No covid testing for Chinese travelling to UK

[Yirk]

The government aren't going to enforce mandatory covid testing for Chinese travellers coming to UK , your thoughts ...Good or bad move ?

It would be utterly pointless. Plus, aren’t they having such a bad time because their covid measures have been so strict and because they have an elderly population who are not vaccinated?

I can’t understand at this point why we even bother worrying about covid anymore. I had covid about ten weeks ago and I was asymptomatic, my older parents had it with only very minor symptoms.

However, I’ve just got over that flu that’s been making the rounds and my goodness…I’d happily attempt to keep that out of the country.

I've not been worried about it for a long time, but I'm starting to feel slightly apprehensive about it again. I'd feel a lot happier if they'd extend the boosters to the under 50s - it's over a year since DH and I had our last vaccine.

Rightly or not, whether there is any medical value or doing so or not, France has announced restrictions which include:

"All passengers arriving from China – by direct flight or with a stopover – must present a negative Covid-19 test result (PCR or antigenic) less than forty-eight hours before departure to be able to board; wearing a mask will be compulsory during the flight; and, from January 1 , on arrival in France, PCR tests will be carried out randomly on passengers for the sole purpose of epidemiological monitoring."

That at least potentially puts restrictions and checks in place on those transferring via Paris and connecting onwards to the UK - e.g. AF/KLM are currently selling tickets for Beijing/Paris/Edinburgh.

www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2022/12/30/covid-19-la-france-impose-a-son-tour-des-restrictions-aux-voyageurs-venant-de-chine-touchee-par-une-resurgence-de-l-epidemie_6156130_3244.html

It makes some policy sense in France, where they still have regional/local mask mandates, and I think they still have a testing regime in place.

It's a policy nonsense in places where neither is in force

Worth noting that an increasing number of countries are following Germany and Switzerland's lead and reintroducing mask mandates for certain public settings (esp medical and transport). They do not want their health care buckling under stresses of covid, flu, strep A and RSV. We seem hell bent on wrecking

@UnmentionedElephantDildo

It makes some policy sense in France, where they still have regional/local mask mandates, and I think they still have a testing regime in place.

FWIW there's nil such local to us, (just requests to consider in wearing masks in places such as airports and public transport).

You can still go get tested at some labs but I'd have to dig around to see when/if it ever mandatory.

Most places most of the time the situation is pretty much as per the UK.

@UnmentionedElephantDildo who is stricter , my impression was most of europe have a similar approach to us know
How can people stay home with colds etc all the time , you can have 3 or 4 a year , who can afford that much time of work and so many use the bradford factor , your job would be on the line
Most cannot work from home, its easy for us that can to stay home but not so easy for others

France varies by region

Germany reintroduced mask mandates late summer for public transport
Austria has a mask mandate for Vienna
Spain requires masks on public transport, as does Greece (where also required in pharmacies)

Other countries which still have mask mandates include Egypt, Brazil, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea (and a few more) some with fines for non-compliance.

Testing regimes vary, as do requirements on those known to have covid.

Yes, we all know that sick leave is a burden, and that being off work is harder for some than others. But look at what is going on right now - people are getting bug after bug, needing time off work because they are ill, not feeling thoroughly recovered for weeks. We really should not be complacent about the mass spreading of any of the four in high circulation already.

But the government is. Despite what is going on in NHS, and that we're only at the start of the winter virus season.

And before I get shouted at (again) low covid (and everything else) is not the same as aiming for zero. And if it's low, then the need for sick leave drops, which is in everyone's interests (and that of the economy)

There was a poster on AIBU yesterday saying they'd found the German mask rules were being frequently ignored, interestingly. Takes up back to the point that having a rule and having a population who observe it aren't the same thing outside of authoritarian states like, well, China. They've been enforcing it there alright!

On that point, it's delusional to imagine isolation rules would be complied with if introduced/reintroduced here. Even for covid alone, compliance rates were pretty low by the end. Because with isolation, as with any restriction, it needs a population who are both willing and able to comply. We don't have that. Carefully explaining why it would be good if we did doesn't change that.

@SirMingeALot

On that point, it's delusional to imagine isolation rules would be complied with if introduced/reintroduced here. Even for covid alone, compliance rates were pretty low by the end. Because with isolation, as with any restriction, it needs a population who are both willing and able to comply. We don't have that. Carefully explaining why it would be good if we did doesn't change that.

It's interesting that you believe much of the population wouldn't be willing to 'comply' (your word - I prefer 'observe') with isolation guidelines. I live outside the UK and we still have an isolation period of 7 days. This isn't accompanied with any fines and isn't enforced, but from my experience, most people appear to respect it. During the very early days of the pandemic, those isolating with Covid would be visited by the police (this happened to my neighbour) to make certain they weren't leaving home, so I suppose people are pleased those days are past.

So perhaps not so delusional? It can and does happen.

The Department of Health and Social Care has announced that passengers travelling from China on direct flights from 5 January will be asked to take a pre-departure Covid test.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64130655

None of this tells us anything about the society being discussed.

We already know that compliance, observation, adherence, whatever was a problem here even back when it was a legal requirement. Indy SAGE, of all people, talked quite a bit about this, and you presumably know they weren't exactly opponents of the rule.

And this was before the full collective public experience of Partygate. Any analysis that doesn't even try to account for that very significant factor is pointless.

Also, you appear only to be referring to isolation due to covid here. The poster I was responding to wasn't.

So yes, delusional.

They could have imposed a few weeks of banning those with Chinese passports. not everyone would have bothered to travel indirectly during the Chinese New Year holiday period. They never managed to do a single thing about tracing the origins and providing a definitive answer or addressing the wet markets which are still going strong. I think it is really obvious who is in charge here.

You just fly via another country.

Who's also going to pay for all this? Man hours etc ...

Everyone moaning about rising costs, state of NHS, someone has to pay.

It's more inconvenient and often costly to fly via another country though. So it will have an effect on the numbers travelling from China which is the desired outcome while cases are so high there.

Same as when other countries blocked direct flights from the UK without negative covid results when our cases were very high. People could probably find a way round the rules if they were prepared to spend extra time and money flying via other countries but most of us didn't bother.

As with the strokes, Rishi does literally nothing. Not even the bumbling assurances of Boris which did not amount to anything in the end, Simply nothing.

Maybe he learnt from observing what happened with Boris that there is no point in bumbling assurances. He has decided to take a hard line with striking and that message comes across without him needing to say anything. His apparent lack of concern shows that he is taking a hard line.

It’s all very well to talk about testing, quarantine, etc but who is going to do the testing, and manage the process? Where would we quarantine?

Random hotels already full of channel migrants, healthcare and border force staff are striking so I can’t imagine they will have capacity or indeed willingness to take on extra work, why should they? There is no magic spare workforce.
Are Gov’t sitting back on this because they know it can’t be comprehensively achieved and a partial response is jut a waste?

Flying indirect is normally cheaper for long haul travel. I know because I've done it many times.

Well ok sometimes it is cheaper but it will take longer and be more inconvenient changing planes. So it will be off putting for many travellers which is the outcome they want.

We wouldn’t have to quarantine because the current plan is to test before they fly so that if Covid is detected they can’t fly.

Plus a much smaller sample of spot checks on Arrival but I think that’s more about getting information on variants than putting people into quarantine.

The reality is there's lot of transfer traffic ex-UK and into UK on return through places like Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt due to the level of UK Air Passenger Duty on Longhaul sectors, probably 20-30% of footfall through the major hub airports in Europe is transfer..

It's one off the reasons KLM/AF and Lufthansa operate fairly frequent services such as EDI-AMS or EDI-FRA...people like avoiding London for reasons various.

It's quite disturbing to read comments in the Guardian with regard to the recent testing requirements such as:

"Because travel is a devolved matter the decision will affect England only. However, all direct flights from China are said to land in England."

It's normally a short stopover like what PP said Frankfurt , Amsterdam or Zurich for a few hours. It's significantly cheaper talking maybe half the price of direct in non peak times and your luggage goes directly onto each flight so it's not really much of a faff.

That's why a one month ban on Chinese nationals would address the issue of breaking journeys and take us to the end of the Chinese holiday season.

Even taking away from the politics of Covid, which seems to stir up strong feelings, I'd have thought it was smart to wear a face mask in built-up areas, by which I mean the shops of course - there's a savage flu going round I understand, so a face mask would protect against that, surely.

I think Rishi is keeping out of it because every decision he makes for the UK has a cross impact on China's relationship with India (given how powerful his FIL is).