Think being stuck at home is bad?

[Paul Hurdsfield - Joint Manchester AO]

We left the UK on the 23rd of Feb, at that time there was no government advice against travelling, all the airlines were still flying and everywhere was open.

So we did what we felt was right, if we had cancelled it would have been at our expense, while we were in Thailand it started to get a bit more serious and our travel company cancelled the New Zealand and Fiji legs of our trip, for which we received a full refund. But Thai Airways didn't cancel any flights until well into our Australia leg, at that point they issued us with a flight credit to use at another time. That was a lot of help wasn't it?

After that we were on our own, we had paid Thai a lot of money for business class travel, we looked at all sorts of options, flying to Johanesburg, going the'wrong' way via LA or San Francisco, but the only airline left flying was BA after the government negotiated with Singapore to allow flights to refuel there, that meant eight and a half hours Sydney to Singapore, one and a half hours on the ground, but not allowed off the plane, then thirteen and three quarter hours to Heathrow, all this with no hot food and no alcohol!!! then a three hour taxi journey to Manchester, public transport wasn't an option with four suitcases.

All well and good but BA wanted £9000 one way for business class, we settled for premium economy at £4000, at 70 years old i really couldn't face that journey in economy, so i bit the bullet.

[Andrew O Byrne White - Ireland AO]

Looks like he's made a bit of a dent with some media coverage:

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/coronavirus-british-tourists-peru-lockdown-repatriation-flights-a9470481.html

 

The BBC article looks to have had some significant steering from the foreign office, but the independent have been suitably ruthless! 

[Kingster]

6 hours 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 having a go, but it’s easy to say this with 20-20 hindsight. Obviously you got it bang on, but we’ve been here before and it all fizzled out. 

I think many people got caught out because nobody (in general) thought this would end up where it has. 
 

I went to France in early March and by the end of the week it was very different to when we flew out. 
 

We’ve lost holidays booked for May and it’s difficult to know what to do even if we get refunds or alternate bookings as later in the year we may be back on this merry go round again. 

 

[Lyonspride]

4 hours ago, Chris King - Webmaster and Joint North East AO said:

not having a go, but it’s easy to say this with 20-20 hindsight. Obviously you got it bang on, but we’ve been here before and it all fizzled out. 

I think many people got caught out because nobody (in general) thought this would end up where it has. 
 

I went to France in early March and by the end of the week it was very different to when we flew out. 
 

We’ve lost holidays booked for May and it’s difficult to know what to do even if we get refunds or alternate bookings as later in the year we may be back on this merry go round again. 

 

Last year my dad passed away, my mum wanted to book a family holiday in his memory, a cruise for 9 of us, the total came to just over £25'000, it was booked a year in advance, just before all of this kicked off. We might be covered on holiday insurance, but if this carries on until Autumn we won't be able to go.
I lost a UK holiday just 3 weeks ago, only just managed to get the booking rescheduled for later in the year.

Equally I know people who thought they'd be able to get a cheap holidays with all this kicking off, as well as a few of those "gap yah" types who just seem to think everything is fluffy bunnies and rainbows, like "yah" let's all just go backpacking in the middle of a virus pandemic, brilliant plan.

 

[maurici]

11 hours ago, Lyonspride said:

 way before the stupid panic buying started.

 

Said the one that panic bought way before anyone else´s...

 

It wasn´t easy to predict what was coming... Europe at whole was giving a serenity message stating that in this side of the world that wouldn´t be a problem... Obviously they were wrong. Admitedly... I saw it comming, well not really, but imagined that something like this "could" happen...

but just couldn´t do anything about it.

 

I´m one of the persons that has lost significant money on holidays, and the damn insurance refuses to pay... still fighting with them...imagine I had I canceled it in january.

 

What makes me wonder... if so many people genuinely saw it comming... Why on the f***** earth all the governments on the world missed it?

 

 

 

 

[Alan France]

When this is mostly over we can have a detailed review. I would guess PHE will be found wanting,  remember all the “nanny” messages about sugar and alcohol. Even in late January the WHO was saying the biggest threat to mankind was climate change.

 

After the review we can give the praise and awards to those who played no part as usual. 

[jeff oakley]

The problem with this is no government could ever get it right. Without being callous some people have rolled the dice and now lost want us to bail them out whatever the cost.

There have been many cases of people jumping at cheap holidays, as this would never happen to them, now it has. We have seen many on cheap cruises somehow want the UK government to charter a flight to get them off as they are stuck in a port, that should be the cruise company held to account on that one.

 

Had the government lockdown all travel the cost would have been massive and people who were needed at home could not have done so.

 

We only have to look at the reaction that is happening here, as soon as more facts were coming out people stripped shelves and now the economic impact is unfolding people want to get back to work s for many the risk of problems economically is far worse than catching Covid as the vast majority of those who are fit and healthy recover quickly. 

 

They were also relying on information from China, who lied, not just a little but a huge amount which the WHO spouted and led to the decision making process being taken by EU governments. There has been no standard way to test or record cases and death across the world so the figures being used are flawed as is the modeling.

 

I feel sorry for some who are stuck abroad but maybe it is just me but I have never holidayed without full insurance or access to money in emergencies which has happened but we sorted everything out ourselves.

 

We need to learn lessons from this all of us and the biggest one is asking when you insurance says "Force Majeure" find out exactly what that means. I have heard of a few companies thinking they were covered well only to find out they are not covered.

 

Clearly we all want UK citizens safe but there is only so much can be done reasonably in a short time frame

[Alan France]

11 minutes ago, jeff oakley said:

We need to learn lessons from this all of us and the biggest one is asking when you insurance says "Force Majeure" find out exactly what that means. I have heard of a few companies thinking they were covered well only to find out they are not covered.

Spot on. We hesitated before going ahead with our Ski trip on 10th Feb and took the time to carefully read the insurance details. Many companies have dropped really key elements over the years like airline failure, end supplier failure and other bits which many people would expect to be covered.

[Lyonspride]

30 minutes ago, jeff oakley said:

 

We only have to look at the reaction that is happening here, as soon as more facts were coming out people stripped shelves and now the economic impact is unfolding people want to get back to work s for many the risk of problems economically is far worse than catching Covid as the vast majority of those who are fit and healthy recover quickly. 

 

 

It wasn't the facts that caused panic or as I call it "reactive stock piling", it was the media showing us the panic buying in Australia, the exact items that were being panic bought in Australia were then mimicked in the UK and the US, people also went out buying up stocks of everything to then sell on for profit............ One guy even got praise from the local newspapers for setting up a stall to sell toilet paper for double the retail price, claiming he was "doing the community a favour".
The media caused the panic buying and I think they got a good roasting for it.

When I started stocking up, it was a little at a time, and it's was planned and "proactive", it was before anyone here really knew what was going on. Since then it's just been normal shopping quantities, only getting what we need. This week we managed to get a bottle of fresh milk, but i've been using my stock of UHT milk for nearly a month due to shortages. The one I couldn't get my head around was the selling out of plain flour, it made no sense until my missus pointed out that some people eat a lot of unleavened bread.
 

[Steve (sdh2903)]

7 minutes ago, Lyonspride said:

This week we managed to get a bottle of fresh milk

 

Where on earth do you live?. Everytime I've been to the shops, whether it be the supermarket, local co-op or the paper shop I've never had an issue getting fresh milk or bread. 

[jeff oakley]

Things ran out as social media took over. My wife FB feed is full of people who never baked before and are now baking, making sourdough yeast at home, cakes and knitting all popular.

 

I think there was no problem buying a few extra goods, the problem was greed and then selling on once they had created a shortage.

 

We have always sold PPE and Toilet rolls sanitiser etc but were hit with big orders as soon as it kicked off. We rationed these but when a business who normally buys 10 packs of bog roll a month and then ordes 4000 you know it is wrong so we took action.

 

Things like this brings out the very worst in people and as we see moreover the very best

 

[Kingster]

16 minutes ago, Lyonspride said:

The one I couldn't get my head around was the selling out of plain flour, it made no sense

Apparently the big problem isn’t flour - it’s packaging. The industry is set up to supply small amounts for home baking and huge amounts for industrial scale baking. They simply couldn’t get the small packaging process ramped up - but wholesalers have plenty of flour in 20kg or 50kg bags (allegedly!)

 

Of course like much of what is bandied about on social media and even on here - the above statement is based on “something I heard” and thus could be a complete load of tosh. Hence my emphasis on the word apparently 😁

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

I hàve to say, one unexpected benefit on Facebook has been making it so much easier to clean out a large number of "Facebook friends" whose false fact, crap and toxic conspiracy, tin foil hat, BS used to clog my feed. It's brought all the loony tendencies right out of the woodwork!

[DonPeffers]

https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/08-04-2020-who-timeline---covid-19

 

31 Dec 2019
China reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province. A novel coronavirus was eventually identified.

 

12 January 2020
China publicly shared the genetic sequence of COVID-19. 

 

13 January 2020

Officials confirm a case of COVID-19 in Thailand, the first recorded case outside of China.  

 

30 January 2020

The WHO Director-General reconvened the Emergency Committee (EC)........two days after the first reports of limited human-to-human transmission were reported outside China. This time, the EC reached consensus and advised the Director-General that the outbreak constituted a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

 

16-24 February 2020
The WHO-China Joint mission, which included experts from Canada, Germany, Japan, Nigeria, Republic of Korea, Russia, Singapore and the US (CDC, NIH) spent time in Beijing and also travelled to Wuhan and two other cities.

 

11 March 2020

Deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction, WHO made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.

 

Opinions vary on whether WHO have talked down the seriousness in the early stages or received less help from China than would have been ideal and no doubt a full investigation will take place later.

 

 

[Steve (sdh2903)]

23 minutes ago, Chris King - Webmaster and Joint North East AO said:

Apparently the big problem isn’t flour - it’s packaging. The industry is set up to supply small amounts for home baking and huge amounts for industrial scale baking. They simply couldn’t get the small packaging process ramped up - but wholesalers have plenty of flour in 20kg or 50kg bags (allegedly!)

 

Of course like much of what is bandied about on social media and even on here - the above statement is based on “something I heard” and thus could be a complete load of tosh. Hence my emphasis on the word apparently 😁

 

Our local bakery has said the same, there's no shortage of flour. Infact he's selling his bulk bags by the kg, turn up with a container and he'll fill it and just charge the weight. He's not ripping people off either by inflating the price.