Not feeling sorry for people who chose to go on holiday during the coronavirus crisus..

[HistoryHeroes]

The amount of money the government is pouring out to rescue people who chose to go on holiday only a few weeks ago. Lockdown was over a week ago now!

I'm not talking about people who have been away for months (although really they should have thought about coming back early) or working abroad or saying goodbye to terminally ill family. Im talking about those who still thought they'd go on skiing trips or a family trip to India, despite the clear path that was coming. And then them grumbling about how slow the government has been to bail them out! The government has enough to spend money on right now.

We had to cancel a very expensive holiday as did a few people I knew. Why did they think they were special?

YABU they weren't to know and had a right to go away.

YANBU

As long as the official advice was to travel then people will travel. No insurance would cover cancelling. Ignoring government advice then leave then charge them for rescue, following government advice then they deserve help.

and yeah back then the government's official position was that it wasn't bad enough to ban travel.

Hindsight rules again.

It absolutely was not clear in January.
I went on holiday in March, everything was normal in the UK, and the Country we went to had less than 5 cases. I was there 3 days and by the time I returned things had changed but still less than 20 cases. I had no reason to just "not go" and forfeit all of my money. I'd never travel or do anything against official advice.

I think some people are forgetting how quickly this all accelerated.

YANBU
Anybody holidaying in January amd Feb should have taken personal responsibility. It was clear where that was heading.

Around March 7th we went to visit my 83 year old FIL, who once had a triple heart bypass, and 77 yr old MIL.
We thought it would be our last visit and I also wanted to persuade them as to how serious this was.

FIL said "you can't change your life because of this!"
He'd been excited about the holiday bargains he'd seen but fortunately MIL said no.

This was 7th March after I had spoken to them about the severity of this.

If MIL had said yes I truly believe they'd have gone regardless.

They chose to go, they should own their choice and choose to stay.

Getting back is not easy when flights are being cancelled, routes changed and getting through to airlines has been difficult.
My flight home to China was cancelled by the airline, no alternative offered, routing via HK meant a 14 day quarantine, nobody answering the phone at Cathay and no email response.
This was back in January. I did manage to make alternative arrangements, but it took about 5 days to sort something out so I have sympathy for people who cannot get back as back in January the route changes only really affected south east Asia and China.

My friend was due to fly to Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago, she used her brain and stayed home despite her flight still going, it is a good thing she did as her flight home was cancelled the next day.

they should own their choice and choose to stay.

And what? Starve to death if they're in a majority world country that prioritises their own citizens?

I completely agree. We had the option to go skiing (flying to Bergamo of all places!) in Feb but we cancelled. Anyone jetting off on holiday in the midst of this shouldn't be bailed out IMO.

So what is the alternative to not bailing them out?

Not this subject again...

The UK FCO were not advising against travel until very recently..and if the grumble from some here yet again is taxes are being used to bail out people who took a risk then those that have lifestyle habits that may well place a burden on the NHS in the future might need to consider things called "glass houses".

If it makes you feel any better OP we're royally shafted and broke. Happy now?

I have relatives who needed to travel to another country because a close elderly relative had died. There was no-one else available to be there to clear out her possessions, organise the funeral, tie up her affairs. They left before there was any shut down but the situation changed so rapidly it was touch and go if they would get back. Thankfully they did as they had nowhere they could stay over there, little access to any money, one was facing being without heart medication which is unavailable in the country they travelled to. I think the government has done the right thing in bringing people home.

I do feel sorry for them. Up until the point you were told not to travel, you were not entitled to a refund so a lot of people would have chances it.

Also I remember all this fuss about SARS and swine flu and we never went into lockdown despite all the scare mongering so a lot of people would have been dismissive of this.

Bollocks. I live in Asia and have followed the outbreak extremely closely since the very beginning. There was no indication, until a few weeks ago, that travel would become so severely restricted.

To give one example, until mid March Vietnam had reported only 17 cases, all of which they said had made a full recovery. They had also banned Chinese and Korean tourists very early on, to reduce the risk of imported cases - so you would have been perfectly within your rights to think it was a safe destination.

Yesterday Vietnam went into lockdown for 2 weeks.

This is a fast evolving picture. Not everyone who had planned to travel is a cretin.

There were threads on "whether we should go or not go on holiday" right up until the lockdown. I was amazed at how many people were saying they were still going unless told not to. Many times in life people have to take responsibility for there own decisions and this to me is clearly one of them. If people are in danger the government should try and help them where they can but do I have sympathy? No.

I agree to an extent OP but I think quite a few of these people were on longer trips or stays like the au pairs in New Zealand for example.

Anyone who has gone overseas on holiday since the middle of March is bonkers, however,

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. This could have been me.

I travelled long haul the first week of march. At the time there were 100 cases in the UK and a handful in the country I was going to. I did um and ah about it but there was no government advice saying not to travel and no advice from the country I was going to not to go there. Without the Gov here advising not to travel I couldn't cancel without losing thousands of pounds so I didn't. Friends and family said that they would still go so I went.

Things very quickly changed though. The country I was in closed its borders to new arrivals. Which mattered less because we were already there.

But it ramped up further. Flights out of the country began randomly getting cancelled. The embassy there then said get out as quick as you can if you want to go home. So we tried to. But you're at the mercy of commercial airlines. The first flight we booked out got cancelled. We did thankfully manage to leave on one of the last flights to a neighbouring country. It was incredibly stressful and scary.

We couldn't then get an earlier flight home from this second county. There were none, or the ones that were left were £10k to fly first class. Couldn't have claimed on insurance as we had a flight booked in four days time. So we sat and crossed our fingers.

I think it's easy to sit here now and say 'dur idiots'. It was inconceivable when we left we'd be in this position now. We got back the day Boris announced lockdown. Things changed SO MUCH sometimes within hours.

If it makes you feel.more smug it was a stressful, horrible, holiday from day 7 onwards and I wouldn't wish the threat of being stranded or locked up in a third world quarantine camp on anyone.

Friends of mine flew to Mexico days before lockdown, had a fab holiday and flew back a few days ago. Now they are self isolating. I dont feel anger I just think it was bizarre.

I have a friend who travelled overseas in Nov for 6 months. When the situation unfolded she looked into bringing her flight forward but couldn’t as the airline cancelled all flights and there were no other options. Not sure what else she could have done. She is waiting it out. Luckily she has an apartment and food.

The threads in January and February were full of worries about traveling in the storms. Very few people saw this coming that far ahead.

we have fucking terrible media, which gives people useless information. We don't teach critical thinking. We don't believe experts any more and value stupidity over facts. And then people make thick as mince decisions

^ this with massive flashing lights and bells on.

At that point it really wasn't. Hindsight is a very good thing.

it wasn't insight. A quick google on the situation abroad was all you needed. It was never a question of "if", but a question of "when".

I don't believe anyone was genuinely thinking that the Chanel would create such a natural border the UK would be miraculously spared.

*channel even

My husband is stuck abroad. He was working there and we got out about 2 weeks before flights were stopped. His work wouldnt release him from notice or book a flight home until flights were actually cancelled by which point it was too late. He was made redundant beginning of March. There is a flight on sunday and it's full of tourists who went on their holidays in the midst of all this. The have been selected by the embassy as the priority. The majority of them have spent the day on the embassy page moaning about the price of the flight that he is desperate to be on. So yeah...short of sympathy for them at the moment.