Is this surge in cases down to foreign holidays?

[notevenat20]

The numbers are now going up alarmingly and if the exponential growth continues we will be up to our worst peak by Christmas,

So what caused it?

A lot of the increase in infections happened in very late August (since numbers went up by specimen date around 1st September, and you don't test positive for 5 or more days), so I'm not sure the increase in R is down to schools reopening.

But it could have caused by people returning from holiday?

What do people think?

Almost certainly.

That's what started the multiple outbreaks in February and made it widespread in the community then - lots and lots of infections being brought back from Italy.

I think people have given up on strict social distancing with family and friends.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52993734

Why foreign holidays specifically? Many people have holidayed in places with far far fewer cases than the UK, and places where social distancing and mask wearing has been taken seriously for months, meanwhile Cornwall, the Lakes, Northumberland and other beauty spots were chock a block with people on top of each other.

No. It's pubs and restaurants.

@HowFastIsTooFast

Why foreign holidays specifically? Many people have holidayed in places with far far fewer cases than the UK, and places where social distancing and mask wearing has been taken seriously for months, meanwhile Cornwall, the Lakes, Northumberland and other beauty spots were chock a block with people on top of each other.

Because aeroplanes incubate germs and recycle the air around

@monsterad No, they do not. The air on a plane is so heavily filtered and topped up constantly with fresh (and of course masks and sanitising has been mandatory) that even where a positive case has been identified post-travel it's only the people sitting in the 2-3 rows immediately in front, behind and to each side that are contact traced for isolation and testing.

Where I live we test all arrivals, tens of thousands so far. Of course some are asymptomatic positive but to the best of my knowledge there has been zero cases of transmission to anyone else on the aircraft they came in on.

I think returning holidaymakers returning during August when EOTHO was in full swing. I personally know plenty who have failed to self isolate on return without repercussions.

I personally know of one family that could not complete self isolation due to their next holiday bring 10 days after returning from the first.

Some will be from travel but I think the majority have spread through lack of SD and people ignoring the guidelines of six people and stretching the two households meetings to entire families who don’t live together.

It's because people thought that relaxing social distancing meant there was no need to restrict contact with anybody.
Holidays were a part of that, but at what point do you draw the line? We can not be 2m away from everybody for ever.

Yes from holidays and the summer.

In retrospect going straight from August where people when on holidays abroad and in the UK using pubs/restaurants/beaches/days out straight into schools is the problem

Here in my region of Italy it's definitely down to that, cases are being picked up at the airport as Greece, Malta, Croatia and Spain are on the list which means you are tested within 48 hours of returning. My town (100,000) currently has 11 cases, 4 returning from Croatia, 4 from Malta 1 from Greece (Zante) and 2 who were at a wedding with some of the people returning from Croatia.

We've only had 34 cases in total since March and went for 6 weeks with 0 new cases (May and June) We celebrated Zero Infection Day.

Hopefully the test/trace is working.

It needs to work it’s way through us. I’m sure they’ll loosen the belt tighten it and loosen it for a long time to come. I don’t think we’ll be back at peak figures come Christmas. Remember so many of the sensationalist media reports are click bait. They love having everyone scared.

The 2 who were at the wedding knowing they were positive are popular.

Yes absolutely

And parties

I think it’s mainly from pubs/restaurants because of the EOTHO scheme and also because it transmits so much easier indoors.

Not many people went abroad this year compared to the 64 millions meals that were served just during EOTHO.

Yes, it almost certainly hasn't helped, planes are germ pits at the best of times, but also pubs, restaurants and schools going back.

I am skeptical just because after they put the most popular holiday destinations on the quarantine list (France and Spain including the islands, Croatia Portugal for much of the summer) very few brits went on holiday abroad in comparison to their British counterparts.

Many many of the people I know had their holidays to France cancelled and Spain is saying it received a tiny fraction of the holiday makers of usually would.

Greece is the obvious place that could have some responsibility but it’s not the same as February where everyone could effectively go everywhere!

I feel very sorry for the people living on the Greek Islands with so little in the way of medical facilities now seeing a surge in covid that they are not equipped to deal with thanks to tourism.

Sorry I meant compared to their European counterparts

I live in the SE
Lots of people I know have been abroad, to pubs & restaurants & parties & our numbers are falling (currently 6/100,000) actually down from 9/100,000 two weeks ago so no I don’t think so.

Those figures are for the whole county

Yeah, because obviously people in Greater Manchester and Birmingham go on far more foreign holidays than people in other parts of the country .

No planes are much safer than public transport for because the air is constantly bought in and refreshed and the filters are really efficient. Much more likely in fact that we took infection abroad.

With an infection incubating upto 14 days it’s very possible to go abroad for a week but not show symptoms till you’ve been back for a day or two.

I think it’s the general relaxation across the uk that’s caused it. People started getting together again, eating and drinking in confined spaces and the holiday hotspots have been rammed.

I felt over the summer that we would have been much safer going abroad for a beach holiday than heading to cornwall or Devon. Sadly could afford neither so we stayed home.

Here’s a little clue for the hard of thinking: lack of social distancing causes an increase in infections. Aeroplanes are not and never have been the place where this mainly happens - it's in your workplaces, among family and friends, and among people who don’t think the rules apply to them. People coming back from skiing holidays in Italy in February had been hanging around together indoors when they weren’t skiing, because it was cold outside. Northern Italy got it badly because of the factories in the area that employed people from Wuhan...