is 100% CV19-safe and whose demographic is definitely not the “high density socialisation” type. Well, we’ve had a few well attended fly-ins, with the famous 2014 fish dinner on Mali Losinj being particularly memorable 
It also stops those least likely to be anti-vaxxers from travelling – most older people think that stuff on social media is bullsh*t, and can’t wait to get vacced.
So a travel ban actually works mostly the other way round.
I think the vast majority of much younger people have been amazing. We know Covid is an extremely small risk to this group and yet they have respected pretty much everything asked of them
That’s true but I think the travel ban is largely aimed at that part of the population, but they can’t say that.
skydriller wrote:
I think you forget that that is exactly what everyone under the age of 50 has been doing for the last year. The majority has been sacrificing for a minority. This is something that isnt being widely talked about outside of social media.
Exactly. As soon as the old and sick are vaccinated, things should open up, and back to live as we knew it. At some point enough is enough, and those who want a vaccine first, can stay at home, use masks or any other superstitious item until they feel “safe”.
Well said.
Yes, I also agree, with the obvious caveat (as I have mentioned a few times) if Covid takes off in the under 50s there is perhaps a risk we may see more mutations (although the evidence so far does seem unlikely). Clearly we will still need to keep a close eye to make sure nothing nasty comes along that makes the rest of the population highly vulnerable again because it would quickly become the dominant strain.
LeSving wrote:
As soon as the old and sick are vaccinated, things should open up, and back to live as we knew it. At some point enough is enough, and those who want a vaccine first, can stay at home, use masks or any other superstitious item until they feel “safe”.
Right, and then let the virus mutate amongst those who thanks to the incapable governments never got a chance for vaccines and the whole thing will start again?
The longer I see that even level headed people I used to respect start to go in a direction which is completely incomprehensible to me, the less I believe that we will eventually get rid of Covid 19 or at least manage it ever. Not enough that we are led by incoherent imbeciles who were not capable or even not interested to stamp this out when they had the chance, now even those whose intellect should preclude such total ignorance are pointing in the direction of open up and damn the consequences?
We are now in the third wave of a horrible plague which has so far killed millions of innocent human beings and has crippled many more. Which part of that is so extremely difficult to understand? We have mutations which have become more and more dangerous, we have exploding figures yet again and there are some who suggest that after a couple of thousand people are vaccined we should simply leave all the remaining folks unprotected and just let the disaster run it’s own course?
I am ending up hoping that, like in some prominent cases in Switzerland, those who keep denying and ridiculing people who since over a year have foregone almost everything in order to keep as few people as possible affected by this plague, will get the chance to experience first hand what a severe Covid infection looks like. Maybe this may change their mind or at least shut them up.
Europe has like hardly any other place in the world shown that it is naught but a collection of degenerated and spoilt societies who are incapable of weathering any form of crisis without loosing their marbles and simply throwing all caution and intellect out of the window. Instead of imposing a strict zero covid regime and shut the hell down until every single person is either vaccinated or those who refuse isolated and assure that the said vaccines are produced and readily available, they keep just swimming the stream of lockdowns, openings and renewed lockdowns, wave after wave. If I did not know better, one would assume some perverted garbage of people at the top enjoy this?
Even the discussion here let’s me kind of loose faith. In the life or death battle of both people and societies there is nothing more important than if we can fly our airplanes to infested countries or not? Isn’t the situation grave enough to maybe forget our toys for a while and concentrate on finally eradicating this plague so we won’t have the same discussion in 2025,6,7 after 30 or more waves? Our societies have shown abundantly that they will not survive any prolonged crisis, even as short as 2-3 years. If this thing is not over by the middle or end of this year, we will see societies coming apart, with governments falling to extremists, quite possible civil unrest and not excluding civil war. I would not blame anyone who is angry enough at the mismanagement by the EU and other incapable governments to put those responsible up against a wall. Do we really want this?
For me, the situation is clear: Either they are getting the vaccination operation going very fast now or the consequences will be too horrible to contemplate. And it looks like Europe is failing spectacularly to do just that, my country included.
I don’t know what to think anymore, quite honestly I wonder whether this plague was not sent to us in order to show the mirror to every single idiot out there who thinks the world is their oyster. Well it is not. Either we take care of each other, or nobody will in the end have anything.
LeSving wrote:
As soon as the old and sick are vaccinated, things should open up, and back to live as we knew it. At some point enough is enough, and those who want a vaccine first, can stay at home, use masks or any other superstitious item until they feel “safe”.
Here’s the daily infection data for the (US) county in which I live. The local hospitals here have 200 CV cases relative to 6000 bed total capacity. Not a product of lockdowns, fines or any such nonsense.
I am currently in Tel Aviv for work. Roughly 50% vaccinated here. The streets, restaurants and beaches are full. Everyone is enjoying themselves. It’s like a peek into not distant future in Europe. Looking forward to it.
Silvaire wrote:
Not a product of lockdowns, fines or any such nonsense.
So what happened?
I don’t believe anybody understands what has driven infection numbers up or down beyond the simplest models with their unrealistic and naive assumptions. I think like many technical problems, the solution doesn’t involve complete understanding of the problem, adherence to elaborate models, or controlling the daily behavior of vast numbers of free people. Those things are typically inaccurate and ignored, as they were here and in many other places. What produces results is a focus on things (anything) known with some certainty to have a positive impact, in this case the 2020 program for vaccine development, production and distribution.
