Originally Posted by fishz

An update on my experience over the last 24 hours or so. I was refused boarding in Johannesburg since the Netherlands told all airlines that they would not accept any non-EU arrivals. This was literally minutes before I tried to do my bag drop. Turkish Airlines did a FANTASTIC job at the airport and rebooked me from Istanbul directly to the UK. I was unable to buy such a routing the night before. It took hours, but the Turkish Airlines staff were exceptional at JNB.

I managed to board with the old (now invalid) passenger locator form because I had trouble completing a new one with my new routing. I've updated that after arriving but on arrival, the e-gates wouldn't let me in and I was directed to a human border official. They took the details of my actual flight and asked me if I knew that I need to quarantine. On arriving home, there was a PCR test waiting for me. I'll only look at that tomorrow but it's quite impressive and must have been done on the basis of my original planned itinerary and locator form. Overall, there seems to be a little more joined up thinking than I'd have given them credit for.

I saw grown men in tears in Johannesburg when they discovered that they couldn't get tickets to leave. One lady managed to secure a tricky routing with multiple airlines/tickets in order to get to the UK for her mother's funeral. My own family are all now pretty broken up about the expected cancellation of our family Christmas together. I recognise that doing nothing isn't a political option, but I really hope that our elected leaders/servants understand the human suffering these decisions cause.

Originally Posted by Smiley90

It's really a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If they don't ban travel and Omicron ends up being more transmissible/vaccine-escaping/dangerous, the blame for the amount of suffering breaking out domestically would be squarely placed on the politicians who did NOT enact a ban. The best case scenario here is a pre-emptive ban while hopefully we know before Christmas what the deal with this new variant is (w.r.t transmission/disease presentation/vaccine effectiveness) and then measures can be relaxed should it turn out to be no big deal. For those that have travel booked before then it most definitely sucks. a lot. and my heart goes out to everyone who's been waiting for 2 years to finally travel again, did everything right by being vaccinated and keeping everyone safe, and now having those hopes crushed at the last second.

Originally Posted by anabolism

What I don't understand are the half-measures, such as the U.S., which announced that it will impose restrictions starting Monday and not applicable to U.S. residents. What's that going to accomplish?

Originally Posted by LETTERBOY

I don't think the US government has the power to stop their citizens from leaving the country, and they certainly don't have the power to deny entry to US citizens. The steps they've enacted are pretty much all they can do.

Originally Posted by anabolism

They can't do either, but they can impose quarantine, as they did at the start of the pandemic. They could have, for example, required a short three-day quarantine and testing. That wouldn't be foolproof of course, but it would undoubtedly catch more positive cases than just a test 24 hours before the flight.

Originally Posted by Smiley90

The problem with that is likely that it'd be up to individual states to enforce that - and roughly half the states would most likely refuse, making it a rather pointless exercise.

Best would be an additional test taken right when they leave the airplane, while it's still in federal jurisdiction. It still wouldn't force quarantine, but MAYBE if people got a message 24hrs after arrival that said they tested positive, they'd self-isolate........ Maybe. This IS the US were talking about here though.... Anyway, all speculation. A great many things will change in the next month.

Originally Posted by anabolism

It would have to be a federal program, as it was at the very beginning when they were busing people to quarantine facilities. The whole point of the restrictions being imposed now is to slow the arrival of the new variant into the US, to buy time to put contingency plans into place if the variant has high immune escape. The less effective the restrictions, the less time the measures buy.

Originally Posted by stuarto

Scratching our heads here in CPT about ways to avoid the dreaded hotel quarantine issue, if we were to fly to LHR and transit back to Dubai and go through the UAE test and trace procedure etc - would they wear that if we were PCR clear prior to departure ?? Got to be better than a LHR hotel box ..

Originally Posted by jsnydcsa

To confirm, SA is currently still requiring inbound pax to have negative PCR within 72 hours of departure to SA. Correct?

I know outbound pax may also require PCR before departure from SA. SA is still requiring that as well. Correct? (In the case of the outbound to the USA, the USA is now requiring it to be within 24 hours of departure).