paulaf

https://www.sostravel.uk/

100 Companies have started a campaign to get overseas travel restarted on 1st May. BA not listed though. You can sign the campaign on this website.

LondonElite

How does a petition in the UK change where you can travel?

paulaf

I believe you live in the US so it doesn't affect you but here we want travel restrictions lifted.

LondonElite

I don’t, but my question still stands; how does a petition from UK travel agencies/service providers change the opinions of the relevant foreign governments?

stut

That's quite a generalisation - YouGov currently have support for quarantining *all* inbound passengers at 81%.

I absolutely love travel, and desperately want to get back out there. But basing it on assumption and the desire to do it is not the way to go about it with so many unknowns in place. The vaccine rollout is going extremely well - and that's great, but a rapidly mutating virus doesn't respect government roadmaps.

paulaf

They're trying to change the opinion of our government as leisure travel is currently banned.
Quite simple.

13901

Have we got firm proof that the mutations are causing problems with the vaccines? I understand and broadly agree with the feelings of caution but right now I'm seeing a lot of political posturing (e.g. over the UAE where, I should add before anyone says, I'm in no rush of going to or transiting through....)

LondonElite

I understand now. You want domestic restrictions lifted so that you can travel within the UK.

paulaf

I give up with you.

LondonElite

Maybe an example would help.

Italian government supports entry restrictions, quarantine, etc, throughout the summer. Some bright spark mentions that there is this petition in the UK which lots of travel companies and holidaymakers have signed. Oh, well in that case, borders open, come on down, we didn’t realise you had a petition.

Not going to happen.

paulaf

Spain and Greece have already said they will welcome back UK visitors from May.

stut

Of course, yes, there's a lot of posturing. The results I've seen to date have been preliminary, but there's a lot of factors. The mutations seem to have different effects on the effectiveness of different vaccines. Unfortunately, it appears to be the AZ vaccine that is most affected by the SA and '2nd Kent mutation' variants, though not necessarily for fatal illness. I may be out of date, of course, and work is continuing to modify the different vaccines (and eyes on those less affected by the current mutations - such as J&J).

I understand the caution and the frustration. But I think a scientific approach is required. At the moment, the cases and hospitalisations are falling rapidly - wonderful news. But we're both administering a vaccine and in a lockdown. Educational establishments were opened and shut down at the same time as a number of other things, so we're relying on theory as to what has what effect. I don't believe we fully understand the extent of transmission of the virus from those who've been vaccinated. So, to me, it makes sense to open up one thing at a time, remember the limitations of the current vaccines, keep on monitoring (or even, do Test & Trace effectively, but I've lost hope on that one), and keep doing the surge testing in areas of concern. Promising everything when we what we know is changing seems foolish right now.

As for foreign travel, this complexity is multiplied many times. The risks are far greater - you're mixing with a far wider group of people. Plus, you don't know what the vaccination progress or uptake is going to be like in those destinations.

I want hope as much as everybody else, but this feels like promising everything will be fine, just because you want it to be.

13901

I concur, it's better to be careful than to be hasty (though I'm happy that we haven't gotten sure proof of issues with the vaccines...no news is good news?). I'm not too sure about foreign travel being riskier than local living (or travelling) but we've been round that buoy a number of times already.

stut

Without wanting to reopen that particular debate, I would make a distinction between having more risk factors, and being more dangerous. With foreign travel, especially tourism, the potential network of infection is broadened, compared to staying closer to home (let's not forget how much of the virus originally came to the UK from ski holidays in Northern Italy). The mechanism of travel - debatable as to the impact. It isn't necessarily dangerous to travel to a country with a comparable or lower infection rate to your own, but the differences in locally prevalent variants, vaccinations, demographics and all sorts of factors when you're mixing with a far wider range of people, put a lot more unknowns into the equation.

I should point out that I've just been putting in my contribution to a bunch of RAID logs

Scots_Al

You may do. You certainly cannot say “here we want”, though (beyond the very obvious statement that everyone, of course, wants things back to normal). I can quite honestly say that amongst my social circles, no-one - and I quite genuinely mean not a single person - advocates this, and all are astonished by the reckless abandon of those calling for this kind of measure regardless of where things stand.