So angry at the Government this evening

[Moonme]

I’m SO mad. I haven’t been on this board for months and I was feeling really optimistic about life feeling like it was returning to normal.
It is criminal that they have let this variant in. It’s literally ground hog day. Playing politics with public health to do trade deals (because of bloody Brexit) with India.
I know there is hope that the vaccines will do there jobs but we shouldn’t be in this position. This wasn’t inevitable. Arggh so cross

@a8mint

They were busy doing fucking stupid dances in carparks and corridors. Pandemic?? What pandemic?

Those of you still calling for 'snap lockdown' or any other version of one can get to fuck.
Time to get on with life and start living. We cant stay in fucking lockdown limbo anymore. Fucking ridiculous.

I can not believe Sage advice has been completely ignored.

Sage advice needed to be ignored as no proof of anything

We cannot lockdown and cause all the associated issues based on one sided opinion

It’s not only covid that matters

If deaths and hospitalisations are down that’s all that matters

Lockdown lovers can sod off and get back to work

I think there is a number of issues here. 1. Not putting India in the red list 2. Giving notice of it going on the red list allowing people to flood back in 3. Culturally potentially more people in one house hols so risk of spreading is greater 4. Low uptake of the jab 5. Probably not following quarrantine rules
Local lockdown is the only way forward from this - as someone said it worked in Australia

Do all the people saying "oh but there won't be any serious illness now the vulnerable have been vaccinated so does it matter if cases spread" genuinely think they know better than a group of scientists working at the highest level

I find it baffling.

They were busy doing fucking stupid dances in carparks and corridors. Pandemic?? What pandemic?

I am absolutely not a covid denier but this was a very bad look when the hospitals were supposed to be overwhelmed. Why did people think that was so great?

I think people need to get used to the idea, or face the idea, that governments dont always act in the best interests of their people.

Maybe the indian variant was let in on purpose? Maybe it wasnt? But I think people need to be open to the possibility.

I saw an interesting point that local lockdowns in the Indian variant hotspots would be ineffective because the people affected do not work from home and live in extended family groups.

I think, however, that travel out of hotspots should be banned. We were too late to stop travel to and from India, but I think draconian measures are needed now to stop the spread.

I think stage 3 should be delayed by 2 weeks until we can establish more information about the Indian VOC and a stricter local lockdown imposed on these particular areas. More vaccines can be rolled out during this time too. Not acting quickly enough causes more economic damage in the long run.

I completely understand why so many people want the borders closed but please also understand that there are many people like me who are British and living abroad in a red list country...it’s not about having a holiday. It’s about seeing (vaccinated) loved ones

I haven’t seen my parents for 14 months and counting, my sister and friends for 2 years and it is extremely depressing as there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel for us. My 4 young children are growing quickly and my parents aren’t getting any younger and it breaks my heart that they are missing out on being together and for how much longer?? I can’t do 10 days in quarantine with the kids as it wouldn’t really be worth the trip there (I’m a 12 hour plane trip away) as I can’t take the kids out of school not to mention the crazy cost.

The vaccine program in our country is abysmal (less than half a million vaccinated so far and our population is similar to the UK) so I haven’t got a clue when we’ll get ours...October at best although hopefully it’ll be the 1 jab one as that’s what is being given here at the moment..

We have all abided by the rules (both ourselves and my family in the UK) and would do home quarantine and all the tests required etc..but I appreciate that unfortunately many people do not and there can’t be one rule for some and another for others...

All so depressing! Let’s hope a semblance of normality returns for all of us sooner rather than later..

@ Montsi, I am in a similar situation to you and havent seen my family for 16 + months. As I have been told on here many times, people who make the 'choice' to live away from their families have ' a cost" to pay.

I have spent the past year putting aside money for hotel quarantine if I need to travel to bury my mother. I will still be tarred with the " Indian variant" brush though. Even though both she and I have been vaccinated.

@Montsti I understand and I feel for you

BUT

I haven't been able to see friends and family either because I live in Lancashire my daughter Manchester due to local restrictions I haven't been able to see her. I think I only had July/August to see anyone at all within the country I live in but it still excluded some areas! Meanwhile other people could fly abroad on holidays with no isolation on return.

International travel would be ok if they implemented strict isolation.

Would I isolate for 2 weeks to see my DD like hell I would. OK so I'm "luck" I have to WFH so can work from anywhere with an internet and power source connection.

My Mum died during lockdown alone in hospital from cancer and my Dad didn't get to see her for the last 3 weeks after he nursed her for 6 years, I couldn't go the funeral etc.

Please remember many have paid personal cost not just those living abroad.

many people like me who are British and living abroad in a red list country...it’s not about having a holiday. It’s about seeing (vaccinated) loved ones

If you choose to live overseas one of the negatives is the distance. We should not all be put at risk for this reason, or any other. We are in a pandemic, there is no place for sentimentality. You either move back, or you stay - either way we need to close the borders. The demand for this is getting stronger now people are realising what it means to not do so.

Random I’m lancs and we’ve been able to travel anywhere

It’s always been advisory only

@Summercocktailsinthesnow

I am also concerned about the way this is being handled, it could cause race tensions if families are seen to be able to travel to and forth any country they like, regardless of infection rates and risk to all of us with contagion and variants, and yet everyone else is grounded.

For the sake of the country, for our vaccine progress, the economy and the chance to get back to a proper kind of normal. We need to stop all international travel until next year when we will have a far clearer idea of how safe it is/new variant ability and all the rest.

I am now getting angry, because we are all suffering.

Non-essential travel (freight etc) should have been off limits from early last year onwards and we'd be in a much better place. Open borders is valued over everything else.

@Watapalava

Sage advise based on covid alone

The key word is it 'could' put pressure on

The wider concerns of society have to be balanced and that's the gov job not sage. They weigh it up. Currently the restrictons cant be justified as theres no proof the indian variant evades vaccines or is more deadly

Variants don’t have to be more virulent, or able to evade immunity to cause problems. Just being more transmissible is enough - as we found with B117.

Which has so far kept us in restrictions for 7 months and killed 80,000 people while we were are in them. 50,000 in January and February alone.

And this is at least 50% more transmissible than that which is why it looks like a plane taking off on graphs.

I don't believe closed borders are going to happen any time soon, given one of the people who travelled from India to the UK and is currently living here with his 'inter-generational' family set up is Adar Poonawalla, head of the biggest vaccine maker in the world.The UK needs trade partners.

Anyone with family in a red list country had best start saving for the super expensive hotel quarantine, though.

Princess your completely missing the mention of vaccines - bloody hell why do you omit these every time?! The Kent virus started in December

No significant numbers were vaccinated til end of Feb. Immunity would have taken til mid March at least when Kent cases started to decline

Please draw yourself a timeline because you are posting wrong information on every thread

The vaccines have proven to be very effective against Kent virus - that’s not in dispute by anyone - literally anyone -in science other than you!

Looking at that graph, it IS extremely alarming and I have no doubt this is going to cause a lot of problems worldwide, particularly in countries slow to vaccinate or continents like Africa with barely any vaccinations taking place at all.

However if the vaccine works, the vaccine works. So it is now imperative that everyone gets vaccinated as quickly as possible. That is the only thing between us and another wave as far as I can see.

Get everyone vaccinated, close the borders. Hope for the best.

All this ought to make people think twice about relocating overseas away from families tbh. People are too used to being able to hop on a plane and fly across the world at the drop of a hat. It won't do the planet any good in the long run and this is not the last pandemic we are going to live through.

I say that as the daughter of a refugee.

Our days of hopping on planes on a whim are now over. We will be lucky if we have airlines left at all by the end of this, sorry to be pessimistic but this is going to change the way we live our lives forever.

@Thefourbells

All this ought to make people think twice about relocating overseas away from families tbh. People are too used to being able to hop on a plane and fly across the world at the drop of a hat. It won't do the planet any good in the long run and this is not the last pandemic we are going to live through.

I say that as the daughter of a refugee.

If you did that, the NHS would collapse , as would many other sectors.

I see, like many immigrants, you would like to pull the ladder up behind you. As for this virtue signalling about flying across the world to see essential family, I will continue to do that until people stop eating meat to save the planet.

I see, like many immigrants, you would like to pull the ladder up behind you

I'm not an immigrant. I was born here, and my mother is British. My father was a refugee.

It is nothing to do with pulling up the ladder and everything to do with realising global travel is not sustainable for the planet or humanity.

Even before all this I always thought it was inadvisable to move away from family. In my father's culture you live near your extended family and everyone pitches in. That's how we still live.

As for this virtue signalling about flying across the world to see essential family, I will continue to do that until people stop eating meat to save the planet.

I see this a lot and I understand why people say it but it is a pointless and petulant point of view. Why bother doing anything in that case?