Quarantine for people arriving from abroad

[NoSoapAndGory]

The news indicates that Boris will announce a 2 week quarantine for all non-UK flight arrivals from the end of May.

I completely agree with this and am stunned that it hasn't been done sooner.

Reading the piece in the Guardian it seems that there are still thousands of people stranded abroad. That must but incredibly frightening but surely i am not being unreasonable to think that this measure is not only necessary but also woefully, unforgivably late?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/09/two-week-coronavirus-quarantine-to-be-announced-for-uk-arrivals?CMP=ShareAndroidApppNewsFeed

Good, should have done this as soon as we knew of cases elsewhere.

NZ seem to have handled it well and they did this weeks ago.

As an island we are not able to close borders the way Australia/NZ cam unfortunately. So it would have been difficult to do it much before. And in the middle of it it would have appeared pretty pointless as we're amongst the worse in terms of controlling this situation. Going forward I'm not sure it will make much if a difference and I don't expect strict enforcement in any event.

As an island we are not able to close borders the way Australia/NZ cam unfortunately. What? Apart from our border with Ireland, we are an island nation. Of course we could have closed our borders sooner. We should certainly have done a lot more to monitor the health of those arriving home, just as we should have been doing track and trace on all cases right from the start and not given up because it was all getting a bit tricky.

I read a thread on Twitter the other day from an American living in South Korea. Over there they closely question every arrival about their health. Everybody has to go into quarantine for two weeks after arrival in S. Korea. They either go to their own home or they go to a quarantine dorm. You can't go to a hotel or hostel or friend's house. They have to wear an ankle bracelet so their movements can be monitored. They're not allowed to go out at all during that time. Spot checks are made. The government sends out parcels of food, toiletries etc and the workers who deliver them also check on the health and welfare of the quarantined residents.

Hardly surprising in these circumstances that they have the epidemic under excellent control.

Gaspode - I dont think we're as self sufficient as Australia and NZ. That's the point.

I'd be surprised to learn that Australia and NZ import less than we do. They both probably have fewer people arriving from abroad, but tourism is a very important part of their economies, and they acted decisively in spite of that. Our government has really let us down.

NZ hasn’t closed our borders to imported goods, only non-NZ residents/citizens essentially. However, international postage times are longer and stores like ASOS have put postage fees up. ASOS is hardly essential though.

Arrivals in NZ are quarantined in hotels for 14 days.

What happens with flight crew on long haul flights?

Only works if we apply the same rules on flights to boats and channel tunnel.

Why are France exempt from this? Does that mean someone from China can fly to France and then come into the UK without quarantine?

Also, do you mean GB op? The UK isn't an island.

France are exempt 'cos the UK are exempt from France's quarantine restrictions.

What happens with flight crew on long haul flights?

Not sure what the proposal is for the UK but generally it's down to local rules..

Crews coming back to base can usually go home.

For crews (Flight and Cabin ) slipping down route rules have been varying :

Some countries give crew an exemption, they have no restrictions.

Some countries restrict crew to area around hotel - leave hotel for essential reasons only such as food ( and you have to use a tacking app), or are restricted to hotel itself.

Some countries are or have been (e.g; SIngapore) confining slipping crew to their rooms for the whole stay, no leaving room for any reason..food delivered to door.

The uk is an island - they should have done this as the first measure and we could still have an economy like NZ. It’s a bit too late in my opinion. Plus why 14 days? If you have symptoms you need to isolate for 7 days in the uk. Why 14 days for people with no symptoms?

The uk is an island.

Could you point out the location of Northern Ireland on that UK island?

Does that mean someone from China can fly to France and then come into the UK without quarantine?

ATM it's almost impossible for anybody who isn't a French national, or a EU/UK national who has their primary residence in the country to be allowed to enter France.

I suspect that isn't going to change much, other than the relaxation for the UK case.

Australia here, we shut borders initially from China then Italy and then the world because the infections were all coming from overseas.

We still had many people returning home and they were forced to accept government funded isolation in hotels under armed guard.

This was after the ruby princess ship debacle where almost 3000 passengers were allowed off the ship.

This is one of the main reasons we have such a good handle on transmission.

The Uk should have closed their borders. At the beginning.

I didn't realise they hadn't until friends and family said I should still be able to visit this UK summer if I wanted.

So far as I understand it, there's only benefit to doing it and putting the resource into it once your numbers are low enough that people could be adding threat so it needs to be done on day 1 or when control begins to return so once the boat was missed there was little point implementing it until now really.

It's encouraging to see, and will hopefully act as a deterrent against anything but the most necessary of travel.

WHO recommends quarantine on arrivals at the beginning of an epidemic (WHO source here:

"Travel measures that significantly interfere with international traffic may only be justified at the beginning of an outbreak, as they may allow countries to gain time, even if only a few days, to rapidly implement effective preparedness measures. "

For some reason this advice was not taken at the beginning of our infection, but when we are one of the top infected countries.

Re-reading the WHO thing, looks like they mean travel bans by "travel measured that significantly interfere with international traffic" and quarantine fits under "effective preparedness measures.

So they recommend countries use restrictions to stop and limit the flow as they introduce medical checks, etc.

We cannot feed ourselves if we close the borders. We're what, 50 or 60% self-sufficient in food? New Zealand and Australia are more than self-sufficient.

The borders are closed to people, not goods.

Genuine question - how come you're still abroad? FCO has been advising people to return home for weeks

Home looks awful. 🤷‍♀️ They were telling people to come home but until very recently the flights were completely erratic and getting either cancelled (I know someone who had 7 flights in a row cancelled and has her entire savings now in fekkin flight credits) and/or ridiculously expensive.

Also we can't just go to the airport and wait for a flight as we have a camper and loads of sports gear to sell before we go.

The flights are a bit more organized now but there are 8 cases in the whole of West Australia and we've got cheap accommodation and visas for the time being.

@ittakes2 Plus why 14 days? If you have symptoms you need to isolate for 7 days in the uk. Why 14 days for people with no symptoms?

7 days incubation + 7 days for symptoms to develop = 14 days

Apologies, that’s not quite right.

Most people develop symptoms within 14 days of infection.

It’s not helpful to divide it as 7 days incubation/7 days for symptoms to develop. Really it’s just one, 14-day period during which the disease may manifest itself.

Note that incubation may be longer than 14 days - so there remains a risk that people will finish the quarantine, still be asymptomatic, and will go on to spread the virus in the community . But I think the policy making decision Behind the quarantine is that the vast majority of cases would be caught with a 14 day quarantine. And we can cope with the rest.

Just bumped into an article on the subject.

Guardian: Air passenger quarantine plan makes no sense, UK adviser says

Mainly arguing the same as WHO article, that quarantine is an early epidemic tool, like lockdown.

Here quick, lock the door, the horse has bolted.

Meanwhile the rest of Europe will be accepting flights from the UK with no quarantine, so how will that work in reverse then ?