August 2021 Planning - Will we get there?

[Gelatoni]

Originally Posted by sprocket

Who is your insurance with?
Usually insurance to countries on the FCO warning list is only covered for essential travel and not holidays. Also often only cover Europe travel.
I personally wouldn't travel to the US while on amber unless I had clear written statement from my insurers that they will cover a holiday.

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Barclays. It usually invalidates just the cancellation portion of a policy, but you are covered for medical. I took mine out years ago though, so it"s possible that new policies are different. I know they no longer sell my policy.

[Whoppery5k]

Delta is in almost 100 countries, UK, US, and most of Europe.
This is one cat that's not going in the bag, so we know 2 shots offers a lot of protection and the UK and USA are at the 50% mark for the adult population.
So we ether wait till it hits 75% (which the us won't) or accept the levels we have now are about as good as we will get them.
Had the numbers wanting a Vax dropped off in the UK I think we would have opened up this Monday but people really do want to get jabbed.
So it does make sense we hold on 4 more weeks.
I see no reason not to open the airlines to America.

[ScoopsAhoy]

Originally Posted by act1980

This is what I don't understand, we're not the only country with it. The US already has it and the CDC have voiced their concerns over it.

If fully vaccinated people are travelling between various countries then the risk is significantly reduced. 16 months of this, time to move forward now.

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While we are not the only country who has it, we are the country with the highest number of cases outside of India.
No one can be surprised if the US and EU keep us out until our cases start declining and quite rightly so.

[Cypressgdnjg]

This is the issue isn’t it, unfortunately whilst a vaccine may reduce viral loads you could still be a carrier - hence countries with low levels of delta may well decide allowing UK tourism is not a risk worth taking until they have their own populations vaccinated

[DisneyYoda]

It is worth reiterating here that we are testing hugely more people than many counties including the USA. If death rates are anything to go by (which they are) there are a lot more cases around in the USA which are not being picked up.

Jonathan posted this link for me a while back which shows the testing numbers.

ourworldindata/grapher/f...ountry=GBR~USA

Maybe explains why USA rates have been 'falling' whilst ours have been 'rising'?

Surely this will be taken into account when decisions are being made and so we shouldn't put to much emphasis on the case numbers?

[Kat11]

Originally Posted by DisneyYoda

It is worth reiterating here that we are testing hugely more people than many counties including the USA. If death rates are anything to go by (which they are) there are a lot more cases around in the USA which are not being picked up.

Jonathan posted this link for me a while back which shows the testing numbers.

ourworldindata/grapher/f...ountry=GBR~USA

Maybe explains why USA rates have been 'falling' whilst ours have been 'rising'?

Surely this will be taken into account when decisions are being made and so we shouldn't put to much emphasis on the case numbers?

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I agree. It’s a shame this was not made clearer to the general public as I don’t think it is. It makes us look so bad when in reality we probably are in a similar situation to other countries who aren’t testing as much.

That graph posted by Jonathan is the graph that should be printed in the newspapers.

Just got to hope that the cases are flattening and will start to reduce soon. 🤞🏼

Kat

[Ooberjay]

With the rates as they are in both countries and both have genome sequencing in place, if we are to learn to live with the virus. Opening up a corridor between US and UK makes perfect sense. Of course politicians don't follow sense 🙄

[sprocket]

Remember a travel insurance policy is for one year only, if they change their T&Cs then you will get these the following renewal. Even travel insurance provided via your bank account is for a 1 year period and auto renewed.
If your policy is no longer sold, they can still change the T&Cs each renewal year.

Originally Posted by Gelatoni

Barclays. It usually invalidates just the cancellation portion of a policy, but you are covered for medical. I took mine out years ago though, so it"s possible that new policies are different. I know they no longer sell my policy.

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[sprocket]

Countries have spent millions on vaccinations so they wont want to let any variant in that could possibly be vaccine resistant (well apart from the UK letting in everyone).
The UK seems to be the first to jump and announce to the world the moment a new variant is discovered in the country.

Originally Posted by Cypressgdnjg

This is the issue isn’t it, unfortunately whilst a vaccine may reduce viral loads you could still be a carrier - hence countries with low levels of delta may well decide allowing UK tourism is not a risk worth taking until they have their own populations vaccinated

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[Keegan]

Not sure if anyone is due to fly from Manchester with Aer Lingus but all flights are cancelled till end of September. I've just put a new thread up to make people aware.