Scrutable

Herainestold wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 01, 2021 11:27 pm

Considering that the UK is the most vaccinated country (of the larger nations) and what Delta is doing to us, I fear for Europe. And the planet.

The planet will be fine. The humans living on it, maybe not so much, but the planet, or rather most of the rest of the things trying to live on it, will be better off without us anyway.

England fans who actually live in England won't be allowed into Italy to watch England v. Ukraine tomorrow in Rome.

shpalman wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 01, 2021 10:11 pm

The daily case rate in the UK is now worse than the whole EU.

Not the case rate per 100,000. The total cases.

I pointed this out to a (Polish) friend of mine who was complaining about the difficulty of getting her and her family back to Poland for school holidays (rules changing, age sensitive, driving - so going through other countries) and she said it's just because in the UK we're "doing so much more testing" so of course there are more cases (silly us), and that in Poland they were now vaccinating 12 year olds so what's the problem anyway? I tried to do the "well, there's the delta variant here etc." and also the overall Polish vax rate is only about 30% double jabbed, iirc but she's furious with the EU for continually screwing up her plans. She's been one of the more sensible ones during lockdown (pro-vax, pro-NPIs) too.

I don't think we have more cases just because we're doing more testing (though I can't find comparable figures for numbers of tests/reported test results or positivity for UK vs EU).

Well, the positive cases don't go away if you stop testing for them, you just don't know about them anymore.

wilsontown wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 02, 2021 10:34 am

Well, the positive cases don't go away if you stop testing for them, you just don't know about them anymore.

Well yes, (though you do know about some of them because they turn up at hospital) but this is more about comparing numbers rather than denying existence.

badger wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 02, 2021 10:23 am

shpalman wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 01, 2021 10:11 pm

The daily case rate in the UK is now worse than the whole EU.

Not the case rate per 100,000. The total cases.

I pointed this out to a (Polish) friend of mine who was complaining about the difficulty of getting her and her family back to Poland for school holidays (rules changing, age sensitive, driving - so going through other countries) and she said it's just because in the UK we're "doing so much more testing" so of course there are more cases (silly us), and that in Poland they were now vaccinating 12 year olds so what's the problem anyway? I tried to do the "well, there's the delta variant here etc." and also the overall Polish vax rate is only about 30% double jabbed, iirc but she's furious with the EU for continually screwing up her plans. She's been one of the more sensible ones during lockdown (pro-vax, pro-NPIs) too.

I don't think we have more cases just because we're doing more testing (though I can't find comparable figures for numbers of tests/reported test results or positivity for UK vs EU).

It's about 0.5% in Italy.

Michael O'Leary, Chief Exec of Ryanair, is not happy*



*Well, he's always unhappy about something tbh.

PS: Why's Ryanair got a Spanish phone no. for an office in Co. Dublin?

His signature looks like Trump's.

One of the dirty little not-so-secrets of this whole saga is that the claim that fully vaccinated people "pose no threat" (made by Michael O'Leary in that letter) is not true, although we don't know to what extent it's not true. We know that vaccinated people can catch Covid and pass it on; we're not sure what the reduction in infectivity is, but I don't think it's 99%.

In fact when I went to answer someone who was making this point, and wanted to say "No no, it's fine, the vaccines are making a huge difference to transmission", the published or preprinted articles I found were a bit thin, frankly.

I appreciate that we have to open up at some point, and there is pressure on governments to show that vaccination is worth it (cf people asking for the UK to remove quarantine from people returning from amber list countries because "Otherwise what's the point of being vaccinated" -- yes, it's a silly argument, but it's out there) by giving vaccinees the "bonus" of test-free travel, but as someone pointed out in this subforum a while back, the criterion for vaccination probably ought not to be "are the incoming tourists vaccinated?" but "are we here in the host country vaccinated?".

sTeamTraen wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 02, 2021 6:18 pm

One of the dirty little not-so-secrets of this whole saga is that the claim that fully vaccinated people "pose no threat" (made by Michael O'Leary in that letter) is not true, although we don't know to what extent it's not true. We know that vaccinated people can catch Covid and pass it on; we're not sure what the reduction in infectivity is, but I don't think it's 99%.

In fact when I went to answer someone who was making this point, and wanted to say "No no, it's fine, the vaccines are making a huge difference to transmission", the published or preprinted articles I found were a bit thin, frankly.

I appreciate that we have to open up at some point, and there is pressure on governments to show that vaccination is worth it (cf people asking for the UK to remove quarantine from people returning from amber list countries because "Otherwise what's the point of being vaccinated" -- yes, it's a silly argument, but it's out there) by giving vaccinees the "bonus" of test-free travel, but as someone pointed out in this subforum a while back, the criterion for vaccination probably ought not to be "are the incoming tourists vaccinated?" but "are we here in the host country vaccinated?".

The evidence is fairly clear, vaccines while performing well (but not perfectly) in preventing severe out comes, are sh.t at preventing transmission.
Its mostly wishful thinking. On a societal level the only thing that can prevent transmission is lock down, it does that well, but it is not easy to maintain especially for long periods.
International travel shut be shut down as they have done in Australia and China, and only resumed with a robust testing and quarantining regimen, vaccination status should not enter into it. When there is no community transmission in the host country, travel should only be permitted from other
green list countries and the testing and supervised quarantine should apply to all.

Only a handful of countries remain on the red list, including Brazil, South Africa, India and the United Kingdom

(Austria)

Good old right wing populist conservative governments.

Plus South Africa of course. But three out of four ain't bad.

shpalman wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 02, 2021 9:53 pm

Only a handful of countries remain on the red list, including Brazil, South Africa, India and the United Kingdom

(Austria)

UK 14-day case rate today: 368.

sTeamTraen wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 02, 2021 6:18 pm

the criterion for vaccination probably ought not to be "are the incoming tourists vaccinated?" but "are we here in the host country vaccinated?".

It's a combination. We must be vaccinated to protect against tourists coming here and infecting us, when it leads to serious illness or death. The tourists must be vaccinated to protect against them catching the disease while here and requiring expensive medical treatments (though by being sufficiently callous, we could force them to pay).

Millennie Al wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 03, 2021 12:56 am

sTeamTraen wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 02, 2021 6:18 pm

the criterion for vaccination probably ought not to be "are the incoming tourists vaccinated?" but "are we here in the host country vaccinated?".

It's a combination. We must be vaccinated to protect against tourists coming here and infecting us, when it leads to serious illness or death. The tourists must be vaccinated to protect against them catching the disease while here and requiring expensive medical treatments (though by being sufficiently callous, we could force them to pay).

Vaccination is necessary but not sufficient. Australia has it right, test and 14 day supervised hotel quarantine even for the vaccinated.Vaccinated people can be infectious and transmit the virus.

wilsontown wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 02, 2021 10:34 am

Well, the positive cases don't go away if you stop testing for them, you just don't know about them anymore.

The only way to know prevalence would be to test everybody. China did that last year in Wuhan testing 10 million people over the course of a few days. No reason we couldn't do something similar in the UK. For example we could test all of Scotland, 5.5 million, over a week.

sTeamTraen wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 02, 2021 6:18 pm

I appreciate that we have to open up at some point, and there is pressure on governments to show that vaccination is worth it (cf people asking for the UK to remove quarantine from people returning from amber list countries because "Otherwise what's the point of being vaccinated" -- yes, it's a silly argument, but it's out there) by giving vaccinees the "bonus" of test-free travel, but as someone pointed out in this subforum a while back, the criterion for vaccination probably ought not to be "are the incoming tourists vaccinated?" but "are we here in the host country vaccinated?".

On that particular point, a news item that Canada is not prepared to open its borders until 80% of its citizens are double dosed. I didn't realize their border was closed. 80% seems pretty high OWID shows the highest fully vaccinated major country as Israel with 60%. I expect that means Canada-s borders will be closed until 2022. Rather like Australia, but Australia has managed to stay almost covid free, while Canada has had major outbreaks and tens of thousands of deaths.

OTTAWA--Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday the country might require 80% of its population to be fully vaccinated before relaxing border restrictions, chief among them allowing tourist crossings at the U.S.-Canada border.

His comments would indicate Canada is setting a slightly higher threshold to meet before it scales back border restrictions--including a ban on nonessential travel at the U.S.-Canada land border--that have been in place since March of last year. Last month, officials said a significant majority, or minimum 75%, of Canadians would need two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine before travel restrictions are eased.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/canad ... 1625244014

This needs updating. In particular, the bit about a "sudden raging cold".

Covid: entry rules for UK travellers to holiday hotspots across Europe

Unfortunate use of "hotspot" there perhaps.

Malta

Malta is on the British green list, meaning the UK government says Britons are allowed to travel there. Before coming back travellers need to take a Covid test, and once back they need to take another.

Under Maltese rules, travellers from the UK are allowed to enter the country if they can show proof they have had both doses of a coronavirus vaccine. But since the vaccine probably doesn't protect that well against transmission, you should not come to Malta.

Spain

Until this week, the Spanish government had planned to allow British tourists into the country without a PCR test, but concerns over what the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, termed “the negative evolution” of the Delta variant of the virus have prompted a rethink, and they now think you should not come to Spain.

Portugal

Portugal and the Azores are on Britain’s amber list because of cases brought there by English tourists when it was briefly on the green list, but the archipelago of Madeira is on the green watchlist, but since they don't want to go the same way as Portugal and the Azores, you should not come to Portugal.

France

f.ck off. Just generally. But also because of covid.

Italy

Italy, which has a case rate 3 times lower than the UK's ever managed to get before the Delta wave kicked off (and about 30 times lower than it is now), is on the UK's amber list! Don't go to Italy you might get covid! Hahahaha. But if that keeps the British out then good, because you can also f.ck off. Especially if you think you're here for the football.

a source at Fiumicino said he had witnessed “drunk England fans, and some vomiting in the arrivals hall”.

Greece

Please come to Greece we need the money.

Good to see Greece learning from what happened in Portugal.

I really wonder at what point you'll be more likely to catch covid in one of the UK's quarantine hotels than you were in two weeks in the Red List country you were coming from.

‘It would be nice if everyone said we were lovely’

among those drinking in Campo de’ Fiori were four Germans, one sporting an England shirt.

The group had also bought tickets for the quarter-final two years ago – crossing their fingers that Germany would be in it.

“It’s a sore topic but we wanted to come anyway,” said Laura Eisenbarth.

Florian Huber joked: “We knew not many England fans could make it, and so we have come to help cheer on the team.”

It seems to have all been much better without actual UK-resident English people attending.

And I wouldn't really imagine that if Germany had knocked out England and then made it to the semifinals that there'd be many English people cheering them on in Wembley later this week.

At least 50 England supporters are stuck in 27 hotels around Rome after being intercepted by police checking for violations of Italy's five-day quarantine rule ahead of the Euro 2020 quarter final, reports local newspaper Il Messaggero (paywall).

News for anyone in an Amber-list EU country with a case rate 1-2 orders of magnitude lower than the UK who nevertheless wants to visit that plague-ridden shithole for some reason is that only vaccines given by the NHS will count for avoiding quarantine because the British can't read the Green Pass which might have foreign writing on it and something something data sharing.

Considering they keep banging on about the economy, it's striking that the UK government is encouraging outbound tourism and discouraging inbound tourism.