Lifting of quarantine in UK

[isthismylifenow]

Thank goodness.

News is in that BJ will be lifting the archaic quarantine restriction for the majority of red listed countries.

Only 9 countries will be restricted apparently, but South Africa will finally be opened up.

Our government has had to put quite a bit of pressure on though. It does seem quite a coincidence that our vaccine passport goes live on 5th October.

Lets hope this will now boost the ailing tourism economy.

here

Great, some new variants to add to our mix, just in case any of us were thinking we might avoid it. So pleased!

I don't know anyone lamenting the fact they have been unable to visit South Africa!

I think it will take a lot to get people back there to 'boost' tourism

@CarrieBlue

Great, some new variants to add to our mix, just in case any of us were thinking we might avoid it. So pleased!

This 100%

Then let’s wait for the ‘NHS to collapse under winter pressure’ headlines…

@gardeninggirl68

I don't know anyone lamenting the fact they have been unable to visit South Africa!

I think it will take a lot to get people back there to 'boost' tourism

Yet there are many many South Africans wanting to visit the UK. There is a massive amount of British people here who have not been able to see their families for a year and a half. Plus UK residents who haven't been able to come home. Well unless they pay 2250 pounds each to be stuck in a little hotel room for 10 days first.

And then there is the trade between countries which has been crippled.

@CarrieBlue

Great, some new variants to add to our mix, just in case any of us were thinking we might avoid it. So pleased!

The plan was always to open up once the vaccine programme was well underway.

Do you really think it could continue this way forever?

Wait, so the UK has no measures domestically and people can just go around unmasked, unvaccinated, schools full with no measures etc, and the problem is going to be vaccinated, negative-tested travellers from South Africa? Really?

Are people really that ignorant? The NHS collapsing won’t be caused by open borders. It will be caused by a lack of measures in the country itself.

I don't know anyone lamenting the fact they have been unable to visit South Africa!

My SIL is desperate to take the kids to visit her family. Her parents have never even met my 2yo niece.
Just because you don't know anyone, doesn't mean they don't exist.

@isthismylifenow 18 months isn’t ‘forever’. Although in terms of global warming and climate change, reducing travel is a pretty good idea, so the longer the better, and then the fewer the better to be honest.

[quote CarrieBlue]@isthismylifenow 18 months isn’t ‘forever’. Although in terms of global warming and climate change, reducing travel is a pretty good idea, so the longer the better, and then the fewer the better to be honest.[/quote]
I think you may have misread my post.

@isthismylifenow I really don’t think I did.

@EileenGC

Wait, so the UK has no measures domestically and people can just go around unmasked, unvaccinated, schools full with no measures etc, and the problem is going to be vaccinated, negative-tested travellers from South Africa? Really?

Are people really that ignorant? The NHS collapsing won’t be caused by open borders. It will be caused by a lack of measures in the country itself.

👏👏👏👏

I hope this is true - but until the next review is released we can’t get our hopes up. Everything crossed.

I'm hoping the PCR testing on return to England is changed in time for the start of half-term and not at the end of that week - should hear today.

Gosh. Hard to know where to start with some of the comments posted on this thread. Going to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume people aren't trying to be nasty, they just haven't thought things through.

@CarrieBlue and @gardeninggirl68 I appreciate you don't know anyone who has been lamenting the fact they haven't been able to visit South Africa. About 70% of the people I know have been doing exactly that. It is hard to know exactly how many South Africans there are in the UK but in 2020 the ONS estimated that there were 229,000. That won't include (1) people who were born in the UK (or elsewhere) but with grandparents or parents in South Africa (like my children), or (2) people who for whatever reason were born in SA but have not kept up their dual nationality. The SA travel ban will also have affected UK citizens who have UK born family who have moved to SA and people with business interests in both countries. I am desperate to go back or have my family come here as I haven't seen them since mid 2019. I'm sure you had some empathy for friends or family who were kept away from their UK based families during lockdown - maybe spare a though for those of us who have followed the rules and stayed away from South Africa.

@Confused10101 we are all worried about variants. But the South African variant in South Africa has been completely obliterated by the delta variant. Which is why France, Ireland and Switzerland (there are others but these are the ones I can remember offhand) opened up to fully vaccinated South Africans months ago. To argue we need the ban because of the South African variant is completely illogical. Also, I'm not sure if you know this but South Africa has a great genome sequencing capability - do people think it is a coincidence that the countries with the most genome sequencing are the ones finding the variants? And lets not forget the UK managed to hatch up its own variant last year without any help from abroad.

@CarrieBlue I think people oversimplify the environmental / climate change / global warming arguments. Yes, less air travel would no doubt be a good thing for the world. But foreign leisure travel is a tiny proportion of the global carbon emissions - we need to think much bigger than this. We need to stop using cars, we need to stop buying things like iPhones, we need to stop buying fast fashion etc. In fact there are so many things we could do which would have a massive impact but we don't (we say we will but we don't). Some leisure travel to and from southern Africa is really, really not going to solve our environmental debacle. What banning travel there will do though is have a massive and devastating blow on the wildlife and conservation areas there - with no tourists, there is no money to keep up wild sanctuaries - how are they going to fund anti-poachers, pay for game fences etc. WHO and the UN are already so concerned about this they have given extra funds to places like Namibia because of the concern that people are starting to eat more of the wild animals (because they have to - furlong is not really a thing there) and there is a concern that this poses a risk of further viruses skipping from animals to humans. Just what we need.

Spot on PatrickTheFox.

I really hope you get to see your family very soon. As do I.

I was listening to the radio the other day, as you know we have made great strides in TB testing and research over the years. Some researchers at Stellenbosch University began a study on how to recognise a TB cough, and they are now working on this to include distinguishing between a Covid and a non Covid cough. It would be app based and available for everyone to use.

I will keep following this study as I do think it is quite progressive for early detection going forward.

I know South Africans living here with family on South Africa. I know people who have moved away from family across the world. I still think opening up borders without restrictions is madness. If you move half way across the world, surely you don’t expect to see your family very much at all? The cheapness of air travel makes journeys that were unimaginable a generation or two ago commonplace, and that does contribute to the environmental disaster we are living through. A friend moved to Australia when I was a child - we accepted that we would not see her again. So I do believe that international travel should be greatly restricted, regardless of covid which just adds an additional danger to the pollution caused. But as with everything with this pandemic, it’s all about what the individual wants rather than the wider community.

I still think opening up borders without restrictions is madness.

But there are restrictions. Several of them. So opening up isn’t madness.

Letting the virus rip through the country without any restrictions is. That’s what the UK is doing - there are no measures whatsoever anymore, none that are legally enforced anyway. So why is a few hundreds of passengers coming from SA dangerous, when you’ve got 55+ million in England alone, going about their lives without any restrictions at all? Does covid not exist in the UK anymore? Is it a thing that only exists abroad now?

CarrieBlue I think you are being very harsh.

"But as with everything with this pandemic, it's all about what the individual wants rather than the wider community." I had confirmed covid fairly early on. I still worked from home rather than make up an excuse about how I needed to be in the office even though I absolutely loathe working from home. I still stayed at home to protect people more vulnerable than me. I didn't dash back to South Africa in December last year via some other country (which I could have done) because the government advice was that I shouldn't. I couldn't stand wearing a mask so didn't really go out and did everything online even though I found that thoroughly depressing. I was prepared to do these things because I realised it's not all about me. I won't be lectured about not thinking of the wider community.

"So I do believe that international travel should be greatly restricted". That is fine. But let's not pretend that is in any way remotely relevant to the red list decisions.

"If you move halfway across the world surely you don't expect to see your family very much at all?" Are you serious? I honestly never thought I'd find myself in a position where going to South Africa would be illegal. I don't see my family as much as I'd like but I usually see them once or twice a year - either I go there, they come here or we meet somewhere. And I've always been able to get back for emergencies. Living away from your immediate family isn't the same as some childhood friend moving. And people move for all sorts of reason - for jobs, because they are in relationships with people from other countries etc.

"I still think opening borders without restrictions is madness". But that's not what is happening - you have to be vaccinated, do tests etc.

Very very black and white CarrieBlue.

No, when I fell in love with my foreign husband I didn’t think marrying me would mean he would be banned from seeing his parents for 2 years because of a virus. Shoot me for my lack of crystal ball. Shoot me for wanting to see them reunited.
There has to be a good reason to continue this torture and I don’t see it.

I can’t stop smiling / crying right now
Promise not to bring any new variants home, just lots of smiles and relief

@AlandAnna

I can’t stop smiling / crying right now Promise not to bring any new variants home, just lots of smiles and relief

Oooh I have been so busy today I didn't even get a chance to follow up on the news. Just saw now that from Monday the restrictions are to be lifted.

I am thrilled and now I will finally get to see my Mum

pleased you can see your mum

What the media fails to explain however, is that although we can in theory return from the vast majority of countries now with minimal faff, an increasing number of countries (mostly european, including Belgium) won't let us in due to us being on THEIR red lists as our cases are so much higher than almost anywhere else in Europe.

So happy for everyone who will be able to reunite with their loved ones now!