International travel

[Martin_B]

Everyone has to wear those old fashioned ballgowns to enforce social distancing.

It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "masked ball".

Where are you attaching the mask, there? And what do ladies do?

[Herainestold]

Awww, can't we just start shooting them?

Well, anything to discourage travel.
Europe should really go into lockdown now, but I doubt that will happen.

The UK should go into lockdown, but the level of the discussion is still oooh don't know if we'll be able to fully unlock when we said.

Here in Italy all the numbers are still going down and in a few days we'll be able to stop wearing masks (outside when there's nobody else there).

Maybe discos/clubs will reopen "within the first 10 days of July" but it remains to be seen what the rules for dancing in them will be.

https://www.quicomo.it/attualita/corona ... -como.html

If Europe went into lockdown now, maybe part of the summer could be saved. It's too late for us.
We will be looking at saving the NHS (again), the summer is gone.

[bolo]

If Europe went into lockdown now, maybe part of the summer could be saved. It's too late for us.
We will be looking at saving the NHS (again), the summer is gone.

Have you considered changing your username to doomsayer?

[headshot]

If Europe went into lockdown now, maybe part of the summer could be saved. It's too late for us.
We will be looking at saving the NHS (again), the summer is gone.

Have you considered changing your username to doomsayer?

H would have been walking around with an "End of the world is nigh" sandwich board before the internet existed.

[jimbob]

I've been trying to get some fieldwork funded for three years, and finally I managed. Going to Iceland in about a month.

I have to quarantine for 5 days and pass two tests. The government has free hotels to quarantine and I expect better conditions than this.

I might pack some extra food though.

My daughter did that in the summers 2019 and 2020 for voluntary work with the Icelandic forestry service in þórsmörk

In 202 she did decide to camp rather than stay in a hotel - that was her summer accommodation anyway.

She did get some quite dirty (and good) Icelandic snacks.

[Bird on a Fire]

I've been trying to get some fieldwork funded for three years, and finally I managed. Going to Iceland in about a month.

I have to quarantine for 5 days and pass two tests. The government has free hotels to quarantine and I expect better conditions than this.

I might pack some extra food though.

My daughter did that in the summers 2019 and 2020 for voluntary work with the Icelandic forestry service in þórsmörk

In 202 she did decide to camp rather than stay in a hotel - that was her summer accommodation anyway.

She did get some quite dirty (and good) Icelandic snacks.

I got a small EU grant giving me a month free in a field station, which should be nice. I've really missed living closely with colleagues and chatting about work over the last year and a bit.

I'm told that the chocolate raisins there are excellent, though Tessa K is the expert on that front.

I will mostly be hanging around the southern lowlands watching flocks of waders depart on southward migration. But I'm sure I'll find time to do a bit of exploring too - I've always wanted to see a volcanic eruption, for instance.

[shpalman]

Boris Johnson Signals Potential Double Jab Covid Quarantine Exemption Portuguese PM hints at tougher Covid rules for tourists from UK

UK Covid news: NI adds Balearics, Malta and some Caribbean islands to travel green list before England update

António Costa’s remarks follow Angela Merkel calling for visitors to EU from Britain to be quarantined

[sTeamTraen]

Oh f.ck.

A month ago, Spain put the UK on its no-test-needed list. Maybe fair enough at the time, since the UK's 14-day case rate was 45 and Spain's was 160. Here in the Balearics it was 40.

The expected tourist bonanza didn't happen, because UK people were put off by Spain's amber list status.

In the meantime, the UK's rate has gone up to 213 as of today, while Spain's is down to 93, and locally it's creeping up - now at 48.

The UK just announced that the Balearics are going on the green list from next Wednesday. And Spain has nowhere to downgrade the UK to, unless it's their non-EU list with the requirements of a "complete vaccine course finished two weeks ago, or recovery from Covid in the past 6 months, or an urgent reason to travel". That is, there is no list that would allow UK tourists over the age of 16 in with only a test.

So Spain has a hard choice to make. They can do nothing, thus earning the wrath of their neighbours (who are putting arrivals from the UK, vaccinated or not, in quarantine) and the EU; or they can deny entry to unvaccinated UK visitors, including many parents of school-age children; or they can create a new list of "countries from which just a test is OK for tourism" and put exactly one country on it, which would be taking the piss to a very high degree.

Brace, brace...

[Woodchopper]

Oh f.ck.

A month ago, Spain put the UK on its no-test-needed list. Maybe fair enough at the time, since the UK's 14-day case rate was 45 and Spain's was 160. Here in the Balearics it was 40.

The expected tourist bonanza didn't happen, because UK people were put off by Spain's amber list status.

In the meantime, the UK's rate has gone up to 213 as of today, while Spain's is down to 93, and locally it's creeping up - now at 48.

The UK just announced that the Balearics are going on the green list from next Wednesday. And Spain has nowhere to downgrade the UK to, unless it's their non-EU list with the requirements of a "complete vaccine course finished two weeks ago, or recovery from Covid in the past 6 months, or an urgent reason to travel". That is, there is no list that would allow UK tourists over the age of 16 in with only a test.

So Spain has a hard choice to make. They can do nothing, thus earning the wrath of their neighbours (who are putting arrivals from the UK, vaccinated or not, in quarantine) and the EU; or they can deny entry to unvaccinated UK visitors, including many parents of school-age children; or they can create a new list of "countries from which just a test is OK for tourism" and put exactly one country on it, which would be taking the piss to a very high degree.

Brace, brace...

Looks like Spain won’t get much solidarity from Portugal: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -exemption

[shpalman]

Oh f.ck.

A month ago, Spain put the UK on its no-test-needed list. Maybe fair enough at the time, since the UK's 14-day case rate was 45 and Spain's was 160. Here in the Balearics it was 40.

The expected tourist bonanza didn't happen, because UK people were put off by Spain's amber list status.

In the meantime, the UK's rate has gone up to 213 as of today, while Spain's is down to 93, and locally it's creeping up - now at 48.

The UK just announced that the Balearics are going on the green list from next Wednesday. And Spain has nowhere to downgrade the UK to, unless it's their non-EU list with the requirements of a "complete vaccine course finished two weeks ago, or recovery from Covid in the past 6 months, or an urgent reason to travel". That is, there is no list that would allow UK tourists over the age of 16 in with only a test.

So Spain has a hard choice to make. They can do nothing, thus earning the wrath of their neighbours (who are putting arrivals from the UK, vaccinated or not, in quarantine) and the EU; or they can deny entry to unvaccinated UK visitors, including many parents of school-age children; or they can create a new list of "countries from which just a test is OK for tourism" and put exactly one country on it, which would be taking the piss to a very high degree.

Brace, brace...

Looks like Spain won’t get much solidarity from Portugal: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -exemption

Or Italy https://www.ansa.it/english/news/lifest ... 9aedf.html

[sTeamTraen]

Or Italy https://www.ansa.it/english/news/lifest ... 9aedf.html

That article is 10 days old - I thought I'd seen that Italy actually has imposed quarantine (5 days?) on travellers from the UK since then.

[shpalman]

Yes it was imposed on the 18th, I just googled and grabbed the first link which mentioned something.

https://www.esteri.it/mae/it/ministero/ ... talia.html

Chi ha soggiornato o transitato nel Regno Unito nei 14 giorni precedenti l’ingresso in Italia deve sottoporsi a tampone nelle 48 ore precedenti l’ingresso, ad isolamento fiduciario per 5 giorni ed effettuare un nuovo tampone al termine dell’isolamento.

If you've been in (or passed through) the UK in the 14 days prior to entering Italy you need a PCR test in the 48 hours before arrival, and to self-isolate for 5 days once you arrive with another swab at the end of the 5 days.

Meanwhile, countries on the C list, plus Canada, Japan, and the US, can enter with a green pass.

The lists can be found at http://www.viaggiaresicuri.it/approfond ... einviaggio but A is bits of Italy which are pretending to not be Italy when it suits them i.e. San Marino and the Vatican, list B is low-risk countries (there aren't any at the moment) and list C is basically Europe, which would include the UK except for the new special rules.

[Herainestold]

If Europe went into lockdown now, maybe part of the summer could be saved. It's too late for us.
We will be looking at saving the NHS (again), the summer is gone.

Have you considered changing your username to doomsayer?

H would have been walking around with an "End of the world is nigh" sandwich board before the internet existed.

I must admit to feeling pretty bleak about the future, Even after being double Vaxed with AZ, there doesn’t seem to be much hope of returning to normal. After the Delta variant there is sure to be another. At least I’m not in India.

[shpalman]

Oh f.ck.

A month ago, Spain put the UK on its no-test-needed list. Maybe fair enough at the time, since the UK's 14-day case rate was 45 and Spain's was 160. Here in the Balearics it was 40.

The expected tourist bonanza didn't happen, because UK people were put off by Spain's amber list status.

In the meantime, the UK's rate has gone up to 213 as of today, while Spain's is down to 93, and locally it's creeping up - now at 48.

The UK just announced that the Balearics are going on the green list from next Wednesday. And Spain has nowhere to downgrade the UK to, unless it's their non-EU list with the requirements of a "complete vaccine course finished two weeks ago, or recovery from Covid in the past 6 months, or an urgent reason to travel". That is, there is no list that would allow UK tourists over the age of 16 in with only a test.

So Spain has a hard choice to make. They can do nothing, thus earning the wrath of their neighbours (who are putting arrivals from the UK, vaccinated or not, in quarantine) and the EU; or they can deny entry to unvaccinated UK visitors, including many parents of school-age children; or they can create a new list of "countries from which just a test is OK for tourism" and put exactly one country on it, which would be taking the piss to a very high degree.

Brace, brace...

Elation in Spain as Balearic Islands gets the chance to finally import a whole load of Delta variant

Officials and businesses in the Balearics celebrated the UK’s decision to put the islands on the green list. “For us it’s like a rebirth,” said Javier Pascuet, the director of tourism for the municipality of Calvià, which includes Magaluf. “We only have 48 cases per 100,000 inhabitants per fortnight.”

He stressed that authorities would be diligent in cracking down on parties, crowds and any other behaviours that could risk exacerbating the pandemic. “Holidays are about being laid back but we cannot afford to have our numbers go up again,” he said.

Yes I'm sure that will work.

“There’s a point where you have to be realistic,” he said. “We only have July, August and September left. That’s three months to have as many infections as you would normally have in six months.”

[jaap]

I have travel plans for about a month from now, so I hope that will still be possible then.

Here in the Netherlands they finally updated the official Corona app. Previously it was only for booking a test and then being able to show a QR code as proof of a negative test result. Now it provides proof of vaccination, not just for the Netherlands, but also an internationally recognised QR code.

The app updated yesterday morning. Of course it did not work because the website it contacts to access the records was completely overloaded by everyone desperate to travel, or like me just trying it out. Today, it seems to have started working intermittently, so it eventually downloaded my records and could in theory generate a QR code. It won't actually do so till 1st July when they are officially put into use in the EU.

To be honest, I don't want to be 100% dependent on this technology (e.g. what if my iphone battery is low) so I also ordered an official paper booklet to get my vaccinations recorded. I'm not the only one cause apparently they've been inundated as well and it could take up to 2 weeks to be delivered. It arrived the other day, so when I get my second shot I can have my booklet stamped.

[OffTheRock]

I know it's the express, but this isn't going to age well, is it?

[Hunting Dog]

You'd almost think from the newspaper coverage that all the English are selfish shits who couldn't care less who they might infect with a variant of covid so long as they get their cheap fortnight on the beach.

[OffTheRock]

You'd almost think from the newspaper coverage that all the English are selfish shits who couldn't care less who they might infect with a variant of covid so long as they get their cheap fortnight on the beach.

And who are then going to be surprised by the fact that they are stuck in Spain when they inevitably test positive for covid at some point or are a close contact in a hotel where there's an outbreak. I'm fairly certain that limited healthcare resources on small islands and the mess they'll leave behind (if they are lucky) hasn't occurred to them. I'm not 100% sure on the healthcare facilities in the green list islands, but I'm from the Channel Islands. I assume there are some similarities in the ability, or not, to be able to move patients to different hospitals if one fills up.

Looking at the Covid briefing in Guernsey today, looks like they are going ahead with the plan to allow double vaccinated people in from the UK/CTA without testing or quarantine. Nowhere else, that's been put on hold. Half of me is thinking I trust them, they've got it right so far. The other half is still going - really, are you sure?

[sTeamTraen]

You'd almost think from the newspaper coverage that all the English are selfish shits who couldn't care less who they might infect with a variant of covid so long as they get their cheap fortnight on the beach.

And who are then going to be surprised by the fact that they are stuck in Spain when they inevitably test positive for covid at some point or are a close contact in a hotel where there's an outbreak. I'm fairly certain that limited healthcare resources on small islands and the mess they'll leave behind (if they are lucky) hasn't occurred to them. I'm not 100% sure on the healthcare facilities in the green list islands, but I'm from the Channel Islands. I assume there are some similarities in the ability, or not, to be able to move patients to different hospitals if one fills up.

We are pretty well set up for health care here in Majawkah. The Balearics' CFR across the pandemic is 1.4% and our overall death rate is 727 per 100,000 people (source). We have been putting infected tourists in hotels that have been specifically opened for that purpose (we have a *lot* of unused hotel capacity) and the regional government announced some time back that this would be free for all travellers.

That said, the regional government also urgently asked Madrid yesterday evening to put the UK on the same basis as the EU, which means entry with a vaccine, a certificate of recovery from Covid within the last 180 days, or a negative antigen test. The problem is that it looks politically very awkward to pretend that Brexit didn't happen. The politically consistent thing to do would be to put the UK on the general "non-EU countries at risk" list, but at the moment being on that means you need a vaccine, a certificate of recovery from Covid, or (a test plus an urgent reason for travel). The latter point would exclude many UK people, both younger solo adults and parents of school-age children. (Children under 16 are allowed in with just a test if their parents are vaccinated.)

The UK would be a strong candidate to be put on its own red list at the moment, with its 14-day case rate this evening standing at 225. For comparison, yesterday the UK put the Dominican Republic (case rate 137) on the red list.

[OffTheRock]

I think the UK would have ended up on it's own amber list about a week after it released the lists. I suspect that it's using the same cut off points that Guernsey was using 30/100K per 7 days and 100/100K per 7 days. I think those were similar to the rates on the images Whitty was showing about the risks of the vaccine in one of the press conferences. Difference being we don't have exceptions to that -unless you are Warren Gatland-.

90% of the over 50s are double vaccinated +14days, so hoping they've got this right and it won't be their first misstep.

[sTeamTraen]

I know it's the express, but this isn't going to age well, is it?

I just found out that Spain renewed its "safe countries" list on Thursday evening and the UK is still on it, for at least another week.

Among people calling for mandatory testing of incoming UK tourists is the president of the Mallorca Hoteliers Association. Presumably he has worked out that while being on the green list is good for business, being taken off it after a fortnight isn't quite so clever.

[OffTheRock]

I’d imagine selling Mallorca to double vaxxed EU tourists this summer would be a much cleverer move.

[shpalman]

How about just from Spain?

Over 700 children from seven Spanish autonomous communities have so far tested positive for the coronavirus after being in Mallorca between 12 and 20 June

Oh.

[shpalman]

People from the UK travelling to Portugal will have to quarantine for 14 days unless they can present proof they had been fully vaccinated a fortnight before their arrival.

Germany also wants the European Union to restrict UK travellers.

The Times reported German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to designate the UK as a "country of concern" because the Delta variant of the coronavirus is so widespread.

The plans will be discussed by senior European and national officials on the EU's integrated political crisis response committee.

Mrs Merkel previously told Germany's parliament: "In our country, if you come from Great Britain, you have to go into quarantine - and that's not the case in every European country, and that's what I would like to see."

[badger]

Hope you don't mind me asking here, but as you lot seem up on travel I thought it worth a shot, and am reading a lot of conflicting and out of date advice elsewhere. Any advice appreciated and taken with the usual caveats.

A mate (British citizen and resident) is currently in Uganda for his father's funeral. Last Thursday Uganda was announced as due to be put on to the Red list this Wednesday at 4am. He's managed to rebook on the next (and only) flight back, which leaves Uganda and lands in Belgium before the deadline, but his connecting flight doesn't get him to London until a couple of hours after. The wording is confusing on the Govt website, suggesting on the one hand as long as you haven't been in a red list country you'll be fine (which he won't have been) but also that if you arrive after the deadline you have to quarantine in the hotel/prison.

Am sure it's been discussed here but which is correct?

If he has to do the hotel/prison, what are the ways out of it? If he stayed in Belgium would it be the same there? Or could he book himself into a nicer appt to quarantine in Brussels? Or could he fly somewhere else to quarantine? He has an offer to stay in a friend's place in the Balearics - could he fly there instead to quarantine, or would Spain kick him out?

I think he's double-jabbed.