AIBU to be sickened by the attitude towards stranded Brits

[millerjane]

"They saw this coming so they should've planned accordingly"
"well I cancelled my holiday..."
"They should stay put we have enough on our plates"

My relative had a hellish journey home from NZ (over 56 hours to get home). She would have been stranded had she not bought a ticket and defied the orders of her company to hold station and wait for Head Office to make a decision. She's a young girl straight out of university. Have some empathy.

She is now helping elderly neighbours with food and medication if that makes a difference (it shouldn't).

@Reginabambina thanks. i havn't been abroad since I was a teen due fo family circs. so didn't "get it"

I think there is no sympathy for people who went on holiday, ignoring what was clearly happening, and are now stuck abroad.

There is another group of people who are stuck abroad not because they selfishly continued with holiday plans, but due to work commitments.

A nurse who was treating me a few weeks ago was banging on about her upcoming holiday to Tenerife. She was dismissive when I told her that we would be in lockdown before she got a chance to board the plane. In fact, she was outraged. Really not understanding what was happening.

So if she is stuck there, I have no sympathy at all.

I am surprised by the amount of people here (obviously not everyone but quite a lot) and elsewhere who weren't thinking about this illness coming over to the UK when they just surely have heard about China and Italy months ago.
I remember reading the thread on here from the people who were thinking about it coming here and finding it worrying myself and now it is here
But it's like people really didn't worry or think it would happen till right when it started to get serious here

I'd suggest that if she's recently spent 56 hours travelling across the world and breathing on recycled aeroplane air, she should be self-isolating, not exposing vulnerable neighbours

My sil is stuck abroad. Was meant to be a trip of a lifetime, travelling for a year. She’s safe at the moment, thinks it will be a few weeks before she gets back.

Shouldn’t all travellers go into 14 days quarantine? We have plans for sil that do t involve her parents house as both on the 12 week list.

What is happening to travellers in the UK as well?

They must be stuck and worrying about money.

Depends, someone working for a charity abroad who couldn’t get home = sympathy
But most of them aren’t, most of them are people who went ahead with a trip to Benidorm or on the ‘trip of a lifetime’ flying out to Panama or similar to get on a cruise ship when all but essential travel was advised.
I don’t think we should spend the time/money/resources trying to ‘rescue’ BRITs who are bored because they can’t leave their hotel room in Tenerife or Antigua. Their lives aren’t in danger.

Nobody who’s just travelled from NZ for 56 hours which would’ve meant at least 2 stops off in Asia/Middle East should be out and about helping vulnerable neighbours. The only thing she may be helping them to is an early grave.

YABU. People have put themselves in these situations knowing what’s going on in the world. They didn’t want it to affect their holiday so they carried on; now they have to face the consequences of that.

I don’t think we should be bringing anyone home now, and I don’t think anyone should have been brought home that wasn’t already in the country by the beginning of March.

I know someone who went to singapor 2 weeks before lockdown knowing how bad the situation was. Then returned the day after boris announced lockdown and has none stop slagged people off for going out and that they are spreading the virus.

They were interviewing some backpackers on the BBC news yesterday who were whining because they are out of insulin and need asthma meds, and are being chucked out of various places because they are foreign.

Who in their right mind sees what is going on around them for the last 2 months, knowing that they have major health issues, and doesn't do something about it while they have time? Or indeed goes travelling without essential meds to last them?

All these people expect someone to do something and don't seem to want to take any responsibility for themselves.

She went East - all the hubs westward were shut/closing down. The first flight she booked was cancelled.

Recirculated plane air is no more dangerous than that found in an office building.

I judge anyone who travelled on holiday in the last two weeks.

I agree OP. I know someone stuck on a cruise ship where people have died. It is easy to say that they shouldn't have gone but when they left the holiday was saying it was okay to travel, there were no cases where there were going and they would have lost thousands if they had decided not to go. Obviousy with hindsight they made the wrong decision but if you look back on mumsnet three weeks ago, there were plenty of posters saying they would go unless told otherwise. What seems obvious now, really didn't a few weeks ago.

The media in February - “Get the beach bodies ready, Great Britain, it’s going to be a scorcher of a barbecue summer!”

The media in September - “Met Office confirms we have just had the wettest summer in the history of civilisation”

The public in September - “fucking twits, next they’ll be saying we will be digging our way out of 8ft of snow by Christmas Eve”

The media in October - “8ft snow drifts by Christmas Eve predicted for much of the country!”

The public in April - “Jesus I’m glad to see that back of that winter - never seen so much snow in my life!”

See what I’m saying? The media are prone to hyperbole and let’s face it, SARS, MERS, Ebola etc didn’t result in anything remotely like this. I can see why many people just struggled to take it in and take it seriously to be honest.
Zero tolerance for people who are STILL not taking it seriously though. Don’t know what it will take to get through to them.

*the holiday company

@millerjane
I think that depends on the office - few are hermetically sealed boxes containing hundreds of people who have recently come from a multitude of different countries with exposure to multiple pathogens. Plus intermittent exposure to transit hubs (airports) in countries where COVID 19 has been identified.
"there have been a number of reported outbreaks of serious airborne diseases aboard commercial flights including tuberculosis, severe acute respiratory syndrome, influenza, smallpox, and measles, to name a few."
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26542037/

Not exactly like the average Uk office is it?

The UK has its first case of COVID19 in January and it has been spreading across the World for months. Travel disruptions were entirely predictable. She's an adult who seems to have a knack of making consistently poor choices.

@TheWordmeister

Same here, my uncle was at the end of a four week holiday to Australia and New Zealand when it all properly kicked off. He managed to get home last week, eventually.

However when he left, things were really not bad at all. I think people are forgetting how quickly everything escalated.

You are right OP. There are plenty of people who have been stuck due to circumstances beyond their control. However, there are also plenty where people have not reacted quickly enough for their own reasons.

My friend just similarly traveled for 40 hours to get home. He also has someone who works for him who was on holidays in the same country who has not even tried to leave. At all. Just did not try and then has said he is now stuck....

There are many individual stories.

However, to be fair, countries like Australia and NZ did give warning that people should be reconsidering their trips, progressing to people should be leaving or not coming at all for about 4 weeks now because I have been watching with an sharp eye.

Agree a bit but i know a couple who still decided to get on a plane and go to tenerife only to be on lock down from the second they arrived, they spent 3 weeks posting and moaning on social media all day everyday.

If someone was overseas before this started and can't/can't get home and then yes i do very much feel sorry for those but not the people who still decided to go on holiday

“Recirculated plane air is no more dangerous than that found in an office building.“

Bullshit. Link me a scientific, peer-reviewed study to back that up. Oh wait, that’s just your silly opinion, not fact.

So I take it she never self isolated herself after coming back home? And could now have been out infecting the most vulnerable group??

My flight home is on Thursday. I am crossing everything here that it goes ahead. We’ve just had the first staff arrive in 2 weeks. My replacement was the last one in and is due out of isolation tomorrow. Hopefully if the travel line stays open we will be cycling staff through every 2 weeks. I am 3 weeks over my time and there is a pile of staff due home after 5 months rotation. I still have 2 weeks isolation to complete in the UK before I get home. But at least my company is taking this seriously. We are working very hard to keep our site safe and Covid secure.

I think people are forgetting how quickly this escalated and assuming those stranded are silly people who just wanted to go on their holibobs and hang the advice.

My brother is stranded... as he came to visit me! I rather like having him here but it's been super stressful for him. He came out four weeks ago and honestly there were a few cases in Wuhan. Then it all got serious quickly, better go home early, but no flights available as everyone else is doing this too, even turning up to the airport and being asked to be put on standby was a no go. The airlines then stopped flying one after another. They'll take bookings but won't refund your money when you turn up at the airport and your flight is suspended. So after shelling out for multiple flights and offered travel vouchers in return the only flights currently available are in a few weeks and ridiculously expensive. So he'll stay here with me as one of the lucky ones who have family to stay with. Not everyone is so fortunate and I feel for them.

My sister is stranded.
She had a visa to spend a year in another country than the one she is stranded.

When all of this kicked off she planned ahead. Booked a flight, sad about the fact her travel plans had been ruined but thinking needs must.

What she didn't plan was countries completely closing borders and her airline cancelling her flight with no refund. Now she's £1.5K down.

She tried to book another flight as soon as she found out but then they wanted a declaration from a hospital that she'd been tested for Covid 19. This needed to be done within 3 days of the flight. They're almost impossible to get. And flights are all being cancelled last minute. She can't afford to keep gambling the money.

She now has no employment. Luckily she is staying with a friend. Her only hope of getting home is a repatriation flight.