[K1ngston]

[postquote quote=1053151][/postquote]

I have to disagree, the reason why countries such as Thailand have closed their borders is that the country could not cope with a mass pandemic episode within the general population so the Government ( I am certainly no fan of the junta) made a decision to save local lives and not worry about anything else. Like many Asian countries the seat of power generally sits far away from where the true economical effect of no travel really hits such as Thailand, but their actions have prevented outbreaks such as seen in Europe and the US as basically the health infrastructure would have effectively collapsed and to have seen bodies stacked up on the street was clearly a vision nobody wanted to see.

Others are right, countries such as Singapore and other smaller nations have been able to control the population so that the spread has been mitigated and for instance here in Singapore there has been 1 case in the General Population over the last fortnight with all other cases captured at the borders and in quarantine where the virus can be contained and managed. Singapore announced this week that the country is slowly coming out of strict restriction and moving in the right direction. There is talk of safe air bridges etc so the actions have and will enable a semblance of normality alongside the vaccine that will begin distribution next week and every adult in the country who wants to be vaccinated will be able to do so throughout the early part of 21….

2 users thanked author for this post.

simeoncox, cwoodward

[simeoncox]

“You never hear doctors speak about the effectiveness of long term border closures, for good reason.”

Effectiveness of travel restrictions (literature search)

2020, Covid-19

• https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.22.20041244v1
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32453411/
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32144116/
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7164389/
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32271600/
• https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD013574/full
(Update: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD013574.pub2/full)
• https://www.pnas.org/content/117/13/7504.long
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7313810/
• https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-020-01712-9
• https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/travel-restrictions-and-evidence-based-decision-making-novel-epidemics
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09669582.2020.1758708
• https://www.hkmj.org/abstracts/v26n3/255.htm
• https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30225-5/fulltext
• https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0993_article

2014, SARS
• https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/92/12/14-135590/en/
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270288900_Effectiveness_of_travel_restrictions_in_the_rapid_containment_of_human_influenza_A_systematic_review

[J_Pathmore]

You’ve both missed the point – border restrictions work in more isolated countries when community level transmission has not occurred, or occurred on a minimal scale. That I believe.

Are you really suggesting that Europe, UK, or the US could eliminate community transmission right now? Remember that community transmission was still occurring over the summer, with a couple hundred *documented* cases per day in each of the European nations (and often more). Not a single EU country had anywhere near the success of the Asian nations.

Our common goal is (should be) total harm minimization: harm includes thousands of small businesses shut for good which in turn leads to poverty and death, generational damage to education which again leads to poverty and death, AND deaths from COVID, among other things. I don’t know how a select few believe that if we shut down everything for a few months we’ll be better off. Let me be clear and use South Africa again as an example. Every year 60,000 – 90,000 people die with TB in South Africa. So far COVID has spread everywhere with millions of cases and it has killed 23,000. Tragic yes I’m not taking anything away from the victims. We have a safe and effective vaccine for TB, yet this still happens. We don’t shut down South Africa, we don’t shut down borders. Yes TB doesn’t spread as easily as COVID, but the theme of “total harm minimization” runs strong through our policy decisions.

I just got off the KLM flight from AMS to CPT (good flight, awful time slots) and was overjoyed to see the majority of passengers being Europeans and bringing back much needed life and help to the local economy. Even though there are still 50-150 COVID deaths per day, the knock on impact from opening businesses, borders, and everything in between has been immensely positive. There is no good outcome here, and all the above is to argue is that at a certain level of community transmission border closures become irrelevant and impractical at scale. And of course none of the above takes into account the millions of us with dual EU residency and citizenship who will always travel to and from the EU regardless of restrictions. I hope that 2021 brings help in more forms than low COVID cases.

[simeoncox]

“…overjoyed to see the majority of passengers being Europeans and bringing back much needed life and help to the local economy.”

The Great White Hunter returns? How patronising.
(I’m sorry about your timeslots. Thoughts and prayers.)

[Swissdiver]

So there is a deal at last!

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/24/uk-eu-agree-brexit-trade-deal-agreement

[IanFromHKG]

This is all a nightmare for us. Both Offspring face extended on-line learning on their uni courses. Junior Offspring is lucky that her university operates such small classes and tutorials that they are willing to accommodate the timezone difference. Senior Offspring is not so lucky, and just had to do an exam that started at 1am HK time and didn’t end until 4am. As you can imagine she is trying to live on UK time, which is fine until the weekend when we do want to go out as a family. Junior Offspring is supposed to do a year abroad next academic year (she’s doing joint honours in English Lit and French and needs the year abroad for the language side) and the combination of Brexit (work visa) and Covid travel restrictions makes it particularly challenging. For the Memsahib and me, the reality is that with the three-week hotel quarantine requirement in HK, if the girls do go back to the UK, we won’t be able to see them for months.

Let’s hope that with vaccine roll-outs, these restrictions will be lifted.

[PeterCoultas]

More to the point is the problem Brits have entering the UK from Europe.

My wife has had her flight with BA cancelled and rebooked FOUR times already with sufficiently short notice to cause problems for hotel and rail tickets, government required covid test and passenger locator form and more.

Isn’t it about time that there was a bit more connected up thinking between the UK government and the airlines – I know that is asking a lot with bungler boris as pm but it would be wonderful to know what was happening a day ahead.

[Famina]

Also, all international passengers arriving in India are to mandatorily fill the Air Suvidha Self Declaration Form effective immediately. The applications are being accepted on behalf of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, announced the ministry in a notice recently.

https://bangladeshmonitor.com.bd/news-details/air-suvidha-tn-e-registration-mandatory-for-all-passengers-travelling-to-india

[Author]

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