Are we there yet? Your second Travel Megathread (threadbans in OP}

TobyHolmes · 09-04-2021 11:24PM

Donald Trump wrote: »

The poster appears to think that everyone in the US is back in their office.

That was his confusion when I told him that the people I know are still working from home. I was merely explaining to him that the people that I know may be working in different types of jobs and organisations than the people he knows. If he knows 1, 10, 100 people in the US, then he still shouldn't extrapolate from that small sample to thinking that all offices are open. They are not.

you didnt explain. you went low. and i dont have to explain to you who i know and what they do for a living. get a clue.

Donald Trump · 09-04-2021 11:35PM

TobyHolmes wrote: »

LOL why are you on here if you just want to ATTEMPT to insult people. i certainly dont care what you think nor do i have to explain myself to you. i'm simply stating what i know and my opinions. but look i wish you the best - we all need the best right now.

Strange to take that as an insult.

The people who I know in the US who I still keep in regular contact with (having lived there for almost a decade I know quite a few there), are not back in their offices.They are working remotely. I know one non-healthcare worker who is actually receiving her second pfizer shot tomorrow. I know a few healthcare workers that received theirs a few months ago.

Within the last week, I have been in direct contact with 6 others. 4 down along the East coast, one in the south (well I am counting the one in FL as east coast) and one on the west coast. None of those 6 have received their first shot. None are back in their offices. Although one works remotely full time so they wouldn't have an office to go to. A "digital nomad"!

That fact that you might know people who are back in their offices (or maybe you read on here that "offices are open") does not mean that those 7 people are back in their offices. (The 6 non-vaccinated + the 1 vaccinated that I have been in contact with this week alone).

Van.Bosch · 09-04-2021 11:38PM

This is madness, they need to publish the criteria for how these countries are selected and removed?

While it makes sense, what has happened in the last week to remove Albania and Israel for example?

TobyHolmes · 09-04-2021 11:40PM

Van.Bosch wrote: »

This is madness, they need to publish the criteria for how these countries are selected and removed?

While it makes sense, what has happened in the last week to remove Albania and Israel for example?

exactly. we should be provided with the reasoning.

Micky 32 · 09-04-2021 11:46PM

More good news :

“”New members will also be added to the expert group that advises the Government on travel issues relating to Covid-19.””

Anyone who thinks this is going to be temporary is not going to be happy.

hmmm · 09-04-2021 11:51PM

Micky 32 wrote: »

More good news :

“”New members will also be added to the expert group that advises the Government on travel issues relating to Covid-19.””

Anyone who thinks this is going to be temporary is not going to be happy.

I presume this will include people who can advise on the economic impact of these restrictions, perhaps the IDA, Bord Failte, representatives from major multinationals, tourism and aviation interests.

"The Expert Advisory Group on Travel is to be broadened to include specialists in the logistics of hotel quarantining, laws relating to international travel and foreign relations. "

Oh.

stephenjmcd · 09-04-2021 11:51PM

Micky 32 wrote: »

More good news :

“”New members will also be added to the expert group that advises the Government on travel issues relating to Covid-19.””

Anyone who thinks this is going to be temporary is not going to be happy.

What's wrong with that ? The UK have a similar group due to report on international travel in the next few weeks. The more voices outside of public health the better. Sure people have been calling for non public health people to be on NPHET for a long time.

https://twitter.com/MaryERegan/status/1380626311266324481?s=19

Corholio · 10-04-2021 12:09AM

Pfizer vaccine protects for at least 6 months, almost certainly longer and had 100% efficacy against the South African variant. It's a Phase 3 clinical trial but very good signs so far. The antibodies produced are so high that one expert thinks that protection could last years, and potentially a one time only vaccine.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/04/01/health/pfizer-covid-vaccine-efficacy-six-months-bn/index.html?__twitter_impression=true

Micky 32 · 10-04-2021 12:13AM

It’s no wonder Eamonn Ryan would be all for this quarantine and fines:

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/politics/government-hoping-stop-cheap-flights-23884292

10 euro flights though? Is that actually possible? Haven’t seen them myself.

Tazz T · 10-04-2021 01:36AM

Micky 32 wrote: »

It’s no wonder Eamonn Ryan would be all for this quarantine and fines:

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/politics/government-hoping-stop-cheap-flights-23884292

10 euro flights though? Is that actually possible? Haven’t seen them myself.

Reminds me of the row against cheap alcohol prices in the most expensive country for alcohol in Europe and fourth in the world (soon to be higher under minimal pricing).

How dare the poor are allowed access to such luxuries?

Del Griffith · 10-04-2021 05:10AM

Donald Trump wrote: »

Del, just because you are not aware of them does not mean they do not exist. The people with responsibility for public health cannot be restricted in their decisions because boards.ie users are ignorant of facts.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/variant-surveillance/variant-info.html#Concern

Some of those have been shown to reduce the efficacy of vaccines. What you need to understand is that an efficacy of say 95% does not mean that everyone who gets the vaccine has their symptoms reduced to 5%. Some people who are vaccinated will still contract serious cases of the disease. If the efficacy is reduced, the number of people who still get seriously ill goes up.

And why do you think it's only Ireland that sees the very slight possibility of a variant that does not exist yet coming into existence in the future that justifies cutting the country off from the world at the exact point that the rest of the EU is opening up?

I mean think about those numbers, no vaccination at all and the serious cases are less than 5%, now we're talking about symptoms in those people being reduced by 95%.. a "variant of concern" might raise symptoms what.. to only 94% efficiency, 90% efficiency? And this is for less than 5% of the population to begin with? Are we still pretending this is all to stop the health service being so overrun it can't cope?

Not to mention the miniscule % of cases linked back to travel up begin with.
Not to mention all viruses mutate and have done since the dawn of time, it's completely natural.

The risk is so small it's absolutely preposterous to try and justify this, which is why no other EU country is doing it.

The worrying part is there's clearly no end game. Your post and anyone suggesting this is justified because some variant might come into existence.. etc.
When do you see a point where that won't be the case?
Are we now waiting for a magical vaccine that will be produced to include predictive AI to account for variants that don't exist at the time of its creation?

With that line of reasoning, imprisonment on landing in Ireland will be permanent. Your own post states that practIcally harmless asymptomatic spread can still occur amongst the vaccinated. Ergo variants will always be possible.
Statistically insignificant and risk to the general population will be about the same as winning the Euromillions while getting struck by lightning, but sure when has that ever mattered to NPHET and its worshippers.

Del Griffith · 10-04-2021 05:23AM

Micky 32 wrote: »

It’s no wonder Eamonn Ryan would be all for this quarantine and fines:

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/politics/government-hoping-stop-cheap-flights-23884292

10 euro flights though? Is that actually possible? Haven’t seen them myself.

The tenner is usually before gov taxes and surcharges.

Anyway Eamonn Ryan, another one for my list. Gob****e.

Happydays2020 · 10-04-2021 05:48AM

hmmm wrote: »

Someone in government has decided that the island will need to be shut down for fear of some unspecified new variant which may emerge sometime in the future. I cannot believe that the rest of the cabinet has signed off on this ludicrous policy.

There is no timeline provided as to when this restriction will be lifted. There is no criteria for which countries will be added to the list, at any time you might find a new country added. People who are out of the country (e.g. some of the many foreign workers who contribute greatly to our economy) may not have to pay a huge sum and be forced to quarantine in a hotel for 2 weeks because of an overnight decision.

Irish companies who do work abroad can't send an engineer off to visit one of these countries. A foreign engineer can't visit Ireland.

The chance of the tourism industry recovering once we are all vaccinated is dead.

I don't want to sound dramatic, but a huge decision has been made and there seems to have been very little scrutiny of what has happened. Many of these countries are our biggest trading partners and biggest sources of FDI.

You have been one of the most balanced posters on these threads. Called it as you saw it in respect to ultra relaxers and now calling it right on the damage this will do.

Given the border, our open economy, membership of the EU etc etc we were never going to be able to do zero Covid yet here we are within weeks of getting the most vulnerable vaccinated doing this which will damage our credibility and importantly seriously damage our economy. Risk mitigation is one thing but economic suicide is another.

I genuinely fear for where we will end up given the mindset at play now in closing us off.

Gael23 · 10-04-2021 06:32AM

I think the government will come under a lot of pressure to sign up to the EU travel scheme in the summer.
When it comes to vaccinating the general population which incidentally should be around the same time, those people won’t take the vaccine Unless there’s something on it, such as the freedoms to have holidays

faceman · 10-04-2021 06:33AM

Micky 32 wrote: »

It’s no wonder Eamonn Ryan would be all for this quarantine and fines:

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/politics/government-hoping-stop-cheap-flights-23884292

10 euro flights though? Is that actually possible? Haven’t seen them myself.

Ireland the only island in the EU and our transport minister agreeing with his European counterparts who can substitute the plane for a train or just drive to Spain.

Remember Ryan wanted to tax people who cobble locking their driveway that last time the greens were in power.

Ireland is doomed

faceman · 10-04-2021 06:39AM

Talking to some Ireland friends and business owners in Spain last night and there’s a lot of shock about all this. Many are now booking their flights home even though Spain isn’t on the list (yet) to get their vaccine or because they have ill or sick family.

There’s no transparency with the selection process. Even hardened MHQ supporters have to see the danger and lunacy of supporting a scheme that has no clear selection criteria, no conditions for exiting it and no transparency around when it gets updated.

No everyone travels for leisure and without these things essential travel is rendered impossible.

Str8outtaWuhan · 10-04-2021 07:05AM

Gael23 wrote: »

I think the government will come under a lot of pressure to sign up to the EU travel scheme in the summer.
When it comes to vaccinating the general population which incidentally should be around the same time, those people won’t take the vaccine Unless there’s something on it, such as the freedoms to have holidays

We are not seeing any vaccine bonus/dividend and this whole "we are all in this together" bull sh1t has worn thin. I won't be taking anything other than pfizer unless they are offering me some major benefits to vaccination (fear of death/serious illness doesn't bother me, ive plenty of life insurance/ilness protection)

naughtysmurf · 10-04-2021 07:28AM

After sleeping on this & trying to make sense of yesterday’s announcement, making certain observations & putting on my optimism hat....

Observations

A very quiet FG on this, little to no serious pushback from Leo & Coveney especially on the addition of EU countries so what’s their angle, what are they getting in return?

They left EU countries with higher infection rates off the list, makes no sense & little to no serious pushback from the EU so what are the EU getting in return as I’m sure they have given us the nod on this?

A couple of ministers comment that it’s only temporary

Ryanair announced a new route out of SNN to Corfu this week, they’ve a sniff of something, plus I thought that they & EI have been very quiet lately, they’ve been given the nod too

Willingness to realise a cock up & remove Israel from the list is significant I think

So what I think may happen is that along with a big push on vaccine rollout & getting to 70% vaccinated with at least 1 jab by the end of June, the old & vulnerable will be fully protected, we will sign up to the European travel cert in June that was the EU’s price for their quiet & also the price Donnelly / FF had to pay to save a little face

MHQ that the government didn’t really want anyway but felt they needed to be seen to be doing something to appease a certain section goes away too for EU states but will stay for non EU countries in some form until at least the end of 2021 at least, the Americans / UK will be treated similar to EU states along with countries that are performing well like Israel, Australia & NZ for example

So optimistic me sees the return of non essential travel from July onwards under the EU Green Travel Cert rules

yoshimitsu · 10-04-2021 07:33AM

Van.Bosch wrote: »

This is madness, they need to publish the criteria for how these countries are selected and removed?

While it makes sense, what has happened in the last week to remove Albania and Israel for example?

They should but it’s unlikely the will.

Firstly, they would expose their whole system to scrutiny, both national and international. People would start questioning the rationale and why no other country in the world is using this methodology. People would start asking for this or the other country to be added or taken off. By not disclosing they can do whatever they want and not provide any explanation to anyone.

Secondly, given that you have a large part of the population who blindly supports everything you do, why should you expose yourself by disclosing the criteria which might lead some of those to question your methodology and possibly lose faith in your policies? Better not say anything so the blind followers can keep on believing this:

Quote: Donald Trump
I'd imagine that they have access to more data than your average boards.ie or twitter user.

Even these people have some expectation to return to traveling (IIRC SaabSaab says June; DT had a trip booked in October and was feeling quite smug about it) but when they’ll be told by the “experts” that they’ll need to “be patient, responsible, do they’re little bit to make sure we can rid this country of this terrible virus” and postpone their travel plans yet again, they’ll proudly accept. And if/when that will happen again in 2022, they’ll accept again without protest. After all “the government know best” “there’s a deadly global virus out there, don’t you know” “why should we sacrifice everything we’ve done until now to go on a jolly in Lanzo”. The sheep will always follow the heard.

What I find amazing is that they also hold on to the hope of international travel returning soon enough (June or Oct) but the logic they espouse actually suggests that we won’t be traveling until 100pct of Irish residents are to be vaccinated:

Again to quote DT: “It has to do with the levels of variants of concern prevalent there.
Despite what some appear to think on here, they are a worry because there is evidence that some of them reduce the efficacy of the existing vaccines.”

Following that logic, even if 95pct of Irish residents will be vaccinated, a variant could emerge among the 5pct who aren’t and that could jeopardize everyone else. So borders should stay closed till then at least... and I doubt anyone believes that we’ll be at 100pct of residents vaccinated by Jun or Oct. ‘21.

But I guess that taking that logic further means that, even when we reach 100pct vaccinations here, we should only be allowed to travel to countries that have a similarly high level of vaccinations because again, there could be a variant developing among the unvaccinated there that could jeopardize everyone else.

Which makes me wonder, this vaccination passport that the world (ex Ireland) is talking about to restart travel, it must be a crackpot idea because even if you’re vaccinated you could be traveling to a location where these infamous “[variants] that reduce the efficacy of the existing vaccines” and still get severely ill or even worse, bring it back to the island and start a new epidemic. Thankfully we’ve got some secret data and methodology here that will disprove the rest of the world... eventually.

But watch, this post won’t get challenged by anybody in the heard because, like the government who they blindly support, it’s about “doing our little bit to get through this pandemic and questioning restrictions is just selfish and ignorant”

MadYaker · 10-04-2021 08:00AM

When that whole post turns out to be complete bullish!t will realise you were wrong and learn anything from it? I doubt it.

yoshimitsu · 10-04-2021 08:18AM

If the government disclosed the MHQ list methodology and it is objective, coherent and rooted in scientific evidence I will admit I’m wrong.
If the government does an abrupt 180 degree turn and starts taking counties off the list for no apparent reason (like Israel yesterday vs a week ago) and jumps on the vaccination passport by June I would be very very happy but not necessarily wrong about the post above.

fm · 10-04-2021 08:23AM

Gael23 wrote: »

I think the government will come under a lot of pressure to sign up to the EU travel scheme in the summer.
When it comes to vaccinating the general population which incidentally should be around the same time, those people won’t take the vaccine Unless there’s something on it, such as the freedoms to have holidays

The government will sign up to it, all the FG and FF MEP's voted to fast track the implementation on it, all the independent MEP's voted against it-Wallace, Daly, ming and Co. The problem wil be what extra rules will be added to the cert by Nphet basically. The final voting is April 26th - 29th.

faceman · 10-04-2021 08:45AM

The U.K. transport secretary has changed his narrative in relation to international travel for Brits from “don’t plan holidays” to “please wait until we update the travel advice”

Happydays2020 · 10-04-2021 08:47AM

naughtysmurf wrote: »

After sleeping on this & trying to make sense of yesterday’s announcement, making certain observations & putting on my optimism hat....

Observations

A very quiet FG on this, little to no serious pushback from Leo & Coveney especially on the addition of EU countries so what’s their angle, what are they getting in return?

They left EU countries with higher infection rates off the list, makes no sense & little to no serious pushback from the EU so what are the EU getting in return as I’m sure they have given us the nod on this?

A couple of ministers comment that it’s only temporary

Ryanair announced a new route out of SNN to Corfu this week, they’ve a sniff of something, plus I thought that they & EI have been very quiet lately, they’ve been given the nod too

Willingness to realise a cock up & remove Israel from the list is significant I think

So what I think may happen is that along with a big push on vaccine rollout & getting to 70% vaccinated with at least 1 jab by the end of June, the old & vulnerable will be fully protected, we will sign up to the European travel cert in June that was the EU’s price for their quiet & also the price Donnelly / FF had to pay to save a little face

MHQ that the government didn’t really want anyway but felt they needed to be seen to be doing something to appease a certain section goes away too for EU states but will stay for non EU countries in some form until at least the end of 2021 at least, the Americans / UK will be treated similar to EU states along with countries that are performing well like Israel, Australia & NZ for example

So optimistic me sees the return of non essential travel from July onwards under the EU Green Travel Cert rules

I hope you are right. Logic has been lacking from many decisions.

Gael23 · 10-04-2021 08:57AM

fm wrote: »

. The problem wil be what extra rules will be added to the cert by Nphet basically. The final voting is April 26th - 29th.

This is the problem

Klonker · 10-04-2021 09:21AM

The MHQ has turned into the sh1tshow most on here said it would be. The problem was bringing it in in the first. Then you're on a slippery slope. If you back down then the public will know it was all a waste of time and only done in the first place to appease the public. "Sure fcuk it, if people want MHQ let's do it, who gives a sh1te about South Africa and Brazil anyway." Then a few more countries are going to be added and the boys down the back of the classroom wake up saying we need to discuss this further. How about doing your jobs and discussing it before you bring it in in the first place?

NPHET tried to sell MHQ to the government last year to try keep cases lower here and thankfully they declined it. I think a negative PCR test or even an antigen test back then would of helped a lot back then, especially before Christmas but anyway that's in the past now anyway. Then this year NPHET tried to sell MHQ to the government again but this time it was 'the variants' and because of fear and public pressure they bought it. Countries with high levels of variants of concern were added to MHQ. As soon as this was done another list was given to the government, countries with 500+ 14 day incidence rate per 100k pop. and any country with 14 day incidence rate of 2.5 times Irelands at any given time. The auld trojan horse approach.

That doesn't sound like a short term proposal to me.
It'll very hard for the government to unwind this without it looking like a step down. If more research on the variants is done and we find the vaccines work just fine on them (which many experts believe already) will MHQ be cancelled straight away? Or will we keep it just incase a new variant comes along? The Government have backed themselves it an embarrassing corner here and it's going to be hard to come out of.

SusanC10 · 10-04-2021 09:28AM

So, 5 EU Countries on the List now - Austria, Belgium, France, Italy and Luxembourg.

Which "variants of concern" are circulating in these Countries?

Also, if a Politician goes to Brussels for work, do they now have to enter MHQ on return or is there an exemption for them ?

namloc1980 · 10-04-2021 09:29AM

SusanC10 wrote: »

So, 5 EU Countries on the List now - Austria, Belgium, France, Italy and Luxembourg.

Which "variants of concern" are circulating in these Countries?

Also, if a Politician goes to Brussels for work, do they now have to enter MHQ on return or is there an exemption for them ?

Conveniently enough politicians are exempt.

pottokblue · 10-04-2021 09:31AM

Annoyed about France Italy USA Canada being put on MHQ lists, shirley testing, tracing, home isolating and vaccinations should suffice...

Ray Donovan · 10-04-2021 09:32AM

fm wrote: »

The government will sign up to it, all the FG and FF MEP's voted to fast track the implementation on it, all the independent MEP's voted against it-Wallace, Daly, ming and Co. The problem wil be what extra rules will be added to the cert by Nphet basically. The final voting is April 26th - 29th.

This 100%. Id say you will be looking at 3 PCR tests at a minimum. Before you leave (you would need that to get into a host of countries anyway), before you arrive back (needed at the moment anyways), and a 3rd after you arrive back. Plus home quarantine until at least your third result comes back.

So 3 PCR tests equals €300 tax onto the cost of your holidays.

Are we there yet? Your second Travel Megathread (threadbans in OP}

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