France transit/quarantine requirements are unfair

[Prochainesortie]

I know 5 families currently in relatively Covid safe European families (Eg Germany, Poland etc) visiting their own families who will now have to quarantine due to transiting France for a few hours and using the Eurotunnel. They won’t stay the night in France just refuel once due to driving distances, they won’t exit the car in the eurotunnel. 1 is my cleaner and she is panicking about no income on return. She doesn’t have online shopping and her children won’t be allowed out of her small flat to exercise for 14 days! The only reason she drove was to be safer and avoid airports! I think the U.K. government is unreasonable given France is such a transit country. More notice should have been given and they need to relax the transit requirements urgently. I agree that spending the night in France might increase the risk but 1-2 refuel/stop should be allowed as long as masks/sanitiser etc are used. My cleaner is driving in a big car with another family, I told her to look into driving through Germany for longer/carrying some fuel if possible. Hopefully she will find a way to avoid the quarantine legally by not having to stop.

Having a test is not an alternative to quarantine as incubation period is up to 14 days

The ironic thing is that cases have been rising fast in Poland since mid July, but the UK government seems to think it's OK to travel there.

@MaxNormal

Trashtara that's your grandparents. OPs cleaner went to see her child. Bit of a difference.

Where does it say that ? Op says the cleaner is travelling with her children not to her children.

@therhubarbbrothers

"Anybody travelling abroad is being irresponsible."

ODFOD.

We are not being irresponsible, we are taking a calculated risk and doing our best to cope with an ever-changing set of rules which don't always seem very logical.

And comparing travelling to a European country by car for a family funeral with a flight to Australia is just ridiculous.

I hope the air is fresher on your high horse.

@therhubarbbrothers

It may help to read the OP's posts.

The cleaner has a 7 year old in Poland.

Honestly, I'd travel to see my young child as much as I could and would risk quarantine any time.

Quarantine only makes sense when your own country is virus free. And still, NZ ended up with a new outbreak.

We are not being irresponsible, we are taking a calculated risk

And part of that risk is quarantine rules coming in with little notice

and the risk you are taking going abroad isn't just a risk to you, it's a risk to everyone if you bring the virus back with you

My cleaner’s almost 7 year old DD lives with her mother in Poland. They used to live here but moved back to Poland last year and my cleaner stayed here with her brother & sister and children who live together (rents in south east London are extortionate and they all help each other). They travelled together to Poland this summer to visit the rest of their family and mourn the loss of their grandmother. People like my cleaner have her roots&family in Poland - she is just here to work. She hasn’t seen her Dd for six months! Since Brexit she feels unwelcome and it is perfectly reasonable for her to go to her home country when it was allowed by the U.K. government. In fact I would go as far as saying that if it weren’t she would have just moved back permanently as she cannot not see her child for longer than 6 months. She wants to come back within the rules to clean in the school she has cleaned in for several years - she is their only employed cleaner. She did deep cleaning for days before she left and will do so again before term starts. There will be many people in similar situations as my cleaner - key workers who we rely on who have gone home this summer. My friend is Czech midwife she is currently at “home”. If she ends up quarantining in September it just means that our local hospital will be even more understaffed 9 months after Christmas when there is usually a baby boom. She will get tested on the NHS but the quarantine requirements are too stringent for keyworkers. I look at Germany and trust their response and systems much more- their numbers speak for themselves. Germany has put Spain on a risk area status but you can get tested to cut quarantine short. If you think that the way the U.K. government is dealing with Eu “exempt” countries etc differently from the rest of the EU and Schengen countries isn’t politically and Brexit motivated, you are naive. It is very stupid to alienate our European keyworkers that we need even further in the nhs, care system, house building sector etc. Most of them are hardworking and skilled at what they do.

I do feel for your cleaners family circumstances, it seems like she was visiting family abroad and it wasn't a "holiday" as such.

So many people getting their knickers in a twist, raging that anybody else dare go abroad, even when there were no restrictions in place.

Those who have family/in-laws nearby or on their doorstop, probably don't understand what it's like to have your family over 1000 miles away on the continent

How idiotic to travel at this time

But do you remember when the government was actively encouraging us all to go away?

Same as they’re doing now with eating out and casinos etc People doing that are being foolish too. But in their defence the government is encouraging them (actually bribing them) to do so.

Anyone going on holiday knew this was a possibility, and I don't have any sympathy for those saying it's unfair or discriminatory towards those from EU countries. And I say that as someone who has relatives from France. We live on an island, we only have a few limited options of how to travel to mainland Europe without flying, and it was pretty obvious that to protect our residents and the people of other countries that we'd need to introduce a quarantine if the cases started to rise.

Those who have family/in-laws nearby or on their doorstop, probably don't understand what it's like to have your family over 1000 miles away on the continent

How is this even relevant. I'm sure plenty of people do understand its difficult. It doesn't change the rules put in place to keep people safe in the midst of a pandemic.

@TurquoiseDress

I do feel for your cleaners family circumstances, it seems like she was visiting family abroad and it wasn't a "holiday" as such.

So many people getting their knickers in a twist, raging that anybody else dare go abroad, even when there were no restrictions in place.

Those who have family/in-laws nearby or on their doorstop, probably don't understand what it's like to have your family over 1000 miles away on the continent

I have family abroad. We don’t know when we will be able to see them because we know that isolating for two weeks when we got back from a trip wouldn’t be possible. Therefore until the chance of such restrictions being imposed is lifted we can’t go.

Another relative is hoping to get over later in the year because he is in a position where he can self isolate on return with no knock on.

Sadly for the time being you have to factor isolation into any potential travel plans.

YABU

Anyone travelling abroad must have been aware that travel restrictions may be brought into place, and rapidly. They have seen what had already happened with regards to Spain. If you chose to travel abroad at the moment, then this was a risk you chose to take.

It might have paid off- i.e. going might mean they might get their foreign holiday without any problems. However, they all knew there was a risk it could end up like this. I know some people travel to see family abroad, but the risk is still the same regardless of why you go. If you could not tolerate/afford the potential consequences of going (e.g. loss of income if you have to quarantine for 2 weeks), then you ought not to have gone. So, whilst I agree it’s not wonderful position for those caught up in it, I don’t have a huge amount of sympathy either- they knew the risks after all.

I don’t think travelling is necessarily irresponsible. But I do think people travelling- whether for a holiday or to visit family is irrelevant- were aware that restrictions could be imposed to any country with little warning. This meant travelling abroad carries a risk of needing to come home early and at short notice, or quarantining on your arrival. Anyone travelling at the moment who has chosen to run those risks has no-one to blame but themselves for the having to bear the consequences of the choices they made.

We are not being irresponsible, we are taking a calculated risk and doing our best to cope with an ever-changing set of rules which don't always seem very logical.

Yes, exactly. Ever changing set of rules - so risking travelling abroad when rules can and do change unexpectedly in response to a major pandemic is irresponsible. If you take that risk - which is not very calculated - then you have to accept the consequences.

And comparing travelling to a European country by car for a family funeral with a flight to Australia is just ridiculous.

In your opinion. Both were for a family funeral, both are things that people need to go to if it is sensible to travel. Travelling to one which involves a long haul flight is not sensible and neither is travelling to one which involves driving across several countries all of which could have quarantine rules imposed at very short notice - as happened with Spain and could be easily predicted with France. I could see what was coming with Australia and so didn't travel, you could also see the same coming with France.

Why not drop off some food and other essentials for her and her family.

You are obviously concerned about her wellbeing and this way they won't go hungry so she will be less worried.

How do you propose they differentiate people who transit through france vs people who went for say a daytrip or weekend break? There’s also no way to determine how many fuel stops someone took or what else they did during transit.. so yabvu. The rules are for everybody so they have to be somewhat generalised

@whiteroseredrose Iceland has been tweaking the rules in light of experience since opening the borders to non essential travellers in June. At the time you travelled, residents but not tourists were required to have one test at the border, then quarantine for 4-5 days, followed by a second test because it did happen that one person had a false negative on the first test. Some countries were on a 'safe list' and people coming from there didn't have to have a test at all. Most tourists (like you) had to have a single test at the border and very short quarantine until receiving results.

Now there is no safe country list and tourists are not exempt from the quarantine and second test. One rule for everyone.

Really, it was ridiculous that they dropped restrictions whenever that happened- was it 5 weeks ago?

Why did the government do that? It gave out the wrong message and compromised the country’s safety.

Hi Puffinshop. We were asked if we were staying more than 10 days and if so we would have needed the second test after 4-5 days.

From what we were told a tourist didn't quarantine while they were waiting for results and went straight to West Iceland. By the time they found out they were positive they had been in contact with dozens of people. So irresponsible.

We are currently still in the EU until December. Poland wasn’t meant to be “abroad” in the same way that a non EU country is. Eu countries opened their borders to each other in June (Schengen I think in July) and where cases rise in one country, they are trying to accommodate the concept of open borders with rigorous testing. Many of the responses on here clearly illustrate an “us” and “them” thinking, very insular. I am not surprised many Europeans now feel they aren’t upset but relieved about the U.K. leaving the EU. But in the mean time the U.K. government should treat their European workers fairly in line with other EU countries. Do you think Switzerland wouldn’t rather close to France at the moment given cases? (And Switzerland isn’t even in the Eu) They won’t for as long as possible as they are neighbours/aka friends and many people work across the borders.
My cleaner has booked a flight from Poland and won’t have to quarantine anymore.

whiterose Haha was that the cut off, so you'd have had to do it but not if it was going to be more than half of your holiday . Anyway, there are no exemptions now, even if you were only coming for a week you'd have to do the 5 day quarantine and second test. I'm happy as I've been really annoyed at the double standards for tourists and residents practically ever since this started. It's been the one issue I've had with the response which has otherwise been exemplary in my opinion.

This is nothing about the EU. Virus' don't understand politics.

It is about reducing risk, and the fact that we should all be very worried about what will happen in the autumn, when we gather indoors rather than outside and temperatures fall. The lower the virus circulation rate, the R rate, is then the better the chance we have of containing it.

There is so much at stake: Children's education; jobs; general physical and mental health, not counting people's lives.

It is a pity your cleaner cannot see this, and seems intent on whining about the UK to you.

The virus doesn’t care about borders or politics or anything else. I wouldn’t blame any country for closing borders at the moment because we need to take steps to protect people.