I hope you're right - but then why are they bringing it up again? We have seen this government pretty much forget travel and forego any last bit of "global Britain" and this would not surprise me.

The (trite) "Global Britain" slogan is to do with trade, not tourism, and is a long-term idea. Covid presents a very special set of circumstances that require extraordinary short-term measures.

I can't see anything wrong with that, equally if you had a second home or holiday home somewhere in England that would seem to be OK too.

So this might be good news for people that were worried about the US not letting people in that had had the AZ jab:

AstraZeneca vaccine is 79% effective against symptomatic Covid-19, company says

AstraZeneca's showed 79% efficacy against symptomatic disease and 100% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalization in a new, US-based clinical trial, the company said Monday.

I've actually been very understanding and supportive of measures taken by Governments to limit the spread of this emerging virus so far. Unfortunately, now in March 2021 it has become very clear - it's not about controlling the virus, it's about controlling people and nothing else. The "Restrictions on leaving the United Kingdom" section in the latest set of Regulations (as posted above) has got nothing to do with controlling the virus in the UK. A very sad day for basic civil liberties in "the west".

I don't think those patient figures have been updated in a few days..

Yes, they are always a few days behind. Total patients is from 18th at present, so I should really have said:

Patients in hospital 6,162 (8,049 on the 11th)
Patients on ventilation 830 (1,110 on the 12th)

Which makes the drop even more impressive.

That is false, as this this article by Dominic Raab highlights: https://www.gov.uk/government/speech...y-dominic-raab.

Short-term measures can have long term consequences, so we can't separate the costs now and say "oh, in the long-run we'll be ok". The level of the UK's debt is dangerously high and we need to manage the health-risks present against the economic consequences. There is a chorus of people who want to throw out any economic consequences before we even think about opening up the economy, when that is extremely dangerous, in the long-run.

These extraordinary measures cannot last a single day longer than they absolutely need to. And just for the record, tourism, travel, aviation, that is a pretty big part of the economy.

Yes, some hospital patient figures are collated by NHS administrative staff who don't normally work weekends, so you have to wait until Tuesday to get some of the updates.

its not really the govt, remember Hancock and Patel were begging for hotel quarantine for everyone last time so since they didn’t get what they want they are whining and complaining trying to get what they want. Nothing new here.

I still for the life of me can’t see why we are closed but as of next Monday we can go for a nice drive I guess !

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4309ffa0ab.png
Change in the regulation is that international travel without a 'reasonable excuse' (holiday is not one) is now explicitly banned with fixed penalty notices starting at 5 000 GBP for breaching the rule. It was 100 GPB previously

Well, maybe things work something like this:

1. Health lobby runs to the press with populist-friendly scare tactics (e.g. foreigners import diseases, etc., etc., etc.) because they feel ignored by government
2. Public opinion shifts due to press coverage and this is detected in government/conservative polling
3. Government does a u-turn to stay ahead of the polls
4. Repeat

This strategy is working in the short term - for example, YouGov voting intentions are 42% Con, 33% Lab, 7% LD - and it'll continue to esclate until MPs realise it's not sustainable. So expect things to get worse, not better.

Did any journalist remember to ask the Hankiebot 64 what are the criteria for red-zoning a country?

is it number of cases?
is it hospitalisations?
is it presence of variants of concern?
is it something else?

there must be some criteria, because Boris says they’re driven by data, not dates... those laconic death-metal lovers over in Norway have been publishing theirs since May last year. Come on Hankiebot, you can do it!

The original reason was because of variants, not number of cases. That is why Southern Africa, Latin America and Portugal were added. I thought much of Europe was being hit with our own Kent variant. It does not seem right to red list another country because it is suffering with our own variant!

Unfortunately not. These journalists seem to be giving the government a free ride. Sth Africa is on the red list yet look at their case numbers and deaths. UAE, Qatar on the red-list for no reason whatsoever. I'm not sure where the data is that is driving this.