Government consider quarantining people who arrive in UK from abroad.

[DonPeffers]

03 may 2020  https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/uk-actively-looking-quarantine-arrivals-abroad-control-coronavirus-a4430531.html

 

"Government 'actively looking' at quarantining people who arrive in UK from abroad to help control coronavirus."

 

"The Government is "actively looking" at holding people who arrive from abroad in quarantine to help control the spread of coronavirus, Grant Shapps has said" (today).

"The UK currently does not place the 15,000 people who arrive in the country every day in quarantine - which sets it apart from many other countries."

[Ian Podmore]

As an island it is certainly something we could have played to out advantage by quarantining every one who arrives.  Maybe it's too late now for it to be effective.

[jeff oakley]

A lot of this is window dressing to be honest. Yes there will always be some that have it but is it realistic to eventually go on holiday and then be expected to spend two weeks in quarantine? The main reason to do this now is to calm the shouty elements in the media.

 

I am not sure there is any evidence that it really is necessary to be honest. Look at the plane loads who were brought back from Wuhan three full plane loads and none had the virus, yet one from Italy who had no symptoms for almost a month was the super spreader apparently.

 

Today has been produce a heat mat of where all deaths have taken place directly due to covid-19 in the UK and there are huge areas with none at all. You could say the lockdown worked or that it should have been just hotspot areas where everything stopped all depends upon your point of view.

 

Now we have a new condition Coronaphobia, where people are so scared they do not want the lockdown lifted until there are zero deaths. It is impractical and we will see this rumbling on until there is a vaccine or effective treatment.

 

[SootySport]

Trouble is the current Test is not 100% reliable,  more reliable is taking people’s temperature.   Actually didn’t realise there were so many people arriving in the UK apart from re patriated UK passport holders.

Bet you are glad to be a Brit, I feel sorry for the Americans who have to put up with tha Trump oaf.

[DonPeffers]

05 may 2020   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/05/just-273-people-arriving-in-uk-in-run-up-to-lockdown-quarantined

 

273 people out of the 18.1 million who entered the UK in the three months prior to the coronavirus lockdown were formally quarantined, figures reveal.

 

Home Office estimates would still put the number of potentially infected individuals entering the UK from coronavirus-affected countries in that period in the tens of thousands.

 

The first confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK were on January 29, when two Chinese nationals fell ill at the Staycity Aparthotel in York.

 

 

[Blatman]

On 03/05/2020 at 18:23, jeff oakley said:

Yes there will always be some that have it but is it realistic to eventually go on holiday and then be expected to spend two weeks in quarantine?

 

Business travel is for me the bigger problem here. I fly for work quite often to both nothern and southern Europe. No point in going for three days work when I'm going to have to spend 28 days (14 out, 14 back) in quarantine, unless I can quarantine at home on my return. But even so...

And before remote working is mentioned, yes I can for a lot of the time but there are occasions where I have to conduct on-site set-ups and installation testing and commissioning. Can't really do that remotely although I am trying to figure out a process for that to happen as much as possible.

Essentially a 14 day quarantine spells the end of pretty much all aviation travel. 

Virgin today announced they are closing their Gatwick operation and laying off 3,000 people.

 

Going back to where I travel, for northern Europe I could drive as my destinations are usually the Dutch or north German coast. Will driving across borders also be monitored so travelers are quarantined? I'm betting not...

[Arm]

Question is what difference do we perceive to restricting travel. Virus is already here .

[DonPeffers]

Once the transmission is under control UK doesn't want to import more covid.

 

05 may 2020  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-52540733  New Zealand PM: No open borders for 'a long time'.

 

Ms Ardern said any "trans-Tasman (travel) bubble" was only possible because of "the world leading actions" of both countries.

On Tuesday, New Zealand reported no new cases for the second day in a row.

It has had fewer than 1,500 confirmed cases in total, and only 20 deaths. Last week it eased its lockdown from Level 4 to Level 3.

Australia - which has a population of around 25 million, five times that of New Zealand - has had almost 7,000 cases and 96 deaths.

[Paul Hurdsfield - Joint Manchester AO]

In the middle of March we arrived in Australia, our temperature was checked and we were given an A4 sheet with instructions on what to do if we showed any of the symptoms on the sheet.

Just over four weeks ago we left Australia, before we could get near check in our temperature was checked and we were asked a few questions, then before we could join the queue we were questioned again by a border force officer.

when we arrived in the U.K. We walked out of Heathrow airport and got in a taxi, goodness me what was our government thinking?

[jeff oakley]

This is an interesting piece from Newsnight, the BBC not being normally unbiased against the government.

 

It shows how difficult it is and continues to be to assess what was the right things to do. Hindsight is wonderful and I am sure that there have been errors, the main ones in my opinion is with Public Health England who were responsible for ensuring everything is in place. 

I know for a fact via my wife that they were planning the Nightingale hospitals in early January but the lack of real date coming out of china has masked things some what so I think they were between a rock and a had place.

 

The interesting thing in this piece is how everything has focused on Covid and no consideration by the scientific people was given to how many lives will be lost because of the lock down and the longer term issues.

 

I am sure they could have done things differently but until we see the true data of how many extra deaths over this period and what they actually died of will we know a true factual death rate.

 

The key thing many miss is 98% of people who get it recover fully with no lasting issues.

 

The last comment in the piece says the Government could have been better prepared, as I say hindsight is nice but using PPE as an example, it turns out we had stockpiles yet PHE failed to ensue it was in date, heads need to roll there.

 

 

[DonPeffers]

Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health is responsible for NHS supply chain    https://www.supplychain.nhs.uk/    and he has been health secretary since jul 2018.   Prior to him it was Jeremy Hunt from sep 2012 to jul 2018.

 

Channel 4 last night highlighted vast stock of PPE in our pandemic stockpile but mostly out of date. Nobody from Government available for interview and C4 not chosen to ask questions at daily covid briefing since Sun. 03 may.

 

Currently Jeremy Hunt is chair of an influential Commons committee responsible for scrutinising the government’s NHS and social care performance including the response to covid-19.

 

Also half the recent PPE delivery from Turkey apparently unusable.

 

Things are way too serious for this kind of farce to continue and Boris must get a grip of things asap.

[jeff oakley]

Don neither of those people are my favourites but they employ people to do a job. Those people have failed and as such should go. 

 

There is no way any minister can go and check dates. They built up a stockpile for such and event and then they found that no one had checked.

 

As for the PPE from Turkey, they could get none from normal  suppliers as everyone in the world was after it, a new company in Turkey said they could make it to specification they were given and what has arrived they have found the sleeves were too short. Again farcical but what could the minister do with that.

 

Procurement needs and overhaul and this never happen again. Whatever PM was in place they would have found this mess.

[DonPeffers]

It's an almighty mess regarding the pandemic stockpile with apparently some 2012 BBE items having multiple labels stuck on top with new BBE dates.

 

It seems this is OK if the items have been tested and still found to be up to spec., even though well beyond manufacturers BBE date.

 

C4 asked to see the reports confirming which items had been tested and were still safe and usable but nothing forthcoming so far.

 

IMO both Hunt and Hancock have to answer for an out of date pandemic stockpile with large portions of it completely unusable and putting Hunt in charge of the oversight committee is a joke. It's not a political point just a point of fact to mention one party has been in power for 10 years looking after the emergency stockpile but seemingly being asleep on the job and no mention of any subordinates being fired for mismanagement either.

 

With covid-19 being declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by WHO on 30 jan 2020 we should have been better prepared.

 

This shambles will have contributed to lives lost and I for one have lost all faith in Matt Hancock.

 

Adding to the above the NHS covid contact tracing app now seems not to work on 2 yr old phones (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8297475/NHSX-Covid-19-contact-tracing-app-doesnt-work-two-year-old-phones.html), may breach privacy rights (Matrix Chambers involved) and is likely going to be replaced with an app from Apple or Google so more time wasted developing a trace and test strategy.

 

Enough.

[BigSkyBrad]

On 07/05/2020 at 15:26, DonPeffers said:

Ms Ardern said any "trans-Tasman (travel) bubble" was only possible because of "the world leading actions" of both countries.

On Tuesday, New Zealand reported no new cases for the second day in a row.

It has had fewer than 1,500 confirmed cases in total, and only 20 deaths. Last week it eased its lockdown from Level 4 to Level 3.

Australia - which has a population of around 25 million, five times that of New Zealand - has had almost 7,000 cases and 96 deaths.

 

NZ and Australia locked down early and hard - no-one in and no-one out. NZ has a fifth of the population of Oz and a fifth of the deaths, so pretty even. Also, both countries have expansive land per capita, and many live remote anyway which helps stem the virus spread. The UK's problem is that everyone is living on top of each other, especially London.

 

The Tasman bubble allows free travel between NZ and Oz but still isolated from the rest of the world, no-one else in. One of the reasons for the bubble is to help the tourist industries that both countries rely on - Kiwis will holiday in Oz and Aussies holiday in NZ. The downside is that the NZ collective IQ level will decrease 😉.

[Marcus Barlow - Show and Events Co-ordinator]

18 hours ago, Paul Hurdsfield said:

We walked out of Heathrow airport and got in a taxi

Straight to Mi6 HQ 😎