Mandatory hotel quarantine in the UK

[Circumlocutious]

There was the New Zealand thread which touched on this, but I thought it’s helpful to have a more targeted discussion. Mandatory hotel quarantine for all UK arrivals, likely to be signed off on tomorrow.

Twitter thread from FT journalist discussing some of the complex aspects involved:

mobile.twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1353657496716660737

Do you think it’ll ‘work’? (presumably its main purpose is to stop new covid variants from coming in). Why / why not?

We have the evidence that these variants are already being brought into the country and unless we take some measures to stop this, all the work vaccinating everyone will come to nothing

Then I'm afraid they could well come to nothing ... unless we could stop absolutely anyone or anything coming into the country it's simply not going to work because all you need is patient zero

I don't think people in the UK can get their heads around this as we are used to so many freedoms. Other countries, fewer freedoms, the good of society, rather than the individual and all that.

I don't think the government should pay for hotel quarantine for people returning from holiday. You go, you pay.

I'm desperate for a holiday abroad (in the sun) like the next person, but we can't just have people tripping here and there because they feel like it. They'll be bringing all bloody sorts back with them whilst we're trying to vaccinate everyone and keep this under control.

Every cloud.....if we are able to move around in the Spring/Summer we are lucky to live in the UK which is beautiful and has variation. Imagine living in Dubai and you can only travel there, in a desert? Grim.

People are more likely to pick up covid in a UK airport hotel rather than isolating in their own homes (where they can) surely. I feel very sorry for staff who would have to work in them too.

@Girlyracer

I don't think people in the UK can get their heads around this as we are used to so many freedoms. Other countries, fewer freedoms, the good of society, rather than the individual and all that.

I don't think the government should pay for hotel quarantine for people returning from holiday. You go, you pay.

I'm desperate for a holiday abroad (in the sun) like the next person, but we can't just have people tripping here and there because they feel like it. They'll be bringing all bloody sorts back with them whilst we're trying to vaccinate everyone and keep this under control.

Every cloud.....if we are able to move around in the Spring/Summer we are lucky to live in the UK which is beautiful and has variation. Imagine living in Dubai and you can only travel there, in a desert? Grim.

No. Government should definitely not pay.

Also I agree with Quentin

The govt want you to blame foreigners bringing it in rather than focus on their ineptitude. Alarming how successful they are at that.

Enforced quarantine hotels might have made some sense in Feb or March or April 2020. The ship has already sailed hasn’t it?

@Indoctro

I'm glad to hear there will still be exemptions for international workers, my husband already has to do 10 days government quarantine in KL, then another 5 days in Miri, plus another week after departing the rig in Malaysia , plus the 6 weeks working on the rig. Only so much a person can do.

These guys can't be expected to quarantine again in uk when only getting home for 2 weeks.

Then surely it’s only fair to expect to do it here too?

We are all making sacrifices, not seen family for months. If kids can’t be in school for a long period of time, companies and individuals who travel internationally will need to make sacrifices too, either by minimising travel (ideally) or quarantine.

Tightening the borders is the single measure we could take that would really bring case numbers right down and lead to greater success with the vaccination programme

As so often, that's probably the phrase they'll produce to excuse whatever stupidity they come up with - "It's the one big thing that'll make a difference"

Only for all the reasons PPs have mentioned it won't

@BeesElbows

People are more likely to pick up covid in a UK airport hotel rather than isolating in their own homes (where they can) surely. I feel very sorry for staff who would have to work in them too.

This makes no sense. Currently, unless you're travelling from a banned country, the household in which you arrive doesn't need to isolate and can carry on about their business as normal. So badly designed and illogical.

@Girlyracer

I don't think people in the UK can get their heads around this as we are used to so many freedoms. Other countries, fewer freedoms, the good of society, rather than the individual and all that.

I don't think the government should pay for hotel quarantine for people returning from holiday. You go, you pay.

I'm desperate for a holiday abroad (in the sun) like the next person, but we can't just have people tripping here and there because they feel like it. They'll be bringing all bloody sorts back with them whilst we're trying to vaccinate everyone and keep this under control.

Every cloud.....if we are able to move around in the Spring/Summer we are lucky to live in the UK which is beautiful and has variation. Imagine living in Dubai and you can only travel there, in a desert? Grim.

Well said. Having said that our freedoms at the moment are quite limited!

I’d take having a uk holiday for kids back in school!

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@Indoctro why should your DH be exempt to quarantine here, when other countries think he should quarantine. Why dos he suddenly become special in this country? There is a reason he has to quarantine in other countries, that same reason applies here too.[/quote]
I can't speak for the oil industry but I wish you good luck in keeping food/drink/pharma etc coming into the UK if you suggest everybody arriving in the UK should go straight into a multiday quarantine (the Brits having possibly already been quarantined overseas because there they were foreign nationals).

You'll pretty soon have no Brit lorry drivers and no Brit ship/aircraft crew available to go outbound again to bring yet more freight back in from abroad if you have them all locked them up on arrival in Blighty.

The actual background to this is that HMG have done a risk/benefit assessment on the matter and, so far at least, the benefit of keeping essential freight travelling in and out of the UK, and oil and gas flowing has been considered to outweigh the risks involved by workers not quarantining.

We are all making sacrifices, not seen family for months.

It is not remotely the same

No foreign resident wants to pop to Wigan on a pandemic holiday because it's nice this time of year.

If your sister was hit by a car and had nobody to watch her kids, or your mum was dying or your child was seriously ill and you needed your mum to help you, you wouldn't have to pay £1500 and wait 14 days for the privilege of missing your relatives death or emergency.

Government should definitely not pay

Not for holiday trips, no - but how about genuine business needs and real family emergencies?

They'd probably make yet another "exception" for the first, and for the second ... well, everyone's going to suddenly have an inexhaustible supply of dying grandparents aren't they?

I wonder if you'll get a choice of where you stay? Assuming hotels will need to sign up for the arrangement if guards or whatever are needed.

I'll not be going abroad if this is a requirement. If I did, I'd want to know where I was staying when I returned. Wouldn't want to be dumped in a shit hole.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Government should definitely not pay

Not for holiday trips, no - but how about genuine business needs and real family emergencies?

They'd probably make yet another "exception" for the first, and for the second ... well, everyone's going to suddenly have an inexhaustible supply of dying grandparents aren't they?

Who’s going to check the genuine reasons....honestly its pointless we cannot cut off the world forever.

@Girlyracer

I wonder if you'll get a choice of where you stay? Assuming hotels will need to sign up for the arrangement if guards or whatever are needed.

I'll not be going abroad if this is a requirement. If I did, I'd want to know where I was staying when I returned. Wouldn't want to be dumped in a shit hole.

Exactly! I was going to book a holiday for July - not any more. I’m devastated for all those who work in the travel and hospitality industries.

Who’s going to check the genuine reasons

Another newly created agency owned by a crony perhaps?

Just think of the possibilities ...

then you are a better person than me

Well, who knows @Changemaname1 ? I may be ... I may not be.

I know that I have not touched or been touched by another human being for 10 months, and that I'm working all hours and with constant stress, and having the stress and anxiety of 100s of undergrads projected onto me (as if I can change the pandemic or the government lockdown), with no emotional or physical support.

But there is a job to do, day by day, and I don't think of the future. I count my blessings (warm house, enough food, a good salary) and I work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, and I think of what my parents lived through - WW2, privation, and the loss of parents in war.

Yes, we're all fed up with the situation, but we have to endure. There isn't really an alternative - we can't act as though there isn't a disease which has killed 100,000 people & put many more in hospital, or left sufferers with awful long-term effects.

Giving up now will just make this dreariness & restriction last longer.

Am so gutted over this, as this makes my family and my life about a hundred times more stressful and expensive. Wouldn’t it be lovely to live a life where you can only conceive of crossing a border for a holiday? Pleased for you if this is you, but not everyone lives like that. This has basically sentenced me to another unknown number of months of solitary confinement. It’s shit.

why should your DH be exempt to quarantine here, when other countries think he should quarantine. Why dos he suddenly become special in this country? There is a reason he has to quarantine in other countries, that same reason applies here too.

This

I think most people who support this measure do realise that. But you can't keep such restrictive measures as national school closures in place for the long term while also continuing to allow fairly unrestricted international travel
I absolutely do realise that, I know not "everyone is on their jollies."
It makes zero sense to have a lockdown that includes shut down of businesses, ban on seeing family and friends, schools and colleges closed for the foreseeable, but still let people go in and out of the country on flights for whatever reason, even if it is business.
Sorry, but in the age of zoom calls, there's just not so much need when you can virtually meet in most circumstances for now.
It has nothing to do with wanting to keep other countries out.
New Zealand etc did it - we get told "why aren't we doing that too?!"
We eventually do and then you get people going "xenophobes!!"
As I said, can't bloody win lol

Can U.K. citizens not quarantine at home with a tag?

Who’s going to check the genuine reasons..*
*
Maybe the same body who check on all the genuine reasons for mask exemption!?

@Carryingon

Can U.K. citizens not quarantine at home with a tag?

Explain more

A tag you can’t remove I assume? Do they get escorted home too otherwise they may get public transport

Plus I could always invite someone over for a good bit of private mixing

I’m confused about the UK ‘holidaymakers’ abroad being discussed here. It’s not relevant at the moment.
We’re in a national lockdown, we’re not meant to leave our own homes at all apart from for the specified reasons on the government list. Holidaying obviously isn’t on that list..

Presumably the pressure is coming from the fact that the 77 cases found in this country of the South African variant & the 9 cases of the Brazilian variant are all connected with air travel

On a day-to-day level all of the new cases in Aus are in hotel quarantine. It does highlight just how much asymptomatic covid is out there.

FWIW originally people were told to isolate at home after overseas travel. There were enough piss takers that it quickly became enforced, in hotels, with a police presence. A lot of people are compliant in theory, but not when it comes to them.

Some people originally have negative tests and then test positive during the incubation period. Airport testing would miss cases who were brewing it.