Close the F-ing boarder!!

[ilovesouthlondon]

Not sure why I'm using AIBU because I've already made up my mind that i'm not, but interested to hear the thoughts of others...my friend is an air stewardess and says she flys to India regularly in an empty plane but comes back with the plane full! I was surprised as I wrongly assumed that with all systems go prepared for the 21st, travel to the UK from India would be banned unless you are returning home to quarantine or had an emergency family/business issue to attend to. WTF is flying in from a scientifically proven covid varient hot spot still allowed when we're preparing to free ourselves from bondage? Also how come the USA is never on the red list (of course we all know why, I'm just being sarcastic). Rant over!!!

*stay in Australia

@Walkaround

That is a question for the Australian government. We can only control what we do here.

@Tealightsandd - and before the Alpha strain, the world’s problems were fuelled by other strains. It’s not as if the Alpha strain was caused by holidays in Spain. Plenty of people living in the UK had perfectly valid, essential reasons for being allowed to travel to India. Plenty of those travellers carried the Alpha strain over with them on their essential journeys. The virus does not know or care which of them were on a sneaky holiday, not a mercy mission.

Mistakes, including sometimes with pandemic border control, happen. It's natural and human nature.

The key is what to do going forwards.

In the case of the UK it seems to be to continue to make the same mistakes. Again and again and again.

Plenty of people living in the UK had perfectly valid, essential reasons for being allowed to travel to India.

And that's where quarantine comes in. To deal with genuinely essential travel.

Plenty of people living in the UK had perfectly valid, essential reasons for being allowed to travel to India.

Plenty of people had equally valid reasons to travel to Pakistan. We put it on our red list but only added India some time later.

@Tealightsandd

Plenty of people living in the UK had perfectly valid, essential reasons for being allowed to travel to India.

Plenty of people had equally valid reasons to travel to Pakistan. We put it on our red list but only added India some time later.

Yes, I have already commented on that little illogicality! Australia is proof positive, if you ask me, however, that with or without quarantine, letting British people in India return in a rush en masse for humanitarian reasons (for them and for India, so it doesn’t have yet more responsibility for people who are not even Indian citizens), having let them go out for humanitarian reasons, would one way or another led to big problems with spread back home. There’s zero other reason for Australia’s ruthless dumping of its own citizens when they need help.

There’s zero other reason for Australia’s ruthless dumping of its own citizens when they need help.

Aside from not wanting to end up like the UK...

They chose not to do any 'ruthless dumping' on Australians at home in Australia. Particularly the vulnerable, but anyone really - because with Long Covid risks it's not just about death.

They had to make very difficult decisions. The alternative at the time was to risk suffering the same fate as places like the UK.

They chose to avoid 130,000 dead, half a million (so far) Long Covid debilitated - and major damage to the economy.

They chose to protect the many over the few. It was one or the other unfortunately.

It was very temporary only too. Many people in the UK tell the millions of UK vulnerable to 'just live with' the increased risk of dying or serious illness. Australia didn't say that to their vulnerable. Nor (after a very short period) did they say it to residents in India. As soon as was possible with capacity, etc, they started reopening to quarantine flights for people to come back from India.

I think the ‘moral responsibilty’ here definitely does not lay with the UK.

@SallyBasingstoke

The borders will never close... why? because we live in a country where people will scream about racism where any sensible border control discussion is closed down. The fact we have had to rename variants to greek letters because it is apparently racist to mention a country connected to a variant is a perfect eg

That and the WHO did not recommend it.

Also, why block travel from India? They likely have had to get a negative PCR test or maybe they are fully vaxxed. Why should they be blocked from direct travel?

@Tealightsandd

There’s zero other reason for Australia’s ruthless dumping of its own citizens when they need help.

Aside from not wanting to end up like the UK...

They chose not to do any 'ruthless dumping' on Australians at home in Australia. Particularly the vulnerable, but anyone really - because with Long Covid risks it's not just about death.

They had to make very difficult decisions. The alternative at the time was to risk suffering the same fate as places like the UK.

They chose to avoid 130,000 dead, half a million (so far) Long Covid debilitated - and major damage to the economy.

They chose to protect the many over the few. It was one or the other unfortunately.

It was very temporary only too. Many people in the UK tell the millions of UK vulnerable to 'just live with' the increased risk of dying or serious illness. Australia didn't say that to their vulnerable. Nor (after a very short period) did they say it to residents in India. As soon as was possible with capacity, etc, they started reopening to quarantine flights for people to come back from India.

You claim the moral high ground, yet think it was OK for Australia to leave India with the responsibility for hosting its citizens? Just be hinest and admit your “moral high ground” is nothing to do with poor countries and everything to do with what you think would be better for people in the UK, even if this includes not actually providing humanitarian aid where needed. And there are still Australians in various countries around the world who have not been able to get home since the pandemic started.

@Walkaround

What would you have preferred they did? The UK way?

Morals and humanitarian? That means protecting the vulnerable - the many millions of them - and, because of Long Covid, everyone.

We have 130,000 dead, half million long term ill with Long Covid, and a wrecked economy.

Our way is not the humanitarian one.

And, nowhere have I called for us to stop humanitarian aid abroad. Like I've said repeatedly that comes under essential travel.

But - exporting a deadly virus is not 'aid'. Which is why it needs to be confined to truly essential only.

I agree with expert epidemiologist, Professor Deepti Gurdasani. The UK spreading variants around the world to countries further behind on vaccine rollouts or less equipped with medical infrastructure to deal with a UK style major outbreak, is unethical.

@Tealightsandd - and as it is impossible not to export variants to countries with less infrastructure and vaccinations if you are going there for essential reasons, I think Professor Deepti Gurasani is being disingenuous to make it all sound that simple. I do, however, agree that this country is a phenomenally bad example of how to behave in a pandemic, largely because it never tied its colours to any mast except for vaccination, and there was a long time before that where it vacillated between trying to pretend the virus was something that could be largely ignored and prioritising keeping businesses running, and then shutting everything down in a panic, then opening things up chaotically, neither closing borders effectively nor keeping borders open in a way that enabled businesses and people to plan for anything or make money out of it anyway. It has effectively pleased nobody, all of the time!

We finally have some agreement! .

We messed up.

All we can do is learn from our mistakes.

One thing we have done very well is our vaccine rollout. I'll give them that.

Can we all agree that the G7 meeting is NOT Essential Travel?

How can you not be aware of the red list hotel quarantine? Do you get your news from MN?

I remember one of the first world leaders to start closing borders to problem parts of the world. Everyone from the WHO downwards was screaming condemnation.

Quite funny how everyone now thinks that Trump did the right thing last year.

I agree with expert epidemiologist, Professor Deepti Gurdasani. The UK spreading variants around the world to countries further behind on vaccine rollouts or less equipped with medical infrastructure to deal with a UK style major outbreak, is unethical

It’s deeply unethical to ban people from travelling to see family. I’d bet most were visiting family and not wandering around the Taj Mahal ...