[MartynSinclair]

[quote quote=1006593]or the business owners who refuse to enforce laws…[/quote]

Just to reinforce this point, i am not talking about the small business shop owners who refuse to enforce the law.

The large multi nationals, FTSE 100 companies, London Transport, even places of worship – all have signs about wearing masks, ALL appear to continue to refuse to enforce what is now the law in the UK.

Pity HMRC still insist on collecting taxes…

[SimonS1]

Must say going through London a couple of weeks back I was surprised how many people were not wearing masks of gad them under chins, off noses etc. Including by railway and TfL staff.

For many employees I guess the risks of confrontation are too high and they don’t want to get involved. Police claim to be too busy to get involved, or perhaps the offenders just didn’t have the right racial profile to justify being tackled?

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ASK1945

[GeorgeJ]

Yes Simon your suspicions are correct, the list is not in fact a purely Dutch list, it is the EU list which was prepared as an exemption from the total ban on non essential travel (and much essential) from outside the EU. It was the product of the usual horse trading and was whittled down from a much larger one to include a few compromises:
a) someone from each part of the globe (ie Uruguay from South America)
b) a non Russian supporting part of Eastern Europe (georgia)
c) some favourite neighbours (Serbia was included at Hungarys request but only lasted a few days when it was clear their statistics and testing were abysmal)
d) a few favoured ex colonies (why else Rwanda and Tunisia)
e) some genuinely low case number trading partners (Canada, Japan, S Korea, Australia & New Zealand)
f) China which was blocked by France until such time as they gave reciprocity
Incidentally Morocco is not on the list at present and I dont think it ever was.

In other words just as big a shambles as we see elsewhere.

Of course since health is not an EU matter, not all countries have implemented the full list and since Finland and the Baltics have restrictions on Dutch visitors there is a reciprocal 14 day quarantine in place for them despite very low rates of infection.

It almost makes the UK policy seem sensible

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ASK1945, ASK1945

[travelworld]

I must confess I was quite impressed with the sign in a restaurant which said “If you are coming in to eat here, welcome. Please make sure that you wear a mask until you are sat down at your table, and at all times when you leave the table. If you are unable to wear a mask for health reasons, please consider if it is wise to visit a restaurant during a global pandemic when you are unable to take the recommended health precautions. if you are pretending you have health reasons for not wearing a mask, please do not enter- we do not want your business”.

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TupeloKid, SimonS1, Johnnyg, Stevescoots, Montysaurus, GivingupBA, DerekVH, MartynSinclair

[MartynSinclair]

If you think we are hard done by in the UK, you may find this article ‘frightening’. It describes one man’s journey from Bangkok to Amsterdam and then back to Thailand, purely to renew his Visa to be able to legally remain in Thailand with his wife and family.

Sure there may have been other ways, but it is quite extraordinary, the lengths that some countries are going with their strategy of controlling Covid 19. I am not suggesting they are right or wrong or discussing the effects on the Thai economy. I wonder if the Thai’s think the virtual open border’s and unenforced self isolation we have in the UK, is as extreme as we believe the Thai way of closed borders and strict quarantine is also extreme…

https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/1178046-i-flew-out-of-thailand-to-get-a-new-visa-%E2%80%93-one-person%E2%80%99s-experience-with-the-%E2%80%9Cnew-normal%E2%80%9D-report/?tab=comments#comment-15721014

[K1ngston]

[quote quote=1006781]LuganoPirate wrote:
or the business owners who refuse to enforce laws…

As I mentioned in a previous thread the process arduous and frankly not worth doing if you have to do it monthly hence why we are leaving!

[cwoodward]

Interesting reports from Nature website
It seems that crew are perhaps at as much risk asare passengers.

’21 September — Business-class passenger spreads coronavirus on flight

Genetic evidence strongly suggests that at least one member of a married couple flying from the United States to Hong Kong infected two flight attendants during the trip.

Researchers led by Leo Poon at the University of Hong Kong and Deborah Watson-Jones at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine studied four people on the early-March flight (E. M. Choi et al. Emerg. Infect. Dis. https://doi.org/d9jn; 2020). Two were a husband and wife travelling in business class. The others were crew members: one in business class and one whose cabin assignment is unknown. The passengers had travelled in Canada and the United States before the flight and tested positive for the new coronavirus soon after arriving in Hong Kong. The flight attendants tested positive shortly thereafter.

The team found that the viral genomes of all four were identical and that their virus was a close genetic relative of some North American SARS-CoV-2 samples — but not of the SARS-CoV-2 prevalent in Hong Kong. This suggests that one or both of the passengers transmitted the virus to the crew members during the flight, the authors say. The authors add that no previous reports of in-flight spread have been supported by genetic evidence.”

’18 September — Musicians and a monk are tied to superspreading in Hong Kong

An estimated 19% of SARS-CoV-2 infections in Hong Kong seeded 80% of the local transmission of the virus from one person to another, according to an analysis of the virus’s early spread. The analysis also found that viral spread in social settings caused more infections than spread within family households.

In an examination of more than 1,000 coronavirus infections in Hong Kong from late January to late April, Peng Wu at the University of Hong Kong and her colleagues found evidence of multiple ‘superspreading’ events, in which one infected person passed the virus to at least six others (D. C. Adam et al. Nature Med. https://doi.org/d9c4; 2020). Musicians who performed at four Hong Kong bars are thought to have triggered the biggest cluster, which led to 106 cases. Another 19 cases were linked to a temple; one monk there had no symptoms but was found to be infected.

Nearly 70% of the cases did not transmit to anyone, the team found. The analysis also showed that more downstream cases were linked to spread in social settings such as weddings and restaurants than to household spread.’

[simeoncox]

Infections vary with context. The only commonality is proximity.

(A bit surprised by the window seat observation, though.)

[Author]

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