Concerns over visiting UK

[burningfromtheinside]

I'm due to visit UK to see my family soon, haven't been there for two years due to the pandemic. I live in Italy, in the north, in one of the places hit by COVID at the very beginning in Feb 2020, however despite this, I still personally don't know one person who has contracted it, not even the Delta, no one pre and post vaccination. I have a large network of friends and work in large company ( although we're still WFH) Reading here and hearing from plenty of friends in the UK, so many people seem to have had it there, despite being double vaccinated. I don't know if it's because masks are still mandatory here indoors, or that COVID passports are mandatory for nearly everything, but I can't understand why it's so different. This is making me concerned about coming to UK, I feel like I'll catch it there no matter what. The whole family are Pfizer double vaccinated ( most of Italy is Pfizered, could it be this?!) I wonder if a large proportion of people are not vaccinated there or if because the vaccine program was much earlier in the UK, most people are no longer covered ( I'm in my 50s and was vaccinated in June) Anyway does anyone, like me not know a single person who has had COVID or it is just rife there? I should add I also don't know anyone who is not vaccinated here.

Yes @Quartz2208 if you just look at all the different variations on here for what happens in a household with a positive case.

In Scotland (where I am) the whole household must get a PCR.
Someone else was saying in their country the household isolates, and somewhere else they don't need to isolate or test if rest of household are vaccinated or children.
So in Scotland we are much more likely to pick up asymptotic cases, like a lot of children are, and these all get counted in uk figures

@Quartz2208

Again reported cases. The biggest problem here is you aren’t comparing like for like. The data gathered for this is never the true picture in any country

You can ascertain themes certainly and say we have been and still are badly hit but you cannot with any certainty state that we have the second highest because the data just isn’t comparable

But why do people think the UK is the one country that must be reporting their numbers truthfully? Why is every argument denied by using the sentence 'but other countries aren't reporting all their cases'.

Why assume the UK is? Maybe there's even more Covid than we're reporting. More deaths, more positive tests, less vaccinations.

I am no conspiracy theorist, but you can't say it's only the others who aren't reporting truthfully. Maybe the UK isn't either, by this logic.

But @EileenGC

Clearly it's far more likely that every other country in the world is undercounting than the U.K. had the second highest number of cases in the world in the last seven days.

@GrandeTerrasse do crack on with bitching about the UK if you think that your perception from the outside of what is happening in the UK is better than that of people who are actually here. I hope it makes you feel better.

As far as I can see this thread was started in a goady and superior way and has deteriorated into a free for all for anyone outside the UK to be goady both about how we are handling the situation and the AZ vs Pfizer debate.

Crikey @londonmummy1966.

When did I say my perception is better? I never said my perception is reality. My point is that my perception, like the OP’s, is that the UK does not have a grip on the situation and that that is pretty daunting coming from a country where there are more measures.

And you really think it make anyone feel better to think that their family members are living in that shambolic mishandling of the situation. It has been fucking horrendous watching from afar. It has been fucking horrendous to watch my sibling’s business go down the pan because of covid. It’s been heartbreaking watching my elderly parents’ mental health deteriorate because of covid.

Here. Specially for you:

I don’t think they are true for the Uk either @EileenGC and @PrincessNutNuts in fact I am almost certain they aren’t. The likelihood is not case data is accurate and the different parameters in collecting said data makes comparison tough. Even within are own dataset due to people stopping testing
The most reliable metric for comparison with Europe is hospitalisation but even that is unreliable globally and is certainly the best for ascertaining where we are for uk data

To be honest, if you’re that concerned then I wouldn’t come. When you’re here you’ll more than likely be fine, but I’d say getting on a plane is a real risk at the moment. They were known as germ boxes even before the pandemic, let alone now!

I think as well part of the problem is that the UK no longer perceives it as an issue hence the lack of masks

And that so much of are issues at the moment aren’t just COVID

Weirdly though even living in London my fear has never been as much as watching China and Italy last year. Looking on is often far scarier than living through it

Weirdly though even living in London my fear has never been as much as watching China and Italy last year. Looking on is often far scarier than living through it

I agree re that it is different if you are here. And o/s going through equally tough times. I’m in London and don’t feel that the grip on it is lost. More that the anxiety over it has generally.

I don’t know why people are getting so defensive. There are loads of threads about people worrying about getting COVID on holiday and being stuck abroad, it’s the same for the OP.

Op - fwiw it’s a mixed bag. A lot of people are still wearing masks, especially in London, even though it’s not mandated and I feel safer in London than in the commuter town I’m based in.

We live in England. I consider myself to not "know" anyone in Uk who has had Covid.

I thought England had the highest infection rate in the world at the moment?

I know 2 people who’ve been hospitalised who’ve had the jab.

I think it is an anxiety thing - we had are reopening then schools went back etc and each time there has been a small uptick before things drop down. The overwhelming number of cases predicted hasn’t occurred and the NHS is managing.

It may look bad from the outside but it doesn’t feel it. Sitting on a train into London and apart from 50-60% mask uptake it is no different to pre pandemic

And that is crucial I think by and large apart from testing (which we do in insane numbers) isolation if you have it and some travel rules life is back to normal

Are issues now are dealing with Brexit!

I think what most of us are trying to say is that I can travel from Italy to Germany, for example, and the scene I will find there is very similar to the one I have at home. Masks, Covid passes, very low number of cases.

If I come to the UK, cases are 5 or 6x higher, there are no measures that can be enforced (so people just don't abide by them), there is a lot more Covid going around which I can't risk catching and bringing back home. Ruining my work or social plans. If a household member gets it and I don't, I still need to isolate for 10 days, it's not like in the UK where you have one test and off you go.

Statistically, I have a much, much higher chance of catching it in London than in my (also a state capital, huge, crowded) city.

Posters were outraged a few months back when people said they were travelling to India. That was apparently very irresponsible because India wasn't doing great. UK isn't doing great either. Now they're calling us anxious for being wary of visiting a country that is blatantly ignoring the fact Covid still exists, Covid still disrupts, Covid isn't something I want to catch - for practical reasons.

I'm vaccinated and have never been scared of catching this virus or becoming ill with it. I am however terrified of having to cancel anything, get stuck in another country or be replaced at work, because others around me couldn't give a shit. None of these fears apply when I visit other countries - and I've been to 8 of them in the last three months only.

I'm in Australia - an English-born work friend of mine went home a few weeks ago (there are flights apparently) and caught Covid within the week. He was quite ill too.

I thought England had the highest infection rate in the world at the moment?

Dunno about cases or infections, since "the vaccine doesn't stop infection" and infection is benign for most, maybe we should focus on deaths. Problem is that's biased by under-reporting in resource-poor countries. Still, if you believe relative country comparisons from WHO, UK is in the 2nd lowest category recently for Covid deaths, per 100k persons. USA, Russia, Brazil, most of middle Asia are the places with highest death rates at moment. Eastern Europe is in the throes. Poor Iran is hammered. They have an especially youthful population so the damage is especially bad there -- even more youthful since early 2020, I guess.

I’m in a similar situation to the OP (NW Italy, no cases in close friends and family, all family members with valid Green Pass) and have booked to fly to the UK (SW and London, staying in the centre and avoiding public transport whenever possible) in early December.

WRT masks, we’ll be acting the same as in Italy and following the testing guidelines for international travel.
What more can you do? It’s been a long two years.

What

People are utterly delusional if they genuinely think countries all report the same and that the UK just happens to be the worst country for covid. We started vaccinations before the rest of the world. We have most of the population vaxxed. We have the same variant other countries have so why do you believe british people are more at risk of death than the rest of Europe despite the same vaccines.

frankly I am so sick of the UK bashing on this thread and thought that the OP was really goady

I agree. It's very irritating when smug ex-pats come onto MN to go on about how everything is so much better in their new country of residence.

@EileenGC

FFP2 masks can be reused safely, in a way which makes their use much more sustainable. The German government for example, employed actual scientists who explained to us how to safely reuse these type of masks. The ones that have kept cases low, ever since they were introduced.

I'm tired of people using 'the environment' as a justification. Are you childless, car-free, a vegan, never buy new clothes or single-use plastic, and don't put your heating on during winter?

Let's not use the environment as an excuse for everything. Many people haven't caught Covid, and it wasn't because of their cloth masks.

The point is there is no evidence that my wearing a medical grade mask would have made an iota of difference. I've not had covid, and my family haven't either.

I wasn't making the environment an excuse for anything. I was just saying that I don't think you need to use disposable masks. And yes my friend in Germany said you could reuse the FFP2 masks but she wasn't happy about using them either (she's German by the way so not a smug ex-pat).

@ShaneTheThird

People are utterly delusional if they genuinely think countries all report the same and that the UK just happens to be the worst country for covid. We started vaccinations before the rest of the world. We have most of the population vaxxed. We have the same variant other countries have so why do you believe british people are more at risk of death than the rest of Europe despite the same vaccines.

• The UK started vaccinating 3 weeks before Europe. In terms of a pandemic, 3 weeks is nothing. Europe is all caught up and has been for months. Some countries have even ‘overtaken’ the UK (I hate using those words FYI). The UK isn’t ‘miles ahead’ with vaccinations anymore. It was, for about 2 months, last winter.

• Not the same vaccines. Majority of Europe has used Pfizer and Moderna, with the odd AZ top up. UK has relied on AZ as much as Pfizer, especially in the beginning. UK isn’t fully vaccinating teenagers. I’m no vaccine expert so can’t give exact facts on how much this is influencing the high transmission we’re seeing in the UK right now, but it is - read the science.

• In the UK you’re at more risk of death - for the sake of using your words - because there are more cases, no less protective measures. The health system is more understaffed, underfunded and at risk of collapsing than other countries.

No country has done it perfectly but the UK has so far looked worse than its European counterparts. Comparison is good for nothing at the end of the day, because people have lost their lives and that’s not something we should rejoice about.

I just wish people stopped believing all this British propaganda of ‘we’ve done a great job, we’re ahead, it’s fine to lift restrictions and we’re still good’.

Where I live the government says ‘we’ve done a shit job, it could’ve been so much better. This is where we could improve’. Right after saying that, they go back to their offices and start working on those improvements. Instead of telling the population how we’re not so bad and we were leaders at X thing for about 5 minutes, 9 months ago.

@lockdownmadnessdotcom

frankly I am so sick of the UK bashing on this thread and thought that the OP was really goady

I agree. It's very irritating when smug ex-pats come onto MN to go on about how everything is so much better in their new country of residence.

Some hyper-sensitive people on this thread! I don't think the OP was goady at all - perfectly reasonable in my view. I'm not an expat btw, smug or otherwise...

Good posts @EileenGC

The point is there is no evidence that my wearing a medical grade mask would have made an iota of difference. I've not had covid, and my family haven't either.

There is evidence. There have been plenty of studies on which these decisions have been based. They haven’t mandated FFP2 masks for the sake of it - it has been proven they reduce transmission considerably.

The fact that you haven’t had Covid isn’t an evidence of anything. I also haven’t had Covid but I can still acknowledge it exists and you could catch it in a variety of situations.

I’m also not British, so sadly not a part of the smug ex-pat club either

@ShaneTheThird

People are utterly delusional if they genuinely think countries all report the same and that the UK just happens to be the worst country for covid. We started vaccinations before the rest of the world. We have most of the population vaxxed. We have the same variant other countries have so why do you believe british people are more at risk of death than the rest of Europe despite the same vaccines.

You’ll get reams on why U.K. is terrible.

Re Covid has gone in pp no one thinks this. I am pleased restrictions have been lifted and hospitalisation is decreasing. I live here so my view is more important to me than what others think who don’t. Looking around central London the feeling doesn’t seem to be uncommon.