[K1ngston]

As some of you may know I have just been in the UK for last 5 weeks and I have to say I had an amazing time,having been in Asia for many years the idea to spend so much time with family and friends was truly amazing.

I flew BA First Class both ways, both flights were the old configuration which I am not a huge fan of, but of course this is a first world issue, the flight to the UK was manned by a great crew and made the flight memorable, the experience coming back was very mixed. Check in at T5 was great super helpful albeit there were a lot of documents to go through (Singapore issue) albeit I was emailed by BA to upload all documents as this was mandatory and then had to go through them again one by one at checkin, this was frustrating and handled brilliantly by the check in lady and luckily the check in area was not busy.

Security was a breeze and when my documents were checked I was told to go straight through the Concorde lounge which was closed!!! Yes the flagship lounge is closed at 3pm currently so if you have a flight beyond that you have to make do with Concorde Galleries which is a waste as nothing is there and probably best to sit in the bigger lounge …

Boarding was easy as again I am sure there were only 85-90 people on the flight, Singapore has just announced their VTL programme (dont ask me to explain in typical Singapore style its complicated, and frankly not fit for purpose) so 85 odd people were boarding and we departed about 20 mins late

Service on board was good but not as good as the first flight, I was disappointed in the choice of food, the wines were better, and the small meal before landing bearing in mind most were waking up didn’t appeal as it was a Thai Curry not something I would normally eat first thing!

We landed a little later than published due to the weather here in Singapore and then when we departed the plane the stark reminder of how poorly Singapore has handled the “pandemic”! It was like landing in a nuclear apocalyptic time, people milling round in full PPE face masks etc. The screening the PCR test on arrival the stores closed the eerie sense of Changi shows why Singapore is a long way away from opening her borders to others and why most are in semi lock down, as the Government continues to scare the population with their frankly ludicrous rules and regulations. Having spent 5 weeks in Europe attended football matches with over 65K people and wandered safely around Heathrow and Central London and tested negative 3 times now I can assure you this is way way over the top!

And now to top it all after 3 Negative PCR tests 2 lateral flows and countless other checks I am in isolation in thee JW Marriott in Singapore for the next 10 days!

The question I am asking myself this morning however is “was it worth it?” To spend 5 weeks with family and friends go back to normal and reset a resounding yes, am I a little aggrieved to be back, definitely, but my husband is here, my work is here and for the next 2 years this is where I hope we can get back to some normality ….

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thebigseats, Tand, Johnnyg, ASK1945, DerekVH, TimFitzgeraldTC, DNAdams, MartynSinclair, Tom Otley

[MartynSinclair]

I guess you should consider yourself lucky that you chose to live in Singapore and not HKG.. with their continuation of keeping UK arrivals in prisoner style quarantine for 21 (twenty one) days. G-d forbid you try to step outside of the room!

[K1ngston]

I agree Martyn, and in one of my previous posts I mentioned the stark differences between the way COVID is being handled today in Europe and here in Asia! The impossible task of chasing “zero” cases across the region and in Australia and NZ has made the region hunker down and fight a losing battle with their own selves…

But to highlight, 10 days in any hotel room after 3 negative PCRs and 2 Lateral flows is nonsense …. Good to see you btw!

1 user thanked author for this post.

MartynSinclair

[nevereconomy]

A very interesting read. I suppose that UK, Europe, the US and obviously some other countries, from the relaxing of rules coming up, have decided that life must restart even though there is an attached risk. Out of interest, how careful are you in the activities you described during your visit – for instance are you a mask wearer in enclosed or crowded
spaces ? You obviously kept safe – I ask that as keep meeting folks where I live, all vaccinated, who have caught this thing from pretty ordinary everyday situations. Maybe it is a geographical thing.

Wonder how long till no masks on planes – seems a bit redundant now, with all the other controls dropped. Did BA enforce it in F ?

[K1ngston]

Thanks for your reply. I only wore my mask when I went into supermarkets and on the tube etc where others wore them. I didn’t limit my activities at all, on the contrary, I went to 2 football matches both with over 60K people, I went to the West End on a number of occasions by tube, the cinema and anything else I could do in the freedom afforded to you all there!

My mother who has dementia is in a home so I had to take lateral flow tests every time I visited her and had to wear masks there, so I guess I followed protocol when I needed too. As for the geographical question I cannot answer that, I have been vaccinated I believe and still do this is the best prevention against the virus, my sons GF caught COVID whilst I was in the UK she had a couple of rough days but she described it as a bad case of flu (she also is fully vaccinated) she was probably part of the headline number

From my perspective and this is my own POV and will probably be shot down on it, but there is too much scaremongering going on, yes the headline number is high but the real numbers are the deaths (possibly skewed by the way the numbers are taken and other contributing factors) are low probably lower than flu numbers but we dont highlight those. The fact is you give the untrained, numbers that they dont understand and they are concerned! For me I am getting on with my life albeit not at the moment stuck in a hotel room, but Singapore is a prime example of my argument, the Government has scared the population who are not given the facts or choose not to look to deep into them so we have no real freedom here!

As for travelling in F they were stricter on the way to London ensuring we wore our masks at all times and then put all of us on one bus when we landed, the flight back they were not as strict but people in F there were 6 of us all wore most of the time

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thebigseats

[nevereconomy]

Thank you for the interesting info – it is indeed a fascinating phenomenon, but not one I hope will be repeated! No-one likes to see any hospitalizations, let alone deaths,
but it is a pandemic and unless we take the Aus/NZ/Sing/HK approach this might be what we have to live with until the critical level of vaccination/immunity is reached.

Thanks for sharing and stay safe – I am not too surprised Singapore still OTT on precautions. In my business (food) they always were a notch above most others in their regulations

[K1ngston]

[postquote quote=1113509]

I have to take you up on that, all the countries you mention are not COVID free so any tighter restrictions are not working, so why bother chasing something that is impossible to chase (the elusive zero)

Here in Singapore with all the restrictions and the almost dictatorial Government approach we still saw over 2K cases yesterday, so why bother with all the restrictions, the country is almost 85% vaccinated everyone is getting the booster shots now are we going to be in a total state of closure for ever?

We (all of us) need to move on!

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DerekVH, esselle, thecartoonman, Jacob, MartynSinclair, thebigseats

[jwak_hkg]

I think it is important to reference Australia has achieved a death per 100K rate of 5 whilst the UK is 201…..

Your comments from afar maybe be different from live on the ground.

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PeterCoultas

[K1ngston]

[postquote quote=1113715]

And they are still in lockdown, cant get out cant get in have had their liberties effectively taken away from them, I know where I would prefer to be!

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DerekVH, thecartoonman, MartynSinclair, ASK1945, esselle

[Author]

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