Reading all the frustrations on here, please can I let off a bit of steam too?
I have realised more and more how some people insist on seeing the negative. Even people who ought to know better, or at least look at things more thoroughly!
I had a conversation with my friend last night, who I get on really well with (talk to all the time) and have felt irate since. She works in a medical field, which is currently linked to Covid, and is SOOOOOO negative even if I come up with something that refutes, or at least lessens, it. I realise that blind optimism is unrealistic along with pointless, but the thing I have enjoyed so much about this thread is that the majority of 'good news' is backed up with where it came from, and that doesn't mean things like the Daily Mail!
I don't want to scroll back through the messages now as I'll get annoyed, but she was saying how we'd be better trying to book a week in Wales or Cornwall (rather than the admittedly ambitious, but also fully refundable, trip to the Far East we have rescheduled), and I was saying that I cannot bring myself to pay so much for an average holiday cottage simply because it's August and also possibly because of the demand pushing prices up. (For context, I said looked at somewhere we once stayed in Padstow and it was £1450 for a week for somewhere that looked more like a static caravan than an actual house!) This lead onto a conversation where she was saying that nobody will be going anywhere, they are cocking up vaccines (I have no idea what this is supposed to be based on, but am guessing supply issues), you are still contagious even once vaccinated (and my links to Israel were dismissed due to 'their population is tiny') with an add that the Israel info is also only based on Pfzier and 'we are going to be stuck with the Oxford one.' I then said that things will speed up further with the J&J one later in the year, and that was greeted with 'but it's too expensive.'
From what I can gather, she was wrong, or at least partly wrong, on all of those points. However, she seemed determined to cling onto the Doom Factor and refuse to see anything else.
While I appreciate that things are bad in lots of ways, I do genuinely also think that there is SO much going into getting things back to normal again. Also, I have found that listening to people like Dr John Campbell so helpful as he can explain the why's and wherefores (and often just keeps to the info rather than also offers strong opinions) and it makes a big difference.
A good example is the transmissibility aspect; like someone said upthread that it's reported that 'there is no evidence that vaccines reduce transmissibility' whereas that really means they have no evidence yet!
I am not patriotic in the least, and I think Boris and Co have managed to cock up a lot of things and he is obviously very much out of his depth (while anyone would be, he's managing to be extra out of it!) but I do think that the vaccination side of the situation in this country is something to be proud of. I also think it will lift us out of the situation, and the whole world pretty much is desperate to get back to normal.
So many countries have lots billions to tourism and industry that this situation of constant lock-downs and travel disruption isn't sustainable, it'll end up being worse, long term, than the actual virus. Its also encouraging, from a selfish point of view, to see that some countries are opening their borders already to travellers if they've had a vaccine (it was in the Independent - think it's Cyprus, Seychelles and Romania so far) which will hopefully spread the more people are vaccinated and also the more that comes out about transmission.
I don't know if we'll make our holiday or not, I veer from one side to the other, but I do know that the world needs to start moving soon as there is only so much fall out from this that can be absorbed, and hence the spectacular efforts worldwide that are happening all the time.
And breathe... !