AIBU to cancel holiday?

[Nostrings457]

Booked to go to Malta in May - holiday balance is due tomorrow (over 6k). Travelling with young children and 1 aduly is aged 65+

Malta has no coronavirus cases currently but who knows what will happen between now and May. I dont want to pay the balance and then risk trying to claim off insurance if we dont go.

I suppose its more a what would you do than aibu?

(I know the risk is so low, influenza kills more people etc.. but i dont want to end up in quarantine with 3 young kids somewhere either)

I am still going on my holiday unless told not to by the FO /Airline
My travel insurance won’t pay out if FCO say not to travel
But I booked with British Airways to go to New York in June for 2 weeks and if they cancel then I am covered and will get any money back
So far I’ve only paid £150 on my credit card so could claim on that if I needed to
Balance is due in May
I have my ATOL certificate that I took a screen shot of last night
I think your screwed with regards to cancelling if you paid for hotel / villas separately from flights

Work from home if you can. If you can’t, you can’t. Never said quit your job. Stop being absurd.

I didn't say anything about anyone quitting their job, where did you get that from?

I was talking about the knock on effect. If people work from home, it will be the better off, because the waiters and shop workers can't do that. Then people don't want to go to restaurants and cafés because there are too many people. It's not the working from home middle classes who'll suffer, its the staff in the coffee shop, because they'll have no job to go to within a short period of time.

What is your spectacular point re: mortality? If 1% in young and 15% in the old why would that be different to 15% in young and 1% in old in terms of avoiding trains and buses, working from home and having Skype meetings if you can?

The point you spectacularly missed was that the impact of high mortality in the young is highest in the economy and society. Because the young are working and caring for the elderly and children.

But in terms of prevention, if mortality is very low in the young, there are not many reasons for staying at home and not going about their normal lives. Or closing schools.
Certainly to improve hygiene and handwashing, which by the way the UK seems to compare poorly to many other European countries.

I find it strange that soap is jumping off the shelves. Do plan not buy soap in usual times? I’m not washing my hands more than usual asi always wash them when I get gone from anywhere and before and lunch plus the after the bathroom etc.

People not plan

Home not gone!

@lilgreen my thoughts exactly. Overheard two women having a panic about it all in the toilets then proceeded to walk out without washing.

There's a meme going around comparing hand washing habits with coronavirus cases in Europe.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-european-countries-that-wash-their-hands-least-after-going-to-the-toilet-a6757711.html

"The accuracy of the results, however, may be debatable after a 2011 study found that, while 95 per cent of Britons claim to wash their hands after visiting the bathroom, barely a tenth actually do."

My teen DD said there are many girls who do wash their hands after using the loo. Yuck!

Do not!!!!

“The point you spectacularly missed was that the impact of high mortality in the young is highest in the economy and society. Because the young are working and caring for the elderly and children.”

The young are working while the elderly care for their children in many cases. So long term if we don’t minimise risks of elderly dying those young won’t be able to go out to work as they won’t have family / grandparent childcare.

And middle classes working from home will reduce overcrowding on public transport so those who must travel in are less tightly packed and so less likely to get infected. Should the middle classes all traipse in so it’s ‘fair’ even though it will cost lives (and not their own!)

The young are working while the elderly care for their children in many cases.

Not that elderly. Certainly not many of those with health complications that make them more susceptible to serious consequences from this coronavirus.

In a way it can be easy to shelter the elder because they are less out and about. Or at least, do not need to, with some support.
Unlike the working ages. It's not those many people who can work from home for many reasons. If the death rate and serious complications were highest among the young, key areas of our society could be at risk, including putting at risk the elderly and the children who depend on those working.
So, saying that a disease that affects mostly the elder can be more manageable and impacts less on society than if the risk was reversed.

Not that we should not care about it, but in terms of a doomsday scenario, it's less likely when the working ages are less affected.

I’m glad I took the decision not to travel to Italy with my grandchildren. Here at home we woke up this morning to the news that it’s one of 4 countries now on a ‘no entry on return/arrival’ list due to how prevalent the virus is in those 4 countries.

Interesting Information

www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/fbt49e/the_who_sent_25_international_experts_to_china/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

I'd cancel. X

Interesting article nanamilly. It is worrying that the duration of treatment required is so high. It prompted me to look at the international stats on hospital beds per 1000 population.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_hospital_beds

China had 4.37 in 2017, Italy 3.18. The uk is near the bottom of the list with 2.54. Japan and south korea have 12 and 13 beds per 1000 pop.

A person who travelled from Istanbul to Singapore via Turkish Airlines has been tested positive for Covid-19 so the authorities have sent the plane back to Turkey empty yesterday and the crew will be placed in quarantine upon landing. They are trying to trace the passengers who were on that flight. This means the virus must be circulating in Istanbul somewhere right?

This advice >"Over 60s have been advised by the WHO to avoid crowds - that includes airports and planes (and all inclusive hotels)".

Several weeks ago I wasn't an over-60. I don't feel we're getting any genuine guidance about what's happening with this bug from our Government, apart from reporting stuff like this. Am I suddenly more vulnerable or more of a danger than I was two months ago? I don't feel that Boris Johnson has got a handle on this at all, and Dominic Cummings (the real leader) is more interested in using this crisis for his own ends.

The Government are worried about the absolute numbers. Individuals are assessing risk to themselves. Every individual looking at the stats will think, I'm unlikely to die of it. And that's totally correct. As an individual our chances of recovering from the coronavirus are stacked in our favour. But the stats tell us that currently 3.4% of people will die, with some experts believe it will be lower at 1-2%. Either way, the numbers are huge and shocking if you work them out at a population level - and that's why the experts are seriously concerned, the WHO is concerned, Governments are concerned, and the stock markets are tanking. In the UK, if a quarter of the population become infected (Gov working on worst case scenario of 80%), and 2% of those people die - that's 332,200 deaths.

Whether we believe we are going to be personally affected by the virus or not, we need to ensure we don't spread the virus to vulnerable people - which includes anyone over 60 and anyone with underlying conditions. Which means we ALL have to take very seriously what the Government is asking us to do when they ask us to do it. And we can also be preemptive in not taking unnecessary risks, which involves avoiding high risk places such as airports, tourist hot spots.

I’m quite disappointed with the attitude of some. I have heard today at work “It’s all a load of fuss about nothing, I’m going on holiday and no one can stop me!” We work with children, some with serious health conditions, some of our staff are 60+. I really dislike the selfish mindset.

I don’t know what to do. My flight to New Zealand has been booked for some time. I need to see my boys.
At the moment I intend to go unless the government say I can’t.
I’m 60, in good health generally.
If I choose not to travel, I will lose £5k+
I can’t afford to lose this.

That’s really hard. I’ll lose £250 so a lot easier to take. When is your trip?

@MarkingTimeIm59, don’t lose it, go. The hysteria seems to be abating a bit now and common sense is returning. If travel was such a danger the Foreign Office would be advising against it. There are four cases in N Zealand at the moment, the mortality rate for those of us over 60 is 4%. The odds sound pretty good to me.

I don’t agree that the FCO have our best interests at heart. Their decisions are influenced by the political/economic effects.

I agree that there is no real line from Boris.