Misco60

And a few on this forum can't seem to see that the problem is not the lockdown but the pandemic. Lifting lockdown too quickly risks a resurgence of the virus, a third wave and a fourth national lockdown, which would be utterly disastrous.

Risking losing everything we have worked towards and sacrificed so much for for the sake of a few weeks would be foolish.

DaveS

I doubt that income tax rises will be anything like enough. Just about the only thing the young and unemployed have to smile about is that they with no jobs will not be paying for it that way. Other taxes may come into play. But there will have to be cuts to public spending. Austerity 2.0 will be a major upgrade on 1.0. Will the NHS be spared cuts? Public opinion may not be so understanding come the next election.

Kgmm77

But they did suggest the YouGov poll was somehow flawed or nor representative. It may well be, and people can be fickle, but my point was simply that’s it’s a lot more relevant barometer than Flyertalk.

alex67500

For some of us with family abroad, 3 comes after 5, so yesterday's announcements weren't much of a relief in that sense. Zoom can only bridge so much (which is why I think some business travel will recover pretty quickly, but the more "convenient" and "team spirit" ones won't).

But I'm also aware that the "greater good" needs to prevail, and whilst I'm happy with the number of deaths plummeting, there are still deaths, and actual people dying - we tend to forget that sometimes when we post here. What was even more disheartening for me yesterday were disappointing vaccination figures. I would literally take days off work to drive people to vaccination centres if it meant that could go faster.

Misco60

The Guardian nicely sums up the limitations and usefulness of a snap opinion poll.It is, of course, absolutely true that "no one will have had time to mull it over properly", but that goes for people here on this forum as much as it does the general public.

cauchy

The pandemic keeps on coming back because there are people still susceptible to COVID (e.g the anti Vax crowd). It’s not a case of “if” but “when”. It’s not clear how big this peak will be, but it’s unlikely that lockdowns will change it.

We’ve had some of the most extreme restrictions in the western world and quite frankly we’ve got nothing to show for it.

paulaf

Yes and the best vaccine rollout in Europe and probably the slowest "roadmap" despite stunning vaccine results, go figure. Why can't the dates on the roadmap be moved forward only backward if we're following the data, hypocritical?

Misco60

It's because the government's scientific advisors have said that there must be a gap of at least 5 weeks between phases: 4 weeks to determine whether the virus is still under control and a week to prepare for the next phase.

paulaf

Yes but we can all see the data daily hopefully getting better, we won't need fancy graphs to decide for ourselves.

Silver Fox

Which kept us out of the organization's vaccine fiasco.

Silver Fox

Agree. So does he:

We cannot cancel life to preserve every life

lhrsfo

I think this is probably fair enough for much of the population but, for a very significant minority, 3 can only happen after 5. And this is the crux of the issue - opinion polls can lead to the tyranny of minorities by majorities. Good government is about balancing these competing interests. If you ask people whether people should go on business trips and holiday before they can see their dying mother, you will get one answer. And that's because most people's mothers are not abroad - but a very large proportion of Londoners' mothers are abroad.

This is why the travel ban is so fundamentally wrong - allow people to go if they feel they need to but require them to pay for tests or quarantine or whatever on the return. It amounts to much the same thing for most people but is fundamentally different when it comes to an annual trip to see family.

Also, these questions were framed in the context of the majority believing that they would still be allowed to go on holiday. If you made it clear that this was not the case, and that because their company cannot continue to do business without seeing its overseas customers and therefore they would lose their jobs, they might have a different view.

KARFA

end of April at the earliest it seems, possibly later.

KSVVZ2015

Without wanting to open up the can of worms regarding enforcement risk, etc. again - given this is a place for information - I will note that a family member traversed T5 this afternoon and was not questioned with respect to reason of travel (note she is a non-resident returning to the US on a US passport so there was no issue or concern on our part).

Internaut

A colleague has a family holiday booked in Scotland, early April. Sorry, I meant had! A retiree I vaguely know has a cruise booked for early May. Snap! I'm glad I chickened out of booking Lanzarote, early June. Or should I be? It was dirt cheap at the time, but I guess the laws of supply and demand will be looking to separate this fool from his money right now.