Think being stuck at home is bad?

[Andrew O Byrne White - Ireland AO]

I know many people are finding the current restrictions tough at the moment, but my friend Chris (of epic Euro road trip fame - the one in the MX5), has found himself in a pretty terrible situation that currently has no resolution coming.

 

He was travelling through South America when the coronavirus situation started to look a little serious. He tried booking flights home, which were subsequently cancelled, and then on the 15th of March, Peru entered a lockdown. He, and many others, weren't allowed to leave their hostel. Not too bad originally - the hostel had a bar, and the sun was out. 2 days later, drinking was banned. Everyone was contacting their embassies and getting mixed levels of engagement. The British were unfortunately on the lower end of that scale. 

 

Other nations were working on getting their citizens home, and on day 8, Chris was told that two individuals arriving home tested positive for Coronavirus. The hostel immediately went into full lockdown. Chris was confined to his 8/9 person windowless dorm room for 23 hours a day for "1-3 months". At this point everyone stepped up comms with their embassies but it didn't seem to do much. 

 

He was teased with the occasional promise of a flight home the next day from the embassy, but after packing his bags each time, it fell through. 

 

On day 24, the embassy insisted all British citizens in Cusco move to a single hotel, increasing the cost from $20 per night to $120, but they said that they would cover the costs.

 

On day 26, the embassy told him they were no longer paying. Oh, and he'd still get arrested if he attempts to leave. 

 

Day 28, Chris got his test results. He tested positive for coronavirus. In the recovery phase apparently, despite having no symptoms, but still contagious. 

 

Then the roller-coaster really begins. The embassy finally arranged a flight to take them from Cusco to Lima to get the last repatriation flight home, but as soon as the airline finds out people tested positive, they refuse to fly.

 

A few hours later, Chris gets told this is sorted. There's a military plane coming to do the domestic flight, then he will be on board the international flight home.

 

"Oh, wait, someone forgot to tell the military pilot about the positive test cases. He's turned the plane around. "

 

"OK, we've convinced him to come to Cusco again, and you might be allowed on board. "

 

"Nope you're not. The military flight has left, so you'll miss the last flight out of Peru. Oh, and by the way, the embassy staff are all getting on that flight out, so good luck - you're on your own from here."

 

The Dutch embassy kindly allowed the British to tag along to the far cheaper hotel that they arranged, so he's now only paying $30 per night indefinitely instead of $120, but it's still a pretty grim situation. If anybody had any contacts either in the foreign office or media, please let me know, or if anyone just feels like angrily tweeting the British ambassador to Peru to ask her what the hell she's doing back in the UK as of this morning, please do!

[Rory's Dad]

That's dreadful. 

[Alan France]

Can you or he involve his MP, limited help but they can help push the FO at this end. Ours (Steve Baker) has always been good and the extra push helps.

[Andrew O Byrne White - Ireland AO]

He's been talking to his MP from day one, but unfortunately really hasn't helped at all. 

[Alan France]

Can his local paper put some pressure on the MP?

[Andrew O Byrne White - Ireland AO]

https://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/18341100.salisbury-man-faces-three-month-quarantine-peru-hostel-guests-test-positive-covid-19/

 

That worked until the government got some people home and spun that as a good news story instead of focusing on the ones left behind. They're trying again now. Been in touch with various media outlets so we'll see what comes up! 

[Rob Hunter - Club Secretary]

That's horrendous! I'll definitely share it with a couple of people I know. 

 

A colleague of mine was also in Peru at the time of the lockdown (doing Macha Picchu, Lake Titicaca etc) but was one of the lucky ones, managing to get one of the last flights home after waiting in two airport lounges for over 24hrs.

 

Hope they get back soon! 

[Paul Hurdsfield - Joint Manchester AO]

This time two weeks ago we were stuck in Australia, there were six of us from the UK, our son from Thailand, and Margaret's brother from Singapore. We were there for a family wedding. Initially margaret and I spent three weeks in Thailand before journeying on to oz, we were only going to spend one week there, then go to New Zealand for twelve days, then Fiji for a week, then back to Thailand til' today 🙄.

Before we even got to oz the New Zealand and Fiji legs were cancelled. After the wedding we (ten of us) decided that we could use our original flights home and spend three weeks in oz, we thought it best to leave the city (Sydney) and head north to Byron bay then on to Noosa, we hired two eight seater cars, five people in each plus luggage, quite a drive up the Pacific coast highway, first stop would be in 400km at Port Mc Quarie where we would spend the night in a motel before carrying on north, we found a lovely fish and chip shop on the seafront then went to bed, the next morning the news had changed again, they were going to close the internal state borders, so we had another crisis meeting and decided we better turn around and get back nearer the airport, so we had done a 800km round trip for fish and chips 🙄 you couldn't make it up. I should mention that during this time all of us had emailed the British embassy, we are still waiting for a reply 🤔.

While we were driving back we found a six bedroom house on Airbnb overlooking Botany Bay.

Our airline (Thai airways) changed our flight so we could fly straight home via Bangkok, but we would have to have a medical certificate to say we were free of coronavirus. We found a doctor at 9pm one night who would give us a referral letter for a clinic to do the test the following morning for 50 au$ each, at the clinic they told us it would take three to five days for the results to come through, that was no good our flight was in three days, the following day our problems were solved, the airline cancelled the flights 🤔 one week was spent in the big brother house, re- booking flights and having them cancelled. We then got an email saying we had received flight credits for our cancelled flights, in other words they had washed their hands of us.

British airways were still flying so Margaret's brother and his wife got flights via Singapore in business for £9000 one way 😲

his wife has a 94 year old mother and she really wanted to get home so they paid up, there was no hot food or alcohol on the plane and they could not get off in Singapore.

The rest of us found a smaller house on airbnb overlooking Little bay.

Our son Paul found a flight to Bangkok via Tokyo for £5000 economy or £6000 business so off he went, getting back to Thailand two days before they closed their borders.

Then we got a flight, again via Singapore for £4000 in premium economy one way, again no hot food or alcohol, nightmare, we have now been home eleven days.

Margarets sister and her husband flew back this week by the same route in economy.

Margarets brother John is stuck in oz, he cannot get back to Singapore, they have said they will review the situation at the end of April, his girlfriend a Singaporean was able to go back but John only has a work permit so can't get back.

The other two of the ten live in Sydney, so they have settled back home.

What a f*****n' nightmare, we will be talking about this holiday for a long time to come.

On a brighter note the wedding went ahead with reduced numbers, the happy couple lost their honeymoon in Mexico but had two days away south of Sydney.

BUT we are all still healthy, no one is showing any signs of anything untoward.

Stay safe everyone, stay home.

 

[CarbonWest - Chris Broster - Bristol & Bath AO]

@AndrewOBW is it worth trying to set up a GoFundMe/JustGiving page to help with Hostel fees? Also what does his Insurance cover and could he try flying with a different countries airline via other countries to hop back?

 

I bet your European adventure seems like a walk in the park now!

 

Fingers crossed for a swift and safe resolution.

[Andrew O Byrne White - Ireland AO]

He's been reluctant to set up any sort of charitable donations page because ultimately he got into the situation while travelling, and there are a lot of causes out there in much more dire need of funding. I think at this point he wants to get home. The guardian article yesterday paints a pretty grim picture of the UK response to the situation:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/16/uk-flies-home-1000-britons-but-65000-left-in-limbo-by-covid-19

 

Evidently, he's not the only one. 

 

9 minutes ago, Chris Broster - Bristol & Bath AO said:

could he try flying with a different countries airline via other countries to hop back?

 

I think this is his plan now. I'd suggested Ireland for him, as I could sort him out with a place to stay here, but the Irish have already flown everyone home (ironically, on British Airways flights). He's in with the Dutch now, who seem to have a bit more engagement, so he's hoping to get back to Europe with them. No idea how or if that will be possible though. Any EU country will offer an empty seat on one of their planes, but there needs to be an empty seat to begin with, and they won't be responsible for getting him to the airport, which is really where the main issue is at the moment. 

 

After an hour on the phone to the british embassy staff last night, all they got was another refusal to pay for the hotel as they said they would when they were forced to move, and "we're exploring all options".

[Lyonspride]

Considering that it was the UK govt bringing Brits home from Wuhan, which most likely bought this thing to our shores, you'd think they'd be happy bringing our people home from less affected areas.

Personally though, when this was kicking off in China in December, i'd have been cancelling any plans to travel, and getting my backside back home pronto if I was already travelling. I mean by the time 2020 rolled in it was pretty evident that it was going to go global. I'd already stocked up on long life milk, tinned goods and essentials, way before the stupid panic buying started.
It's not a popular opinion, but I think too many people have gotten themselves into a mess which could easily have been avoided.

 

[jim_l]

1 hour ago, Lyonspride said:

It's not a popular opinion, but I think too many people have gotten themselves into a mess which could easily have been avoided.

 

 

Not a popular opinion, is a bit of an understatement, not a well founded opinion either. 

 

I simply don't believe that if you had £5k invested in a family holiday you would have cancelled it in December. If you had, given that there was no government advice to do so. you would have simply forfeited your £5K (this was true all the way up to mid March) 

 

Your comment ".. by the time 2020 rolled in it was pretty evident that it was going to go global" suggests you are in the wrong job,   It has the ring of a Trump like "How clever am I"  given that: 

It wasn't until 30th January that the WHO Director General has declared the outbreak of novel coronavirus 2019- nCoV as a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)" 
On the 3rd of Feb - WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said "there is no need for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade”  
It wasn't until 11th March that WHO declared it a pandemic. 
Up until the third week of March, UK government (FCO) advice was that worldwide travel was fine, with the exception of a handful of countries. 

 

So well done you, being smarter than the whole of the WHO, smarter than all of our government scientists, smarter than all of the 1 million Brits that got left abroad by this, well done you. 

 

Wanna give us a clue as to when the pandemic will end?  

 

Jim

[Lyonspride]

25 minutes ago, jim_l said:

 

Not a popular opinion, is a bit of an understatement, not a well founded opinion either. 

 

I simply don't believe that if you had £5k invested in a family holiday you would have cancelled it in December. If you had, given that there was no government advice to do so. you would have simply forfeited your £5K (this was true all the way up to mid March) 

 

Your comment ".. by the time 2020 rolled in it was pretty evident that it was going to go global" suggests you are in the wrong job,   It has the ring of a Trump like "How clever am I"  given that: 

It wasn't until 30th January that the WHO Director General has declared the outbreak of novel coronavirus 2019- nCoV as a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)" 
On the 3rd of Feb - WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said "there is no need for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade”  
It wasn't until 11th March that WHO declared it a pandemic. 
Up until the third week of March, UK government (FCO) advice was that worldwide travel was fine, with the exception of a handful of countries. 

 

So well done you, being smarter than the whole of the WHO, smarter than all of our government scientists, smarter than all of the 1 million Brits that got left abroad by this, well done you. 

 

Wanna give us a clue as to when the pandemic will end?  

 

Jim

Oh that's simple............ Once everyone has caught it.
The UK govt has already accepted this conclusion, which is why they've been building makeshift hospitals with 4000 beds and morgues that can hold 2000 bodies.

And then we've got to hope that this coronavirus is not like it's common cold cousin, in that you're only immune to reinfection for around 16 weeks, because if that turns out to be the case, then this goes from a bit of an inconvenience, to an extinction level event dragged out every flu season for several years to come.

Back in December I was watching what was going on in China and it was very obvious what was going to happen, everyone though it was just going to be the next bird flu, "a lot of panic over nothing", but right from the beginning it was much more aggressive than anything we've seen in the last 100 hundred years (and that's with Chinas own doctored/censored figures), and with modern globalisation this pandemic was a foregone conclusion.

 

 

 

 

[stephenh]

I feel very sorry for anyone caught up in this, but I can see both points of view.

Mrs H. and I were supposed to be going to Bled in Slovenia for the first week of May, and by the beginning of March we were already talking to our travel consultant about what options we had. By the middle of March we had an offer from the travel company to go on the same holiday next year instead, and by the 3rd. week of March I had cancelled the hire car in Bled and the parking at Gatwick,  and I certainly don't think that I am "as clever as Trump"!

[jim_l]

"Back in December I was watching what was going on in China and it was very obvious what was going to happen" 

 

12 Jan - WHO confirmed that a novel coronavirus had caused a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan.
14 Jan - WHO tweeted that "...investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.
23 Jan - estimated R0 (How infectious is it) between 1.4 and 2.5 (similar to Flu and SARS 02-04) 
30 Jan - the four UK Chief Medical Officers raised the UK risk level from low to moderate.
28 Feb - 1st documented transmission within the UK (all previous infections were in travellers) 
4 Mar - 1st fatality in the UK
11 Mar - WHO declared the outbreak a pandemic
17 Mar - FCO , finally, advises against all but essential travel 

 

...very obvious in December what was going to happen, obvious this was worse than MERS , SARS 02 - 04, Swine Flu...sorry, not having it, the seriousness of this is dawning on some highly educated and well informed people, in March!    Which brings me to the reason I am a little irked by the statement. 

 

Mid March- I am in India, due to return home mid April, it is declared a pandemic, and the FCO advice becomes "against all but essential travel"  so on the 18th of March I pay Qatar to change my mid April flight to 25th March. 

 

On the 19th of March - The Indian government , at two days notice, and initially for one week, bans the landing of all commercial passenger aircraft.  People scramble to buy new flights for when the one week ban is lifted, £2000 or £3000 for a one way flight home, but then the flight ban is extended,  people that have paid stupid money for a flight home, don't get home. 

 

On the 22nd of Mar, India has a one day 'peoples curfew' a trial run of a lockdown, but before this lockdown is over, the continuation is announced.  Within a day, all taxi drivers are off the road, all vehicle hire businesses are shut down (took my Enfield off me 😒), and in the state of Goa, every shop is closed. 

 

If you happen to be watching the news in India at that time, well, google "Indian police use violence against coronavirus lockdown offenders" and find out what a 'Lathi' stick is.  It didn't happen to anyone I know, but if you were there and saw it on the TV how would you feel? 

 

23 Mar, the FCO advises all Brits abroad to head home, except Brits in India, who are advised to 'prepare to stay in country until commercial flights resume'

 

Interesting times, I was OK but many around me were genuinely distressed, with limited access to food and medicines. I got home on a repatriation flight that cost me £681,   £2000 of mine currently in the bank accounts of airlines.  

 

Can I defend my decision making throughout that process? Yes, following the advice of the highly qualified people we pay to advise us, even at cost to me, and barring a series of surprises from the Indian government eveything would have been fine.