To think the U.K. should have just shut the boarders in March

[Lardlizard]

Surely that would have saved the country millions

I’d have said compulsory quarantine for anyone returning and no inbound visitors in March

THIS!

No, we’re not NZ.

Too keen on protecting the polluting aircraft industry.

Pollution aside HMGs actions over the last year would seem to indicate they have absolutely zero interest in protecting the aviation industry....I'd suggest failure to control or close borders in the Spring was down to incompetence or inertia.

I’d have said compulsory quarantine for anyone returning and no inbound visitors in March

And back to what I said before..hindsight , 20/20 etc and the fact that other countries closer to the epicentre than the UK and who who really are switched on when it comes to pandemics didn't feel the need lockdown at the start of March.

Singapore only started selectively banning foreigners from e.g. northern Italy in early March, bans for many from central europe kicked in later in the month..

I do think some think the progression of this was more obvious earlier than it actually was.

Yes. I remember being horrified when I realised that flights from all over the world were being allowed in with no checks or controls. What a mess it all is.

@notimagain

I’d have said compulsory quarantine for anyone returning and no inbound visitors in March

And back to what I said before..hindsight , 20/20 etc and the fact that other countries closer to the epicentre than the UK and who who really are switched on when it comes to pandemics didn't feel the need lockdown at the start of March.

Singapore only started selectively banning foreigners from e.g. northern Italy in early March, bans for many from central europe kicked in later in the month..

I do think some think the progression of this was more obvious earlier than it actually was.

Not sure if you’re agreeing or disagreeing

I don’t believe in lockdown but it was extremely obvious by February that quarantine was in order and at the worst point in March, I thought no holiday makers etc should be allowed in. That’s not hindsight.

Can’t remember when Trump called for closing borders but I was amazed at the response to a suggestion I thought was good common sense and key to infection control. I do wonder if some people couldn’t see past the fact that it was a Trump suggestion.

In fact, with hindsight I’m less sure because now the WHO say asymptomatic transmission is rare.

Yes

How exactly were you going to deal with the truck drivers who are back and forward across the channel daily?

Comparing the UK to Australia and New Zealand is daft boats sail for weeks to get to them, so effectively the crew are quarantined before they get there.

Yes. The economy would not have been unaffected, but it would have been an awful lot better than the current situation. And many many lives would have been saved. This is an island, for goodness sake! It should have been easy.

The Isle of Mann makes an interesting counterpoint.

Unfortunately, everything combined to create stupidity.

Conservatives adopted a daft "We are strong enough to cope with this virus!" stance. So ridiculous. A virus is not a terrorist organization--you don't defeat it by bravely shouting at it that "We are not afraid!!"

Left wingers spent a LOT of time wibbling and quibbling anxiously that closing borders/shutting off flights from China was somehow "racist"/might cause prejudice against ethnically Asian people (google "great COVID realignment" to see what I mean).

A lot of experts who should have known better acted as though spread of the virus was unstoppable and that closing borders would merely distract people from the need to "manage the curve of infections" within the country.

Meanwhile, countries like Vietnam and Taiwan ignored all the stupid sophistry and just went "OK, new virus from China. Bad news. Close borders." They were right.

I'm in NZ and I agree with the reasoning behind our first shut down. But I was also adversely affected by the Auckland/rest of the country shut down and zero thinking that went in behind it.

Today we still do not have a trans tasman bubblem shipping is starting to avoid our strict covid protocols, some items harder to obtain, and yet covid keeps coming in with expats living o/s who are forced into managed isolation facilities.

I think if every country had done an initial shutdown, we (the world) would not be in the position we are now and infected numbers would be far smaller.

Can’t remember when Trump called for closing borders but I was amazed at the response to a suggestion I thought was good common sense and key to infection control. I do wonder if some people couldn’t see past the fact that it was a Trump suggestion

Yup. The Great Covid Realignment in action.
twitter.com/edwest/status/1318460476901253120

Back at the start of the year, you had commentors looking at the situation and posting things like:
"This is just a superficial read of Twitter, but response to coronavirus is on the same politico cultural lines as everything else.
College educated liberal: quarantines are ineffective, the flu is more dangerous, relax.
Conservatives, freak out, travel ban, quarantine."

Oh how things have changed!

Bigballer, the economy was going to be affected either way, but countries that shut down borders quickly at the start have been far less affected.

What about British manufacturers who import parts or export products? What would we eat if we couldn't get food from Europe?

Most exports and imports arrive by ship not plane. Do you think Taiwan is self sufficient in all its food etc? They still import and export a ton of stuff.

The main thing we should have done, is all the skiing trip in the half term should have been quarrenteened, we already knew that it was spreading it Italy, yet we sent the kids off on their holidays and then straight back into schools, with the words, well it is not in the affected regions.

Then the travel corridors were a mistake, we should have said its just not going to happen.

The only thing I am not sure how we could have managed is the import and export, we need to ship in things, whether through air or lorry and maybe that is where we should have concentrated our track and trace system.

Bigballer, its possible to shut the borders to people but not freight. You just use quarantine where necessary. I'm in Western Australia where our borders were closed. My husband works in freight, he has never been busier. The economy here is doing well, and we are leading practically normal lives, with the exception of no overseas travel. But that's a price most are willing to pay.

The economy would ground to a halt if you shut the borders! Borders are not just for holiday makers traveling around for fun but for business. What about British manufacturers who import parts or export products? What would we eat if we couldn't get food from Europe?

COVID border controls are on people, not goods. If you hadn’t noticed there’s a bit of trade war between China and Australia at the moment. They’ve both still been trading with each other despite having some of the strictest controls on travel by people.

Take a look at the economic performance of Japan, South Korea, vs the UK and let us know who has done worse this year.

@StillCoughingandLaughing

This ‘argument’ is ridiculous. Australia is several times the size of Britain with barely a third of the population, and New Zealand, as its nearest major neighbour, is still a significant distance away. By contrast, the UK is small and densely populated, and part of a relatively small and very densely populated continent. London is within a two-hour flight of a dozen or more major European cities. Do you really think ‘If Australia can do it, why can’t Britain?’ is a sensible comparison?

Why not? Most of the population of Australia is concentrated on its coasts, particularly the east coast. Much of our goods arrives by ship - not by air, and the rest we our self-sufficient. If the UK closed air borders, you would be primarily reducing human traffic in and out. You can still receive goods via lorry freight - carefully controlled - and via ship. It wouldn't be easy, but it could be done in an circuit-breaker situation such as this.

Waste of time worrying about it now. How would it have worked in Northern Ireland anyhow? Is it a border (for quarantine)? Is it not a border (for quarantine)? People go back and forth multiple times a day.

@Bigballer

The economy would ground to a halt if you shut the borders! Borders are not just for holiday makers traveling around for fun but for business. What about British manufacturers who import parts or export products? What would we eat if we couldn't get food from Europe?

You lot are very simple minded.

So you think Australia and NZ haven’t imported anything since their borders were closed?

@VanCleefArpels

How does this help you now? I’d be using my energy worrying about the things I do have control over. No point vexing about things that can’t be changed

Unless the OP is Boris Johnson she can't control any of this.

All we can do is assess the effectiveness of politicians and use our vote- so this is about what OP can do in the future.

In 2009, when swine flu was around and we were all trying to decide how worried we should be about it, I travelled from Sri Lanka to India. I had some kind of dreadful virus and had woken on the morning with a raging sore throat, temperature and aches and pains.

On the way through customs they had one of those video temperature gages (don't know what they're called!) and sure enough there was me raging bright red next to all the other yellow bodies. It took a lot of persuading and looking at my tickets to get them to allow me into the country. It was only because I had been in Sri Lanka for maybe 5 days previously (which didn't have any cases of SF at the time) so they deemed me not to have it and I was allowed to go into India.

I just assumed with the massive global pandemic systems like this would have been in place, I was astonished when I realised they weren't!

@womanaf

Yes. Looking at how Australia and NZ are right now, absolutely yes.

Well those countries seem to have been largely on board with whatever their government decided. We just whinge like fuck about most things our government suggests and our government are too weak to push on anyway. Not to mention that they need the pandemic to have something to blame the approaching catastrophe of Brexit on.

The government shouldn’t have triggered brexit either. It was obvious what was coming by mid January. We went to France in the feb. I was nervous to go then but it was to see family there and for me it was a now or never situation. We left France the day the Mulhouse Super spreader event ended.

I’ve said YANBU but March would already have been too late. We should have closed flights to and from China and any country reporting cases. As an island nation, we depend on food from abroad. But trade would have continued.

Of course NZ imports stuff. The difference is that we closed our borders to all but citizens and permanent residents ages ago. We don't even trust those to self-quarantine and they stay in facilities for
tougher than in the UK - police manning road blocks, only critical workers at work or using public transport, no school, no bars, no restaurants, no takeaways and no online ordering of anything but groceries and people could only go for a walk with no driving except to fetch food, go to the doctor, or fill a prescription at the chemist. As a result we have no community transmission of covid and apart from not travelling overseas we have entirely normal lives. It was initially painful but worth the result. Our PM addressed the nation every day with an update on the fight to eliminate covid with news about numbers.