UKC

"UK airlines say they have been told the government will bring in a 14-day quarantine for anyone arriving in the UK from any country apart from the Republic of Ireland in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The new restriction is expected to take effect at the end of this month."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52594023

A one week trip might require five weeks off work to accommodate quarantine on arrival at destination and when you return.

And? That's the case for almost anywhere apart from the countries which ban flights altogether ( Austria for example refuses landing permission for aircraft from the UK). I'm meeting my US importer next week, he's done his 2 weeks quarantine here then flies back middle next month for 2 weeks back home.

Why does he have to come in person to see you? Can't you conduct your business with him on line?

Is that the sound of a stable door being shut?  

Err, he has German residency and his wife lives and works in Germany.

Might have been useful a few months ago but won't really help now.

There's more cases in the uk than the vast majority of countries in the world, whether you count by cases per million or by total cases, so logically someone coming into the uk from most countries will be less likely to have the virus than someone who has been in the uk for the last 2 months. 

You haven’t been following the science have you?

Its probably not good to have any extra cases entering the UK, even if there is less likelihood from some countries. Some countries like Belarus presumably have high levels of infection. There might be particularly large numbers of people from countries with high levels of infection, perhaps from the USA. At present visitors may be able to move comparatively freely around the UK if they are on business, and thus have potential to spread the virus.

It's pointless, it's not as if the UK is covid free. There are thousands of folk with covid roaming the streets right now, they just don't know it. 

NZ, yeah it make sense for them to quarantine everyone and anyone, but not the UK. Or anyone else in Europe. 

Unless the came from the US or Brazil...

CB

Yes and no. Statistically you can argue there is a higher chance they may have it. But you don't know. If folk are roaming the UK spreading covid19, how does that differ to someone arrive with it. It's them isolating once they have symptoms that matters. 

A perfect system would be test on landing, isolate for 48hrs whilst waiting for results. 

Edit. Or better still you test and isolate 48hrs before flying. 

Austria isn't letting anybody in who can't produce a negative test result less than four days old.

Despite having had a few well known spreader hotspots in ski resorts - which they quarantined fairly early - they've got off fairly lightly on the whole so far. Makes sense for them to want to keep it that way. Although there's a clear tension between that and having a heavily tourism dependent economy. 

I'd argue they didn't quarantine, all the infected tourists and seasonaires flew home to their homelands with the virus. Problem solved for Austria, not for others!! 

Well... Problem not really solved, there will be a host of court cases that will be less fun for the tourism industry here. And the organization of foreign tourists leaving Austria was chaotic to say the least. 

Isn't the risk not just about the country of origin, but also the spending X hours in recirculating air with 200 other people?

It all sounds very grandiose and imposing, but the reality would seem to be a little more lax. From the BBC website:

"People arriving in the UK would have to self-isolate at a private residence.

Government and aviation sources told BBC News that the quarantine would mean people might be expected to provide an address when they arrive at the border."

'Might' be expected! Private residence...   I rather suspect, as usual, this is our governments' daily dose of smoke and mirrors  i.e great headline impression of doing things, reality is very different. 

It's very unlikely the usa has a higher infection rate than the UK, it has more deaths/ confirmed infections but in a much larger population. It's hard to measure infection rates but if you look at deaths per million it's about double in the uk compared to the usa. The only countries with higher deaths per million than the uk are Spain, Italy and Belgium.

And very few business people are travelling to the UK as it is almost impossible. They wouldn't be able to get travel insurance, you're only supposed travel to for work if it can't be done from home and business deals generally can be done remotely and hotels are only allowed to accept key workers and people in emergencies (eg house flooded).

Almost all of the small number of people entering the uk are British citizens returning from abroad. If these have to self isolate then friends / relatives will need to do extra shopping for them even though statistically they are more likely to have covid 19 if they've been living in the uk for the last few months.

Quarantined fairly early? You must be joking! You might like to read up about how the authorities (and a doctor) acted in Ischgl as the first cases were identified, and have a little rethink.

It is a bit of a joke now. I'm not saying quarantine shouldn't happen, but that it should have happened months ago and it shouldn't be unsupervised in a private residence! Really, our borders should have shut months ago, but failing that, there should have been large quarantine centres set up (hotels could have been appropriated for this). Test, track and trace should have happened.  But no, we have clowns at the helm

I think Alan knows about Ishgl! The town was quarantined on 13 March and Austria locked down on the 16th, EARLIER than the UK on the 23rd.

Yes it is. Lets start doing it in three weeks time then.

Quarantined early, as in let the Ischgl ski season run on despite having positive cases amongst staff in the packed apres ski bars?

The vast majority of early case clusters in Germany can be traced to ski buses returning from the Paznaun valley!

CB

As can be cases in iceland, norway, finland... It's a real shame.

... The current situation here, however, allows hope (and climbing). 

“Meanwhile the Austrian Consumer Protection Association, the VSV, is gathering signatures for a possible class action lawsuit, on the grounds that the ski resorts in Tyrol were kept open for commercial reasons, despite the outbreak of Covid-19.”

Oh yes, no problems at all in Ischgl, not a hint of cause for concern...

I'm quite supportive of this measure (even though it might definitively sink my first trip out of Europe since I was 3, currently booked for October).

When the UK has/ had a very high number of infections it didn't make much sense to quarantine arrivals but as lockdown starts to work (and it seems to be working) we should eventually get down to a very low level. Maybe in a few more weeks. Then it really doesn't make sense for people to be flying in from areas where the virus isn't under control. And the virus is spreading unchecked in many parts of the world.

Sweden has no lockdown and is in the EU.

The US has fared better than the UK so far but it looks like their patchwork of lockdowns will break while cases are still high or rising in many states.

Brazil has no national lockdown and is on a bad trajectory with very low testing.

Japan (despite the weird tendency of commentators to lump all Asian countries in together) has had almost no testing and no true lockdown. They may not be recording deaths as random sampling has indicated a high level of prevalence in the community.

Anecdotal evidence from infected people crossing the China border and leading politicians affected suggests Russia's figures are much worse than published.

Yet more countries, e.g. Ecuador, have seen massive spikes in deaths from mystery pneumonia (bodies in the streets) but have little to no testing or confirmed cases.

Err why are you telling me this? I live half an hour from Austria and watch their tv sometimes.

Because your comment above seems to imply that the Austrian authorities acted so promptly - in fact, the opposite is true for what actually happened in Ischgl, as I’ve pointed out. Believe me, I’m not trying to defend our shambolic response, but neither am I championing Austria as paragons of virtue re. their handling of the outbreak and subsequent actions.

Depends on what is meant by "early".

Obviously the Austrians responded too late (despite the disastrous consequences only by three or four days!) with respect to their own infection cluster in Ischgl, but compared to the UK they indeed acted early, as reflected by the successful subsequent infection control.

CB

Is there published data to show the journey origin and nationality of arrivals in the UK? 

The Times on 17th April reported that "At least 15000 people a day are flying into the UK...." So over 100,000, not that small.

My wife mentions she read an article recently ago that claimed a sizeable number of arrivals were from places like Russia and Iran, where the situation re Covid-19 may be worse than their governments let on (I didn't see it myself).  It makes sense that some of these might want to "escape ", even to the UK (which doesn't greatly restrict entry compared to some countries). In fact the same might well be true of some from the USA. In fact it probably doesn't make much difference if the arrivals are foreign or Brits as they are equally likely to have been infected in the country they arrive from.

Just stick to traveling to France were there is no Corona either nothing like a coherent message🤦🏻‍♂️

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52610594

So, if you're in a hurry; fly to France, then get another flight here. Simples

In my reply to you a few posts up I said: ""The  Times on 17th April reported that "At least 15000 people a day are flying into the UK...." So over 100,000, not that small." (I intended to say '100,000 per week.) Other papers said similar.

However I think I heard 1000,000 since the start of lockdown on tonight's BBC News, which if correct would mean less infected people are likely to have entered the UK.

I should have said I thought I heard "100,000 since the start of lockdown on tonight's BBC News," NOT one million, Glasses needed (preferably with brandy).

I imagine in the longer run as the import risk falls and local control measures to mop up the consequences of false negatives improve it'll be replaced with screening. Presumably at the departure end somewhat like security screening we're used to. It'll require one hell of an infrastructure but a swab and a few hours is far more efficient than 14days of isolation. Cheap easy holidays are a thing of the past. 

Jk