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This is not good for the airlines, and I guess you would need to be in quarantine for the first 14 days of your week away in the visited country too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52594023

I have splitting from another  thread ... this is much more that Virgin leaving Gatwick ( http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/23393 )

From that link:


and from The Metro (https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/07/uk-jordan-are-countries-world-not-health-checks-airports-12669125/) on Thursday


Comment to follow ...

Headline from BBC says "Air passengers" ... how / what will apply to Eurostar, passengers by car though the channel tunnel and ferry passengers?   How does this work for freight drivers on ferries and though the tunnel?

I guess that most journeys made in recent times have been return trips and as well as return journey restrictions, there will be outbound journey restrictions.  Not necessarily the same rules in each country, so you can't actually assume the symmetry of 14 days out and 14 days back in quarantine.

But ... sure as heck kills holidays out of the UK for the duration!  And tourist traffic to the UK. If there could or would have been any.

14-day quarantine for all air, train & ferry passengers arriving at the UK border - with the exception of commercial road vehicle drivers - should have been implemented by our government as soon as they realised there was a problem. Leaving a place of residence would only have been permitted for the purpose of food purchase. Additionally the UK border should have been closed to arrivals with no 'leave to remain'.

The government's scientific & health advisors have recently confirmed that the vast majority of initial COVID-19 infections in the UK originated in Italy & Spain.

Isn't hindsight wonderful?  :)

Possible its a measure to deter us Brits from dashing off for a weekend City break or 2 weeks in the sun somewhere, once the lockdown has been eased.  Knowing that on return you would spend 2 weeks in isolation, employers would expect that 2 weeks isolation to be taken as holiday or unpaid.

 

Given that we have heard on the news that air passenger traffic has fallen between 90% and 99%, I am not sure whether this is a case of locking the door after the horse has bolted or the government "being seen to be doing something." Whichever is true it would appear to be likely to make precious little difference to the infectio rate in this country.

A cynic might say this is a "dead cat" story, diverting the attention of the press away from scrutinising current policies and statistics.

Besides, given the way the figures have been going, with average deaths per day (7 day rolling average) being stuck at about 550 all last week, I suspect that the rest of the world has more to fear from the UK rather than the other way around.

In February or early March, when - according to reports - the first cases were imported from Italy and Spain it would have been very useful.

While we had one on the highest rates of the disease in the world and the country is in lock-down anyway, it probably didn't have much effect. 

Going forward when we have got infection rates down, and it is still high in some other countries it has the potential to be useful. China only introduced it quite late on IIRC. 

Did you see The Telegraph article saying 20, 000 people who were infected with Coronavirus flew into the UK?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/least-20000-people-infected-coronavirus-arrived-uk-lockdown/

So it's prudent to implement a 14 day travel ban to limit the continued spread of Coronavirus into the UK once it is under control. The aviation sector has already suffered alot due to Coronavirus, and when the quarantine rules come into effect (which I am in favour of) there will be an further consequences to the aviation industry (and industries that support the aviation industry). This will effect both trade, business and leisure passengers.

However, the government should have put various measures in place at airports from early March (like Italy and Spain were doing) such as notifying people of Coronavirus symptoms, testing people's temperatures, quarantining people etc. I can see from my social media history and have re-read the conversations I was having then about how the government was failing to act on many issues compared to it's European neighbours...

A quick Google search pulled up the following statistics which I thought might be of interest:

• a !/3 of all trade is sent by air
• Business travelers account for 12% percent of airlines' passengers
• Business passengers represent 75% of an airline's profits (twice as profitable as leisure passengers)

But on the upside this will have an effect in reducing air pollution!

Not necessarily, I had to self-isolate for 7 days in mid-March for a week, and the rest of my family under the same roof for 14. Nobody stopped working.

That was then, moving forward into the "new normal" employers may take a different view

Yes just as I said - it would have been very useful in February!


Again just as I was suggesting.  The criticism that we have no done this in between those two periods (including now) seems less warranted. Particularly as anyone ariving at the moment would be subject to the same restrictions as the rest of us. 

Without a doubt that "new normal" will be one in which WFH is more accepted and widespread. Some business leaders are conceeding that this is going to happen (in cases where it doesn't already).

I'm lucky to work for a big Corp that gives me the freedom to "work from wherever I like" as long as I am contactable and the work gets done.

Other employers harbour a mistrust that WFH has meant doing the bear minimum, interspersed with trips to the golf course, gym, pub or other non-productive activity. That's going to change and in fact already is due to the "needs must" of the current situation.
 

Not strictly relevant to this discussion, but an indication of how employer's attitudes vary, was illustrated by my work on Value For Money reviews of maintenance services provided by local authorities and Housing Associations. On the question of how to pay and motivate their "operatives" ie. the electricians and plumbers and roofers et al who actually went around the patch to get the work done, there was little consistency in the sector.

Attitudes varied from "they're all a bunch of wasters who need to be incentivised to get them off their backsides to do anything at all" to "they are all consciencous workers and want to give a fair days work for a fair days pay." As a result there were many payment systems, ranging from an all-inclusive annual salary through various incentive bonus schemes to payment by piece rates only.

What many of those employers often didn't want to hear was when productivity was measured in terms of turnover per operative there was little difference between any of the payment schemes, and certainly no clear "winner."

An employer gets the best performance out of their staff by good management. At the end of the day little else matters.

That's all very well for those in office type roles who can work at home.  But a large proportion of the population work in manufacturing, retail, hospitality, etc, and can't possibly work from home. So if those workplaces recommence whilst the 14 day quarantine rule is still in place, then effectively it will mean them needing to take time off.  I can't imagine any employer would permit paid absence when the cause was an inevitable consequence of someone popping abroad for a week in the sun.

Yes, of course, fully appreciate that, my response was really trying to point out (maybe not very well) that in the type of jobs that can be done from home, I think more employers will be happy to accomodate that as an option than hitherto.

It might be good news for the still large proportion of the population that can't WFH, due to quieter roads, less people rammed onto trains, buses, tubes etc. There may also be ecological benefits. It looks like Grant Shapps is hoping so!

Question (previously) asked "Quarantine for AIR passengers - what about ferries and Eurostar?"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52610594


Eurostar and most ferry arrivals are from France - so there is your answer.    Not sure if the Harwich / Hook ferry is running at the moment, or East Coast to Zeebrugge / Ostende, or anything to Bilbao / Santander?

So someone from the UK drives catches a train from Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg ete etc into France and then travels into the UK how is it going to be "policed" at our boarder as the persons point of origin will be unknown …………...

At the moment you can only enter France if you are French or can provide an important reason for entry.

Surely this is going to depend on whether your job can be done from wherever you're in quarantine? If quarantine is interpreted to mean 'stay at home' and you can work from home, all good. If it means actual quarantine* in isolation from others, with medical and social oversight, such as healthcare facility or requisitioned hospital, then less likely. Both Cyprus and NZ, to my random knowledge, have implemented the latter; those are just the ones I happen to have heard of personally, must be many others. But in UK it would quite likely mean 'stay at home', judging by our implementations so far.

*But wouldn't that be for 40 days not 14?  ;)

Fortunately we don't really have that problem. The French do, of course since "quarantaine" does still mean about forty, as well as its English meaning which applies for any duration. With 14 days being the norm now, the word "quatorzaine" has gained some currency. This word existed in the past, for two weeks (in some sense), but is no longer in use.

But you may remember that "quinzaine" already exists, being the normal word for two weeks (and for about fifteen). This duplication has been noted as a bit peculiar.

Less than a week to the 14 day quarantine being introduced and ... from the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52886724)


It does strike me as - err - slightly odd that we are looking to quarantine nearly all arrivals from next Monday when the UK Coronavirus rates now appear to be an order of magnitude higher than most other countries that people will be arriving from.    Not saying it's a bad thing to - but worldwide it would seem far more logical to quarantine people going out from the UK than coming in - certainly in relation to our near neighbours in Europe.


The cynic in me suggests, then, that people coming off internal flights should be quarantined ...

My theory is the scientific advisors are suggesting to Ministers if the UK is allowed on mass to exodus the UK for 2 weeks in the sun; the under 30 (ish) will party hard at packed night clubs with people for other parts of world etc, families children will mix an mingle and adults will generally socially interact in bars and restaurants.

All of this risks bringing back new infections.

The cynic in me is telling me that most of the quarantine requirements will be lifted on the 1st September

I do not understand all the talk of "air bridges". Their promoters imply that we can get a deal to travel to countries that have low infection rates. My view is why would any country want to do a deal with us. We are now more likely to infect their citizens than the other way round.

Simple tourists = lots of money being spent

Now France (BBC) and the Netherlands (Sky News on Planet Rock radio).

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53773914