Anyone risking heading to France in the near future?

[MajorClanger123]

Just that really.... we are booked to sail this Sunday.

Before anyone vilifies me for even considering going away during a pandemic, we are visiting my inlaws who live in a very low risk region of France. We havent seem them since Christmas, they are both late 70s and my husband feels we should go over and check up on them / spend a week with them. We've had the ferry booked since January, but I guess can shift it (to when, I don't know!) / suck it up and take the monetary hit.

What is everyone elses thoughts re: France being added to the list? I've read way too much in the media / am feeling too emotional about it to make a decent judgement today....

Although I see on closer reading your oarets are not quite so vulnerable so perhaps that's not really the main issue. I absolutely get your concern about being quarantined when he/you get back, that would be a major pisser, agreed.

We were in Spain when the quarantine came in. The FCO advice for those that were there was to stay for the rest of the hol. But obv quarantine on arrival back. Some people staying where we were checked with their insurance which said that if they were to leave early they wouldn’t be following FCO guidance - to stay for rest of hol- and they needed to stay to still be insured! So even in that extreme situation ( small number of hours’ notice) the insurance was still fine and FCO guidance didn’t mean it wasn’t ok to be There.

I would go ahead with your trip and stay in their house but have a covid test before you leave the UK (apparently it is fairly easy to get these at testing centres now) and take as much care as possible on the journey to them. Saying this on the assumption you are not in a covid hotspot in the UK.

I have recently visited my mother in the UK and stayed with her. I also drove her to a few places in the car. It would not have been practical to socially distance and spend quality time with her over several days. I also needed to help her with various things inside the house. I have not been in anyone else's house since lockdown or had anyone in my house but I think that one has to take the risk of seeing one's own parents as it would damage their mental health too much to be on their own indefinitely and often they are going to need some kind of practical help around the house with odd jobs etc.

Yes chocolate, its your risk (of illness, sadness, and inconvenience); their risk; your feelings about both, and their feelings about both, that somehow all has to be juggled, isn't it?

My Mum is vv anxious as she has so many 'conditions', but is well and independent still, and that is what she feels is most precious to her!

I have complete sympathy with your situation.
DDs and I came out to Spain as soon as we were able at beginning of July because my DM is out here and is considered vulnerable.
We had to weigh up the chance of taking Covid with us and infecting her and her friends to the need to see her after an enforced break. Every sympathy with your DH because it really is hard when you know you can't just pop on a plane if anything were to happen.

We made the decision to self isolate here at mothers house (remote location) and it was at least ten days before any of us saw any extended friends or family.
Equally DMs nearest neighbours arrived at their holiday home from Paris 8days ago and have barely left their gates. Usually they are in and out all the time but he is something in pharmaceuticals so speaks volumes that he nor his family are yet going out for dinner or entertaining.
For a 'holiday' I would think the risk of bringing anything from the U.K. to other countries is not worth it.
For peace of mind to see his parents absolutely the risk is worth it. For him.
We're now looking to when we should come back and there is another question.
DD1 about to enter second year of uni so has bought forward her flight to allow for quarantine, mainly due to the fact her job restarts beginning of September.
DD2 and I I'm not so sure. She's about to go into yr11 but even so don't want to rush back if UK are heading for a peak or spike about then.

I've decided that with so much uncertainty we can only make decisions which are right for our own families.
No judgement toward other people's decisions as equally no one should judge your own

We are in the same position as you (minus the inlaws) I am very worried about taking the children, my husband is completely relaxed and tells me not to worry 'its only France' and we are driving, so we can get home, but surely if and when France is removed from the green list EVERYONE and his dog will be trying to get back all at once! Surely this is going to be terribly stressful, and potentially we may not be able to 'nip back home' at all.

I have other concerns too, as we are due to be staying in the south of France, what happens if our area goes into lockdown? Are we then stuck and can not leave? I remember the lockdown form filling in France to get shopping in the spring and this is a massive concern for me, being trapped and stranded there. Our villa does not have a printer from what I can see, we have to drive to the nearest town, so how do you get the forms in this scenario ??

The rate in France is definitely higher than the UK, much higher and this will multiply quickly as we have seen on Chris Whitty's charts, so what is 2000 infections today, could be 8000-9000 by the time we go, it could be twice that whilst we are there.

We have worked all the way through, we are exhausted, I know dh is desperate for a break, but I fail to see at the moment how it can be a break or relaxing with this hanging over us the whole time.

I just so wish the UK government would just decide, Rishi I think gave a coded warning this morning, those that travel to France should expect disruption and quarantine. I think he is really telling people France is next.

I am also a bit worried about what my family and friends will think, there are definitely eye brows raised around here to anyone venturing overseas this year :0

In answer to how to get out under lock down, here in Spain getting out as a foreign national was not a problem. In our region it was just a phone call to check with local police and journeys to the airport were permitted. So getting out shouldn't be so much of an issue.
Wether airlines had flights still running is another issue

The rate in France is definitely higher than the UK, much higher...

No, it is not much higher. 1,600 and 950 cases a day are not too far off and both indicate relatively low prevalence. It is true that the French numbers can go up but so can ours.

Are we then stuck and can not leave?

No, of course not, people were able to travel out of France during the national lockdown (and going home was a perfectly valid reason). In fact, visitors had the heads up and were given time to leave the country before the lockdown was imposed.

I have to confess I have no big worries about catching COVID (we're early 40s, no underlying health conditions etc and its a risk I'm not overly worried about) or passing it onto the inlaws (although maybe I should be more concerned about that than I currently am . its just the quarantine risk factor / trying to get back to UK in a rush when literally everyone else will be trying to do the same.

Interesting what you say @Friendsoftheearth about the coded Rishi warning - i've only seen newspaper articles about the interview, not the actual interview in person. I guess nobody in the gvmt actually knows until the numbers unfold. A guide to what they're looking for / what would tip the balance / timescales for getting home would be helpful. I just think the 5 hours Spain warning has made everyone jittery about the possibility.

@Friendsoftheearth It makes me cross when people judge those who booked holidays last year, particularly if they don't involve flying and make them feel guilty for going away. A family living in a low risk area of the UK and driving to a self catering villa in France is less at risk of spreading covid than some families who are staying at home and going to pubs, having friends round to the house or letting their teens meet up with friends when none of them are socially distancing. Furthermore if everyone cancelled their holidays 1000s more people in the travel industry would lose their jobs. Already there have been large numbers of redundancies in the travel sector - ferry companies and airlines bring vital supplies into the country and need to be in a robust financial state. The government opened up travel corridors around the time people had to pay balances for summer holidays and are now at short notice imposing blanket quarantines with no system in place for people to be reimbursed if they are not on a package holiday and some of those probably haven't reimbursed people either. It is not individual families' fault that the government is giving continuous mixed messages and not explaining how various sectors of the economy will survive post furlough with no ongoing business.

In fact, visitors had the heads up and were given time to leave the country before the lockdown was imposed

I don't think that is a luxury we will have this time if Spain is anything to go by.

The rates in France are far higher, they have been tracking well over 1000 cases per day since mid July, the UK have had nothing like that number, and haven't even reached a 1000 yet. It is the multiplying affect that is the problem, a small number can very quickly become a very big out of control number. Check for yourself, it is all here v

www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/

Yes I’d go for sure. In fact I am going for 3 weeks in September.

The Government would like to totally control our lives. Don’t let them.

All this talk of high infection rates is 100% scaremongering.
If they are three times higher so what?
3 x next to nothing = next to nothing!

chocolatviennois I understand both sides. I understand the friends of mine that are exasperated that they see others as being selfish and self indulgent travelling for leisure in the middle of a pandemic (it is hard to argue with that sentiment particularly if that person has been directly affected by a death of a loved one) and I can also see how many jobs and livelihoods rely on the travel industry.

I can only speak from experience that at BBQS and garden drinks this summer there has been a lot of talk about those that have 'put themselves' first and they are definitely looked down upon, and have not joined the rest of the country with a jolly brave camping trip in the middle of wales (pref in with a howling wind and horizontal rain to boot so they have their badges of honour and the photos and SM to prove it!)

Those that are holidaying may not be aware of how it is viewed, or it may not be directly relayed to them but nonetheless the judging as you put it is definitely happening. It is seen as a social faux pas even if the trip goes well and they don't bring covid back! So you can see my reluctance. Dh could not care less and would run the gauntlet and go anyway. He does not care that the dc will be stuck at home for two solid weeks as he will be holed up in the study anyway wfh.

We still have a paid for villa booked, and our flights are still scheduled to leave, so we have to come to a decision and soon. Every day we wait for an update, and every day we say we will decide tomorrow!!

Yes, I am very well aware of the worldometer website but UK will not be making decisions based on cases from the middle of July. What matters is the current level of transmission and how UK compares to other countries right now. Here is the tracker used by the EU countries. UK may be looking back over past 7 days but it is a similar concept:

www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/cases-2019-ncov-eueea

My personal guess is that UK may act if French numbers exceed UK cases by the factor of 2.

I don't think that is a luxury we will have this time if Spain is anything to go by.

I think there are two separate risks - one is real and one is quite remote.

The remote risk is that the tourists might not be able to leave France/locked down area. Realistically, the probability of this is very close to zero since France was flexible with tourists even during the national lockdown.

The real risk is that UK may unexpectedly introduce quarantine requirements as it happened with Spain. It will mean tourists can still enjoy their stay in France (if they are able not to think about their forthcoming experience) but on return they will have to deal with the inconvenience of self-isolation. Some people might not see it as a big deal while others will view it as a deal breaker. It really depends on everyone's personal circumstances (and the size of their flats/homes/gardens).

It really hasn't helped that Norway have put France and others on the quarantine list.

Norway's decisions will not influence the thinking of the UK government. COVID prevalence in Norway is extremely low so they have to be more conservative (6.5 confirmed cases per 100,000 people over past 14 days vs 15.7 in the UK and 24.2 in France).

Some people might not see it as a big deal while others will view it as a deal breaker. It really depends on everyone's personal circumstances

For us it is a deal breaker as dc need to be back in school, so we can't quarantine for two whole weeks if we were forced to on our return - and they have already missed six months of education. It is the uncertainty that is causing the stress, the gov should confirm one way or the other re: quarantine so we can decide based on the facts. Then dh and I can stop our evening discussions about whether we will or won't go!!

There are 450,000 holiday tourists in France currently, I think we could all do with some clarification.

Does anyone know when France release their daily figures? Have we had any for today?

Interesting link from a poster on another thread.

www.sortiraparis.com/news/coronavirus/articles/217313-deconfinement-map-in-france-indicators-evolution-as-of-august-6-2020/lang/en

Two of the three departments considered as "highly vulnerable" are DOM-TOMs. Apparently their COVID figures/statistics are contained in the French figures seen in the press but they are thousands of kilometres from Europe..

The reason the government haven't made a decision is precisely that they haven't decided! They will watch and wait and make a decision to impose quarantine if they feel they need to.

Until then they have been extremely clear that any foreign travel carries an element of being affected by sudden quarantine.

So their advice is don't travel if you know that quarantine would be a deal breaker for you.

Todays cases are very high 2,288 positive cases. There will be no figures now until monday. I am expecting to that France will be put on the quarantine list shortly, am keeping everything crossed but am getting resigned.

Just to say they announced the Spain quarantine situation at 5pm on a Saturday. After saying it would be reviewed on the Monday. So they can react very quickly, even at the weekend.