To have no sympathy?

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www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-cornwall-52089487

Do you feel sorry for these people trapped abroad due to the Coronavirus? I keep reading articles about people trapped who say they are running out of money and that the Uk government should be paying for them to get home.

I don't think they should, depending on when they left that is. These people left for a month at the beginning of March, another young man left for Morocco on March 15th! Surely it was stupidity to fly at that time? It was obvious we would go into lockdown imminently, lots of other European countries were going into lockdown by then. Now they are moaning that they are stranded and want to be bailed out. Surely it's totally there own fault. They must have been told not to fly especially by March 15th.

I feel more sorry for those trapped because they were away for business or travelling around the world. But not those who decided to go on holiday in the middle of a pandemic.

callmedoctor my package insurance stated anything that was booked before march was covered so that would have been good

British Airways were offering vouchers for flights booked up until the end of May from early March. I don't know about other carriers, obviously, but I do know that. That was regardless of what sort of ticket had been booked. They were also waiving any fees to change tickets bought in March (hedging their bets) thus creating flexible tickets that wouldn't usually have been.
I don't think BA are such paragons that they would have been the only carrers offering this? But who knows.

Nobody wanted to fly, the overwhelming majority wanted to rearrange/postpone their trips, but were prevented from doing so by the FCO’s refusal to update their advice.

Your response was to my comment about travelling mid February. Some people but definitely not everyone was reluctant to fly mid feb. Things were changing toward the end of February and into March. There are plenty of threads on the subject....

Everyone, who flew knowing cv was closing in still made a choice to get on the plane. That was my point upthread. The costs were sunk. The choice for me is therefore one of safety. I would rather have foregone a holiday than put my life and the life of my child at risk. I take responsibility for myself.

My friend has a flight!!!
He should be home a week on Monday, all being well
The hardest bit to organise was the transfer to Auckland from Christchurch but fingers crossed its all going to be OK

More to the point where are they sleeping and how are they eating and where? If they can’t afford £1k for a flight (I’m getting no income so wouldn’t be able to either!) then how are they funding their lives being ‘stuck abroad’ ?

Yes, all those saying "we can't afford to lose that amount of money," are kind of missing the fact that they have already budgeted to spend that money. What they're losing is the experience. The money is gone and presumably they could "afford" to spend it originally.
(That's not to sneer - we are actually in the same boat with a trip that dd planned)

Plus, it's probably costing a lot more with the cost of extra accommodation, flights and food.

My opinion hasn't changed on this.

I would agree it was stupidity to fly off for a holiday in March.

Whether or not the government advised against travel everyone was aware of the spreading virus by that point. People need to take some responsibility for themselves.

Not everything is the government's fault. Only an idiot would have travelled abroad in March as other European countries had started to go on lockdown at that time eg. Italy. I realise it was later in Spain. Traveling for work aside why would anyone have gone on holiday at that time. Not having travel insurance is stupid and if you can't afford the insurance you simply cant afford a holiday. There will be lots of people who have lost out due to travel companies not paying out, which is expensive and crap but we are in a pandemic and lives are more important than lost money. Are people really that thick that they need the government to spell out every last thing to them? What happened to using your own judgement and weighing up risks and then accepting the consequences of your actions!

As someone whose best friend is stuck overseas, they haven’t had time to get back. First her boss demanded she go back overseas or her and her husband wouldn’t be paid at work, this meant taking her baby back overseas, her husband isn’t English (South African) so was also on a travel visa when here now they are stuck in a country neither are from or they won’t get paid. The embassy and visa offices have been closed for three weeks. Both are teachers stuckaway from families and can’t get home.

"I was away in feb when it was still a Chinese issue"

And the impression that Boris gave, up to nearly mid March was that it wasn't a big issue for us.

If they had have told us that six people had died from it, in the UK, in February and did what their medical and science officers were telling them to, this situation wouldn't have come about.

You are asking people to go against government advice, at that time, but now we are being told to follow government advice, without question.

We either do one or the other. We either trust them or we don't. Why have no sympathy for them, but sympathy for the people who've died, they went about their business on the same information that people went on holiday with.

This is a global crisis and of course our citizens should be supported and brought home. Or do people who holiday were there can be, floods, hurricanes, high crime rate, a lack of women's rights and end up having issues, also get no sympathy?

We went to Tenerife from 13th to 20th Feb. We didn’t watch any news or really go on social media or anything and at that point I thought it was a load of hype about nothing.

I remember them saying SARS and swine and then bird flu were going to be pandemics etc and nothing much really came of it (as in very limited travel restrictions, no lock down) so I think it’s to be expected that this wouldn’t escalate.

Also until WHO advises against travel you don’t get your money back. I think people just hope for the best...

I agree to begin with it was seen to be a Chinese issue but by March it certainly wasn't any longer. Just because the advice didn't explicitly say do not fly doesn't mean people can't use their own common sense and think to themselves- ok it's fine to fly out of the country but will it be ok to fly back?. The advice said it's ok to fly out of the country at the moment, it didn't say it will be fine in one/two/three weeks time. It didn't say it will be ok to fly back into the country. Other countries were shutting their boarders, our government had no control about other countries grounding flights, anyone with common sense would have thought about that. So our advice says fine but what about the advice of the county they are going to. That needed to be considered. What about considering infection rates for that country and possibilities that flights from that country would be grounded. There was more at play than just our government advice.

If our country said it's fine to travel to x without malaria tablets but the country itself said no you need them, we have x examples of it. I know which one I would follow.

People go against government advice all day every day in normal situations, only drink x amount, drive at x speed, don't take drugs. Yet, on something like leaving the country during an impending pandemic it's fine to say- well the government didn't tell us not too.

Jim- then if they are hoping for the best and taking the risk they should accept they are taking a risk of being stranded there and paying inflated prices for flights home. Why should the government pay for their risk when they were hoping for the best and that didn't work out?