Earlier on today, The Home Secretary of the United Kingdom announced a plan to implement a 14 Day Quarantine from the 8th of June.
And in your author’s humble opinion – 10 weeks too late.
Welcome to the UK. 14 Quarantine this way. Install a badly written contact tracing app, fill in a form and prepare for surprise visits citizen.
The measure announced by Piriti Patel (who is used to hiding, issuing reforms such as the removal of free movement and so on), who justified the move by saying:
As the world begins to emerge from what we hope is the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, we must look to the future and protect the British public by reducing the risk of cases crossing our border.
We are introducing these new measures now to keep the transmission rate down and prevent a devastating second wave.
Bear in mind so far, at most entry points into the UK there has been little to no screening, so there are 10 weeks of wasted time there. On top of that, there’s been minimal tracking too – so that’s a clever thing to do.
What’s the term? Fixing the barn door long after the horse has bolted.
Are you exempt?
Exceptions to the quarantine include:
- road haulage and freight workers, to ensure the supply of goods is not impacted
- medical professionals who are travelling to help with the fight against coronavirus
- anyone moving from within the Common Travel Area, covering Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man
- Seasonal Agricultural Workers who will self-isolate on the property where they are working
The move is the direct opposite of Europe, which is starting to open up slightly (and for example the Baltic bubble where free travel is allowed).
And what about testing on arrival?
Strangely Pirti Patal was silent on that. But we know her handling of numbers rivals other politicians. What would had been more useful is:
- Screening on arrival (see Hong Kong and Japan)
- Isolation thereafter if required
- Contact Tracing as needed (and the move to a decentralised model that allows non-identifiable data to be used)
But hey. Whatever lets her sleep at night.
10 Weeks too late.
Most of this week, I’ve written how airlines are preparing to scale back up and trying to make travel accessible again.
The move today – which is too little, too late, will be unwelcome news for the Hospitality, Tourism and Aviation sectors, all who are bleeding cash at the moment thanks in part to the mishandling of the Corovanvirus pandemic by Her Majesties Government (and I’m sorry – there has been mismanagement from start to now, from things like the planned “Herd Immunity“, old PPE being sent out as new, certain Prime Ministers ignoring things until it was too late, Omishambles using a centralised contact tracing app that isn’t fit for purpose – more failures are well documented by Lead by Donkeys at https://appeasement.org/).
What needs to happen next
For starters, Aviation, Hospitality and Tourism sectors will urgently need funding pumped with aid thanks to this decision – one that is ultimately at the door of Number 10 Downing Street.
All the other sectors who were hoping to have a trickle of income will now have to go through and run cancellations again, refunds
Is this nothing less than a total omnishambles?
It is. A end-to-end total omnishambles.
Editors note: I’ve turned off the comments on this post. Why? My personal prerogative.
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