Make your damned minds up!

[medsec222]

Totally agree Kaz, it should be compulsory now,

[Suff]

Especially as it is clear it is working and working well.

In the last three days the UK has seen 6,317 new cases. But the number of active cases is 361 lower. That means a total drop in active cases, in the last three days, of 6,678. The UK has also moved from 111 in the table of active cases per 1m population to 113.

This is a far, far, cry from the bleating, screaming from the press and the Ex-Spurts.

Meanwhile our testing continues at a high pace and we continue to climb the tests per 1m population. With the nearest country with a population over 15m being the US at #28, France at #32 and Italy at #37.

The UK is the best placed major nation in the world for testing, vaccinations and dealing with Covid, followed by the US. Nations who do not test but still have higher case growth than the UK are not even in the same ballpark.

Which all goes to make a picture of increasing ability to exit lockdown. Not reducing ability.

If it turns out that the remaining new cases of Covid are the Indian variant in areas where the local population have refused the vaccine to "stand on their differences", then that's their problem.

I do agree though Kaz. It is rapidly approaching the state where it needs to be mandatory. People who just want to be different cannot be allowed to impact the lives of the vast majority of the people in the UK. After all were they not whinging that they were some of the most impacted in deaths with Covid and that the Government were not doing enough for "them"? Time their nose stopped growing.

[cromwell]

I would honestly make it compulsory, apart from those with medical exemption. They did it with smallpox!

Kaz, the government has voted itself all its emergency powers under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984.
Part of the 1984 act specifically states that people cannot be forced to undergo medical treatment.
So as things stand compulsory vaccination is not on; unless they pass another act of Parliament to make it so.

[Suff]

There is an alternative.

If you refused the vaccine but then were proven to have contracted and transmitted the virus, this could become a criminal offense, unless there is some underlying reason for not having the vaccine. But you would have to prove it.

In the case where you refused the vaccine then transmitted the virus and the other person, people, died, that could become manslaughter.

Although that would be a very slippery slope with Flu etc...

[Suff]

Today we got a major update on the worldometers site. Number of active cases dropped by over 9,000. According to the latest figures there are less than 33,000 active cases of Covid in the UK right now.

The most coherent statement I have seen so far is that those who broke all the rules and brought the virus back from India have infected their family and close community associates. But there is no sign of a wider spread. Yet.

In fact the numbers tend to show the opposite.

Were it not for these people who felt the need to rush off to a heavily infected part of the world, clearly known as such, then evade the rules designed to protect us on their journey home, then we would be down to extremely small numbers now.

I have been hearing a lot about how "confusing" the government position is.

Let me see.

Green: no issues
Amber: isolate at home when you get back and take testing so you might get out earlier
Red: isolate in a hotel of the governments choice, at your own expense, until testing and time prove you are not infectious.

All the rest about whether the EU will let us in? Nothing to do with our government.

As for the advice?

"We will not stop you but I don't recommend going to Amber or Red countries"

Someone, please, tell me what is difficult about this!

Or does our press and opposition actually have the IQ of an 8 year old?

If the Government said "we're not letting you go", then they'd been in dock for riding roughshod over us. If they said, we've got rules but we recommend you go anyway, they'd be called reckless. What they did is expect to be communicating with adults. So they were communicating with children. Who knew?

[Workingman]

As of today there are 43 counties and territories on the Red list, so nobody should be going or coming from there.

On the Green list there are 12 counties and territories: Australia, Brunei, Falkland Islands, Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Iceland, Israel and Jerusalem, New Zealand, Portugal (including the Azores and Madeira), Singapore, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, and St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. Some of them will not let us in, some are almost impossible to get to and others are in no state to visit at the present.

That leaves 173 counties and territories on the Amber list. That list contains countries where the majority of those thousands queuing at airports are about to visit yet the government continues to advise against all non-essential travel.

So yes the government is working with those with the IQ of a jelly baby, and how many of them will follow the rules:

Before travel to England
Before you travel to England you must:

take a COVID-19 test
book and pay for day 2 and day 8 COVID-19 travel tests – to be taken after arrival in England
complete a passenger locator form'

On arrival in England
On arrival in England you must:

quarantine at home or in the place you are staying for 10 days
take a COVID-19 test on or before day 2 and on or after day 8.

It will not be 100% nor will it be 50%. We will be lucky if it is more than a few %, and even when we do know who people are we have a poor record of enforcement.

[Kaz]

I've read a few reports on FB of people walking out of quarantine hotels after a few days, and nobody to stop them. This is just anecdotal, I don't have any news articles to back it up

[cromwell]

I have no problem believing that Kaz.