To think this is just a joke now?

[Justinversusmrtumble]

Portugal possibly going back onto the amber list.
The only thing keeping my parents going is coming to celebrate toddlers DD’s birthday in the summer. It’s getting beyond ridiculous now. Feeling so low today, I miss my family so much.

Have some sensitivity to the families of 150,000 victims of a virus brought in in the first place by people coming over with it and failing to isolate, because our government decided to not shut our border.

Rather than this being a race to the bottom in respect of who has a legitimate reason to be upset, you realise it’s possible to say ‘I’m sorry OP, that’s really shit and I get why you’re sad’ EVEN THOUGH other people have also suffered? We don’t need to find the one group ‘worthy’ of feeling upset at the situation. We can acknowledge that it is shit for everyone, that everyone is frustrated and missing important connections, that everyone deserves some empathy and understanding.

@Crazycatlady83 Exactly! I have friends here whose businesses won’t be able to survive for much longer

@BikeRunSki Thank you, I hope so for you too 💐 It’s definitely that feeling of time running out. Really considering just moving back as this is too much now

Annoyingly there is a discrepancy between the traffic light system and the official
Advice not to travel. Advised against travel can mean certain insurance policies are invalid so it's worth checking once
You know what is actually announced. If there insurance is valid and they can quarantine I personally think just push ahead with it

@User629202 Exactly, I don’t understand that attitude at all.

@nellly It’s all so confusing. It’s being said here it will mean people can only come over due to exceptional circumstances such as a funeral etc.
My parents can easily isolate in our house and garden and when home. They’d one here and literally be fine with going nowhere and doing all their tests etc.
They just want to be with us.

Most recent figures here are 32 cases, no deaths?! I mean 🤷🏻‍♀️

I hear you. My dc havent seen their granny for nearly 2 years. Shes getting frail. Shes got plans to come this summer but I doubt it will actually happen.

This virus was not, originally, at least, home grown. We imported it. Whilst we cannot do an Australia/NZ total closure of the borders, else we would starve, we can at least try to limit the risk by banning all travel that is not absolutely essential. It is a total bummer for those who have loved ones abroad - I'm one of them - but whilst this rotten disease is rampaging around the world there is the risk of importing something worse than we have already had to endure.....vaccine resistant strain, anyone? Look at Taiwan. They had minimal cases because they slapped on a 21 day quarantine on anyone coming in, including pilots. But when they reduced the quarantine time, very soon they had imported the virus again. Of course we all want to get back to normal, but until such time as covid recedes due to immunity, whether natural or vaccine acquired, i.e like flu, then travel restrictions have to be in place. Or we face more death and lockdowns.

It's an absolute pain in the arse. I'm actually sick of the whole lot of it. I'm moving back to my home country tomorrow , dp has to stay in the UK for a few weeks to work his notice and there is every chance that he could get locked out of my country. I'm 17 weeks pregnant and I have to go now to set up my care back home . Either allow travel or don't. This chopping and changing is just a pain. They told us vaccines would mean our freedom. It doesn't look like that is going to happen.

@Mydogisagentleman Fingers crossed for you 🙏

@romdowa No, it doesn’t

I'm not up to date on what's happening in Europe but Melbourne has just gone into lockdown again because the India strain has spread like wildfire.

They are reporting here that people are catching it just from walking past one another in a shopping mall as opposed to being adjacent in a restaurant for a couple of hours.

I don't know what the solution is but vaccinated people are contracting Covid here.

@JFCO

Calm down, OP. You are contradicting yourself: in your first post you say your parents are looking forward to celebrating your DD's birthday, then, in the later posts, you are saying this is 'not about bloody party!' What is it then, OP? Everyone is in the same boat, lots of people did not see their loved ones for a long time. Just because cases are low now, doesn't mean they will stay low when people, who are 'dying to see their family' start traveling en-masse. Sorry, but you sound like an entitled thicko.

I wonder if, in the whole history of people saying "calm down", that it has ever worked? Or do people just think "calm down yourself you patronising twit" instead

Im sorry you have not seen your parents in so long. I have friends in a similar position. One of my friends is Italian, they lost two family members to Covid. They could neither visit, nor attend their family member's funerals. It's really awful. Yet, we can have football players flying all around the world with their fans. Oh, as long as bloody football doesn't suffer eh. I'd be angry too.

They can be looking forward to their DGs birthday and it still be about a lot more than ‘just a party’. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
The OP is entitled to be deeply disappointed, cross and upset.
Yes, maybe within the wider picture, her little families plans aren’t important but to her they are everything.
And yes, there are 100s of other people in similar positions (some in worse) but that doesn’t really magically make her feel better.
Where’s the empathy?

I also thought amber list meant only travel for essential reasons. My inlaws are in an amber country and we haven't seen them for a year and a half now. It's an awfully low time out of a small child's life. The majority of people with families in the UK have had the chance to see their family, at least outside, during one period or more during the pandemic. If not, it has usually been by choice.

We should follow Australia and New Zealand and ban all non-essential travel in or out until next year at the earliest.

Thankfully 'we' won't. This isn't fucking N. Korea.

YANBU. Just have the party anyway. I'm going to see mates later this month. We're all vaccinated. We have ironclad alibis just in case because this is now fucking ridiculous.

How exactly are they checking if the trip is 'for essential reasons'?

I’d much rather we were stricter on travel and quarantine so that people were safer, we have time to vaccinate more and our economy recovers.
That goes above peoples wants to see family when they chose to live in different countries from them or a wish for a holiday or celebration.

Could you move there? Or they move here? Is that allowed?

Pretty much everything has been handled poorly... But can't really do much about that.

I would say though that amber is not so bad. Can test to release on day 5. 5 days is not bad.

I had to do 14 days, that got a little hard towards the end but first 5 days were not bad.