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

[Lardlizard]

Surely that would have saved the country millions

Course they should but it's money over lives for them

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

I'm in Australia. Yes, we have fared better than the UK, that's undeniable, but I'm not sure that's got much to do with the boarder closure. We are Just a completely different country to the UK. We are geographicslly isolated, we are very thinly populated, we have a much better healthcare system, outside of the major cities we have very little public transport, and we are very hot country and it's currently our summer. The list goes on and on. I think these things have more to do with our success than the boarder closure.

Besides, the boarder isn't really closed. It never has been. We've had a steady stream of people travelling into the country this whole time. It's just that we've imposed lots of rules on who can travel and when, and what they have to do when they get here.

I don't think it would really be possible to completely close boarders to the point where literally no one gets in. Maybe it could happen but we haven't seen that yet.

@GreenlandTheMovie

9h for the love of God, where does this word "boarder" come from? If you don't even know how border is spelled, how can you attempt to be authoritative about this issue?

I'm answer to your question - no, it would have been too pre-emptive ab

She made one mistake in her OP. You've made three Karma's a bitch.

To have had any hope of a NZ response we would have needed to close boarders in January, not sure people would have gone with it. By March it had spread to almost endemic levels which is why it’s so hard to control now.

I pressed YANBU - but did think whether I should have pressed YABU as this virus is costing many billions- not millions.
I think most of us with an iota of common sense were waiting to hear what the government was going to do about border control for international travellers in February and March.

They should have done it before Feb half term.
Anything later would have been shutting the gate after the horse bolted

If Boris had actually got of his fat arse and attended Sage meetings before March and acted we would be in a very different situation now. Unfortunately he is a self absorbed narcissist interested in self-promotion also it would never have happened.

Been saying this since the first lockdown And everyone has just laughed at me like a was stupid.

Also = so

Ffs... BORDER

Phone typos TheSilentStars.

But why on earth do people actually think "border" is spelt as "boarder"?

I would attempt to explain how the unnecessarily early prolonged loss of human rights is harmful to society and just one case from the so-called elite travelling could have sparked the whole thing off, but what's the point?

I was correcting myself, not the OP

Shut the borders rather than shut the boarders perhaps?

I still to this day don't understand why that wasn't the first thing the government did. Surely, it made the most sense?!

@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.

‘You lot are very simple minded’ Says the analyst who can’t differentiate between freight/cargo imports/exports and Fiona from Fifes jaunt to Benidorm

Have you heard of hindsight @Lardlizard?

I think this is incredibly easy to say now in hindsight. If we knew now what we know then there may have been a different call, but this was a new disease that we didn't really understand. It wouldn't just have been the luny conspiracy theory types talking about civil liberties. Auz and NZ are much less connected from the world anyway, I think it's a very different situation there. In hindsight I wish we had, but I also think it would have appeared too much, too soon.

Border, boarder...grow up! The meaning was obvious.

Yes we should have shut down, unfortunately the government were looking for herd immunity at the time. Stupid? Oh yes.

We should be on lockdown now for Christmas, Italy have implemented total lockdown from 24 December-1 Jan for red zones. We get crappy advise to keep it small.

This is what happens when a fucking idiot runs a country.

joystir59 I've now got a rather lovely if worrying image of a collection of surfers with shoulder length hair riding the waves around Britain, repelling ships and patrolling the waters...

It's the new chester draws!

Even if you have not completely shut the borders, you could have required quarantine in a hotel near the airport, such as is the case in Australia now (as Adam Hills has had to do). This would have meant business for the hotels, and also some people who had any option to remain in the country they were at the time such as with family abroad would have done so.

March was too late, the February half term trips were a disaster with so many flocking to Italy and not being quarantined. Someone in my son’s class had a relative stay with them from an affected area of Italy for half term. He then was in school with a horrendous cough but testing wasn’t available at that time so no idea if it was COVID or not.

I'm not sure it could ever have kept Covid out, though. There would always have had to have been exceptions, on legal and diplomatic if not humanitarian grounds... the virus would inevitably have snuck in somehow. And then the Daily Fail crew would be blaming those migrants so desperate they'd crossed the channel on inflatable dinghies.

Right, so we should have just ignored the fact that all EU rules still applied including free movement, and prompted an early unagreed no deal because of it and who knows what diplomatic crisis in addition to probably failing to control covid internally as our population density is in no way comparable to Australia or New Zealand?

By the way, parts of Australia were totally locked down through much of their winter (our summer) while we were relatively free, and the virus surpressed. It's a totally different season here at the moment.

I would attempt to explain how the unnecessarily early prolonged loss of human rights is harmful to society

Oh, are foreign travel and holidays abroad a human right now?