Holidays - Here we don’t...

[DadAManger]

We are back to where we always feared we would be (again). No more holidays in Portugal. The rest of the green list is a washout, where we aren’t welcome in Singapore or Australia anyway. Now we have a new `Vietnam Variant’ and new “Nepal Variant’ - and we kept the air border with India opened far too long and now we have a spike. Where on earth do we go from here? Skegness again.

Is the Government being reasonable?

The government have done a shit job of managing people's expectations with the crazy "amber list"

It should be green or red.

For me, even a green destination would be too much faff with all the testing etc. I really don't like the idea of being on a plane with a load of other people - including children who won't have been tested or vaccinated, bearing in mind today's news that the Delta variant is transmitting like wildfire in schools.

UK holidays for me this year (have worked throughout and am tired but realistic)

I live near an International airport - which has seen maybe 5 planes go out a day now - rather than 5 in 10 minutes. And some of the 5 will be 'taken round the block' to avoid flat tyres and to keep the engines and gear working. It's not just the airline pilots/crew that are now facing redundancy, it's the airport check-in, baggage handlers, caterers, admin, security, passport control, trainers, control tower... hundreds of thousands of people directly or indirectly affected in my area alone.

This has got to have a direct impact on people's mental and physical and financial health. HUndreds of thousands of people - potentially suicidal (at worst) or depressed, anxious and needing medical intervention. And that's just my county. How many other airports in UK? How many hotels, restaurants, cafes, tourist attractions, museums, festivals in the UK and Europe that depend on Tourists coming IN?

Not to mention the hundreds of thousands who would normally fly to Italy/Spain?portugal/Croatia etc and will now go to Cornwall? Not sure how that will help prevent another 'wave'? Pack them into Devon? The Lake district?

The impact of all this will have huge implications far in to the future. JUST the living with this constant fear, the high level of anxiety and dread and sheer fear that some people now live with - all raises your Cortisone levels, and this will have an effect on your physical health. High, sustained high levels of Cortisone have been shown to cause heart attacks, strokes, depression.

But hey, at least it's not Covid, right?

It’s a government ploy to make us all stay and spend our money in the U.K. as they’ve fucjed the economy so badly.

Average death rate from covid is 82, higher than the normal death rate.

How many years of life have they actually saved by locking everyone up for a year versus the years lost through lack of cancer, coronary and other treatments. Why could we not have protected the vulnerable and carried on as normal,

The media just issue scare stories continuously to perpetuate all this. Where is the real journalism?

www.waterstones.com/book/a-state-of-fear/laura-dodsworth9781780667201?awaid=3787&utm_source=redbrain&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=css&gclid=Cj0KCQjwnueFBhChARIsAPu3YkQnHZIseepbG3YEHUQB47Igu4F9wLaELSsUIFTE7IYLeIoDjv3Gr4UaAjwcEALw_wcB

People should read this

I’m going to watch the Euros football fixtures carefully, will the countries England play in go green just before? It’s always football first it seems.

@EnglishGirlApproximately We're also lucky to have started with a great balance sheet which has seen us through to now, but we're a small privately owned Tour Op and it's just awful that the owner who's spent the best part of 50 years building it up is just having to sit and watch it drain away.

We've managed to keep redundancies to just a few voluntary for now, with some natural retirement/new job drop off helping that. The rest of us have been on part-time hours (but with more than full-time work to do) for the majority of the last year and are completely rinsed out and continually on edge that last minute announcements can throw us all into chaos at any moment. Never been in greater need of a holiday, ironically.

I agree in part that it would be better if they just said 'hold off until next year' but that's more or less what they said last year too, so I don't know how much confidence it would really provide.

I’m so cross and confused about all of it.
At the beginning of this year we were in lockdown. The vaccine programme hadn’t begun, and we had no idea how successful it would be. Hospitals were full and many people were dying. Foreign travel was banned unless it was absolutely essential. India was in a terrible state with a new variant. And yet people who had travelled illegally to India were given several days notice to come back to the UK, bringing with them the new strain of virus.

Fast forward to now - we’ve vaccinated most of the adult population, and the vaccine is seemingly effective against the Indian variant. Case numbers are climbing a bit but people aren’t getting ill and needing hospital treatment. Case numbers are low in the UK and most European countries. Some islands have vaccinated their entire adult population. And yet we’re being told it’s too dangerous to go there.

None of it makes any sense. I think there is a serious risk of civil unrest if the government don’t start to make more logical decisions, and take some time to justify the decisions they make to the public. Right now it sounds like they’re pulling ideas out of a hat!

Ya must spend all your savings in the the UK. Welcome to little Brexit Britain.

Also, once there are no travel agencies or cheap airlines left in business, we'll get to always holiday in the uk. Quite right too. Because there will always be new variants (funnily enough they seem to actually originate in the uk) and the EU is mean.

@scubadive

It’s a government ploy to make us all stay and spend our money in the U.K. as they’ve fucjed the economy so badly.

Average death rate from covid is 82, higher than the normal death rate.

How many years of life have they actually saved by locking everyone up for a year versus the years lost through lack of cancer, coronary and other treatments. Why could we not have protected the vulnerable and carried on as normal,

The media just issue scare stories continuously to perpetuate all this. Where is the real journalism?

I agree about the media. We never see headlines about things going well. But journalists have multiple orgasms if they can report a peak in cases.

I worked in travel from being 17 and was made redundant in feb I'm 35. Last year I was desperate for the government to allow travel to open again, it's only as I've come away from the industry now that I think it's for the best not to open up. I've just been on a uk holiday, it was busy and stressful. I've been anxious all week so I won't be planning anymore stays away from home until there's less restrictions.

@ImInStealthMode oh definitely, any trust in the government has been completely eroded in the last 12 months. Any full scale cancellation announcement would have to be accompanied by a tailored support package. That's never going to happen though as Schapps just doesn't understand the industry at all. There is zero realisation that furlough isn't an option for many industry businesses and that we don't open our doors and start making money like retail or hospitality. We're essentially open with nothing to sell. My business is operating at the moment, in the UK in a very limited way but also in other markets who are able to travel. Our colleagues in other countries are looking on in disbelief at whats happening here.
Today I'm seeing anger rather than sadness in the industry, I just don't know where we go from here.

And the “holidays aren’t essential” crowd can fuck off as well. Maybe holidays aren’t essential to those that have spent the last year or so on furlough, or working from home in their nice comfy homes with big gardens. They are bloody essential for those of us that have kept the country going this last year.

Oh get over yourself. I've been run off my feet all year and a holiday abroad isn't essential. Lots of people working minimum wage jobs could never afford one anyway. Just go somewhere in the UK like people have been doing for generations. I usually go abroad each year but this year I'm not and I'll survive. Lots of nice places in the UK.

I'm so sorry @hartof . So many absolutely brilliant, passionate & experienced people in the travel industry have now been made redundant and moved in to other industries; we'll never get that talent back.

It's dramatic to say but when the suggestion is that we don't travel to preserve life; when travel IS your life where does that leave you?

Oh get over yourself. I've been run off my feet all year and a holiday abroad isn't essential. Lots of people working minimum wage jobs could never afford one anyway. Just go somewhere in the UK like people have been doing for generations. I usually go abroad each year but this year I'm not and I'll survive. Lots of nice places in the UK.

Those people will never be able to afford the UK with the hugely inflated prices.

@fourminutestosavetheworld

UK holidays this year for all but the bravest and wealthiest I think.

Annoying but, unless you are trying to travel to see family, not devastating I wouldn't have thought.

I’m neither but I’m going to Spain

@ClaudiaWankleman

Loads of cheap places to go in the UK. We just camped super cheap over half term and it was lovely and cost under £100 for 4 days. You don't have to stay in the centre of St Ives to have a nice holiday.

I have so much sympathy for people wanting to travel to see their families, my heart truly goes out to them. Anyone wanting a jolly should get over themselves and just accept it not happening this year. All the 'but we've had our jabs!' crowd....yes you might have but the people living where you want to jet off to haven't!

I’m just getting tired of this whole thing. This covid is not gonna disappear. It’s gonna carry on mutating.there is gonna be no travel
Industry left. All those jobs gone. People are fed up. Mental issues in nearly everyone I know. Why would someone choose to holiday in a packed uk destination at extortionate prices compared to going to Europe , less packed , where they would also I like to be very vigilant with hand washing , sanitising and mask wearing .

And the “holidays aren’t essential” crowd can fuck off as well. Maybe holidays aren’t essential to those that have spent the last year or so on furlough, or working from home in their nice comfy homes with big gardens. They are bloody essential for those of us that have kept the country going this last year

Really don’t think you can say it’s key workers who want holidays abroad. My husband is a doctor who was redeployed to ICU - a lot of the sentiment there wasn’t “we want a holiday abroad”, more “please God don’t let there be a third wave”.

That said I sympathise totally with the problems this will cause. MH through the floor, the travel industry on its knees and families separated. It’s horrible. I do support closing borders though because unfortunately in a pandemic, there is pain that has to fall somewhere. In my opinion, sacrificing non-essential travel to give us the best chance of reopening everything domestically (and staying open) is a better option than allowing non essential travel, and then increasing the chances of new strains entering the country such that every other industry (as well as travel) is absolutely fucked again when we lock down.

@happytoday73

Honestly... To me you are safer in apartments on the Greek Islands, Malta or balerics eating outside, spending time on the beach etc than you are in the UK doing many of the things you are now allowed to do indoors. Yes the plane has risks but so does going on a bus or train in the UK. Malta has a lower covid rate than us and more vaccinated so why are we not allowed to go...especially if we ourselves have been double vaccinated. In reality this is all very political... Its not just based on the science... They are willing for us to do higher risk things in the UK than go and spend our money abroad doing what is actually safer activities.

If you, in isolation, went to Malta, you’d probably be as safe or safer than in Bolton, yes. But what about the other people in the other hotel rooms in Malta? The families from Germany, from Spain, from Blackburn also on holiday? If one of them sat next to someone from another country in the airport, for instance? It could spread really quickly when you’re mixing with people from lots of different countries or cities. TBH I’d ban all international travel for the rest of the year if I were in charge.

Agree with @SaltAndVinegarSandwiches
Time off work is essential, foreign travel is not

Not speaking from a great position here -- small flat, no garden, working long hours and homeschooling etc. DH in food retail so yes, one of the people keeping the country going through lockdown. Both our families are abroad so we haven't seen them in almost two years.

For our own sanity we decided months ago not to plan any foreign travel until things are much more stable, like actually stable not just promises from politicians. I think it was horribly irresponsible of the government to lead people to believe foreign holidays would be totally back on this year.

And I haven’t been furloughed, and not have I had a holiday or been abroad since 2019. I’ve been working (and homeschooling for at least some of the time). I just think we do need to suck it up a bit longer. It’s not like UK holidays are awful. You absolutely don’t need to be in another country to have a break from work or even your own flat or house.

I do support closing borders though because unfortunately in a pandemic, there is pain that has to fall somewhere. In my opinion, sacrificing non-essential travel to give us the best chance of reopening everything domestically (and staying open) is a better option than allowing non essential travel, and then increasing the chances of new strains entering the country such that every other industry (as well as travel) is absolutely fucked again when we lock down.

Yes, this is it exactly. And if this government were competent, they would be making this work somehow, rather than promising the moon and then leaving people and industry high and dry.

I can't be concerned about people missing their 2 weeks in the beach, I'm sure once in a lifetime we can all find ways to have fun /make memories that don't involve travel.

I do feel very sad for people who need to travel to see family though. Time changes people, especially at certain stages in life and if you miss it, it's gone forever. Sometimes it will be too late altogether

I do wonder why these restrictions make sense though. Surely with our high levels of vaccination we're a much bigger risk to other countries than they are to us?