Yep, they're aware of that, they've just decided that was the least-bad option in this case in compared to the quarantine which they've found very difficult to monitor. To me the most sensible thing to do is to test them in the airport, host them in a hotel for the next couple of days, and they test negative a second time then give them the all clear. Just consider it the cost of travelling to at-risk areas for travellers, which should disincentivise some people from travelling frivolously while for those who accept the additional cost, it supports one of the hardest hit sectors.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
Yeah I'm the same - we are heading away to Galway for a few nights in our campervan which will be our main holiday this year!
Absolutely. Definitely the best approach. Is any country, anywhere, using it?
There's a few countries using hotels for quarantine, stretching from at least Israel to China, and I think that's what they're doing in e.g. Hong Kong at the moment. Is that right @hmchan? I think all of the hotels have been government-funded so that's the only change I think is worth considering, disencentivising travellers by upping the cost and taking away some of the government spending that seems a bit unnecessary from my perspective.
There's a curfew imposed in my province as from tomorrow - pubs need to close at 11pm and everyone needs to be at their own home between 11:30pm and 6am. We can only see 5 other people per family until the end of August in the whole of Belgium, and it has to be the same 5 people throughout that time (and it works reciprocal).
The more infuriating thing is that facemasks are obligated everywhere in the public domain. Confusion is king as of now but it looks like this includes going for a walk or a run in rural areas as well, while it's only the capital of our province that's been badly struck by another rise in infections. In my city of 40k there have been 3 new infections in the last 7 days; if they think I'll be wearing a facemasks when I go out for a run in the woods this evening they can go feck themselves.
The public will only adhere to the measures if they appear sensible and there's a public support for them. It's clear that this ain't it.
The more infuriating thing is that facemasks are obligated everywhere in the public domain. Confusion is king as of now but it looks like this includes going for a walk or a run in rural areas as well, while it's only the capital of our province that's been badly struck by another rise in infections. In my city of 40k there have been 3 new infections in the last 7 days; if they think I'll be wearing a facemasks when I go out for a run in the woods this evening they can go feck themselves.
The public will only adhere to the measures if they appear sensible and there's a public support for them. It's clear that this ain't it.
Yeah, feck them for trying to stamp down and prevent a second wave. You do you brother, feck the preventive measures if your feeling is that they are over the top!
I’ve heard about hotels being used for 14 day quarantines. But that length of stay would be prohibitively expensive for most travellers, if they had to foot the bill. It’s the self funded short stay/test combo that seems the best compromise, so you’d think it would be in use already somewhere. If not, why not?!?
It’s probably understandable while you’re out on your own in the woods. How do you deal with the situation where you run into someone? Do you put on your mask again? How about any interaction with other people while out and about?
He's right though. Excessive measures are as wrong as insufficient measures as you will get more and more people frustrated. Personally, as much as I do not support our government on most things, what we've had here has pretty much been optimal in terms of prevention and control. We've had 500-600 cases per day for the last two months, no major rises, few deaths overall while everything has been going on almost as normal with some restrictions that are easy to oblige for everyone (masks in shops, limited number of seats in cinemas/restaurants/at sporting events). You need to have something in place that is sustainable for 2-3 years it will take to come up with vaccine and also afterwards as, at least here, most people will not get vaccine anyway (I will and will advise all in my family to do so as well).
I don't get why it had to such blanket restrictions either. There's loads of forests and rural areas within the province, who's going to benefit from wearing a face mask when going for a walk or bike ride there? I live in the middle of Antwerp center so I'm fecked either way, though I'd still like to go out and ride my race bike. I haven't tried it but I don't see that working with a face mask. I guess my only option is to stay in my apartment for another 4 weeks, work all day and feel fecking miserable.
The politicians have let us down when they eased certain restrictions way too early. Most people were perfectly content seeing 10 fixed contacts per household, I certainly was. Why did it suddenly need to go to 15 variable contacts per person per week when there were still 80 daily new cases? Or allowing indoor events with 100 people? All while not giving a shit that contact tracing has not been working for months. They've let us down and we're paying the price now. Then again, they've made an entire career of doing exactly that, letting people down, over and over and over again.
Where does the frustration come from though? It comes from selfishness of not being able to accept that his life is going to have restrictions in the short-term for the greater good and health of the many.
Do you think that it's right that any person can decide for themselves that "nah feck this, I'm not doing this or that"? in the face of guidelines and/or restrictions from the government? Maybe he should take up protesting or public office instead of not complying with the laws? We laugh at Americans who go mental in stores when they're asked to put on a mask, but maybe we shouldn't if they're just making their feelings known and putting themselves and their liberties above the lives of others?
If the government asks you to put on a mask, just fecking put on a mask. Or stay inside. Really. It's that fecking simple.
Didn't hear a thing, unsure if that's a good thing or not. I woke up to find the metal door handle ripped in half outside and my back gate open. Luckily the type of lock I have defeated them or they got disturbed and scarpered. The police reckon they are after car keys and vehicle theft is on the massive increase since lockdown.
Come on man, such over the top reactions aren't helpful either. There's a huge difference between protesting because you need to wear a mask in stores, which everyone over here accepts (and indeed had been asking for a LONG time before the government finally enforced it) and being appalled at being forced to wear a face mask in very rural areas or even when walking in a forest. Not saying he shouldn't wear it, but I fully understand the frustration.
Crossing someone in the woods for one second with a distance of 1.5m has an infection probability of 0.0%.
Agreed 100%.
It makes no sense. I live on the border of Antwerpen, Limburg and Vlaams-Brabant so now I have to take my bike for like 10mins while wearing a facemask, going to Averbode or Tessenderlo where I can run without one.I don't get why it had to such blanket restrictions either. There's loads of forests and rural areas within the province, who's going to benefit from wearing a face mask when going for a walk or bike ride there? I live in the middle of Antwerp center so I'm fecked either way, though I'd still like to go out and ride my race bike. I haven't tried it but I don't see that working with a face mask. I guess my only option is to stay in my apartment for another 4 weeks, work all day and feel fecking miserable.
The politicians have let us down when they eased certain restrictions way too early. Most people were perfectly content seeing 10 fixed contacts per household, I certainly was. Why did it suddenly need to go to 15 variable contacts per person per week when there were still 80 daily new cases? Or allowing indoor events with 100 people? All while not giving a shit that contact tracing has not been working for months. They've let us down and we're paying the price now. Then again, they've made an entire career of doing exactly that, letting people down, over and over and over again.
I hope our mayor introduces a policy of tolerance for individual sports, or that the governor changes her opinion and follows the guidelines proposed by Stad Antwerpen, which was have it on you at all times and wear it if you can't respect social distancing in public places. I realize that it's more vague for the police to monitor and that's probably why they did this blanket restriction, but this makes zero sense whatsoever.
Like @Sarni said, excessive measures are as wrong as insufficient ones. If they can give me 1 good reason why I should wear a facemask while running alone, with supportive evidence, I 100% will. If they can show me that I can prevent as much as 1 infection by wearing a facemask while running alone, I will without hesitation. Just like I do at all other places where it definitely makes sense to wear one. This measure is as pointless as obligating the people to wear their facemask when they go into their own garden - and once you start imposing pointless measures with no reasoning behind it, the general public will start to cherry-pick which rules they'll adhere to and which they don't find useful, just like I am doing now.
I have followed every rule they've imposed so far even if I didn't fully agree with it, but this is nonsense. You don't have to wear a facemask when you're at your table in pubs for example; the arbitrarily character of the current rules is maddening, and more and more people will just start to do what they think is right if it stays like that.
You live in a dream world. That’s simply not going to happen.
The eat out to help out is going to be a disaster. I hope these big chains like Nandos with massive discounts will have some sort of social distancing. It could possibly be the chain reaction for wave 2.
Is Poland full of anti-vaxxer cnuts?
Yes.
Yeah it's puzzled me! I suspect it has something to do with the airline lobby. The governments in China, Hong Kong etc. have went to one extreme and dismissed any of the issues airlines have with barriers to travel, while the UK and others had went the other way and put on almost no restrictions. "Travel demand is already decimated so forcing our customers to stay in a hotel for a couple of days would kill x number of businesses" sort of thing. Maybe with this Spain issue there might be more room for compromise.
Or maybe there's an obvious flaw we're just overlooking!
Frustration comes from having to do things without a valid reason. He's made a good point about wearing a mask outside with no people nearby - we had the same restriction in place in April for 3-4 weeks, it was super frustrating when I had to have a mask on in 28C while walking my dog at nearby meadows with no soul in sight. People started to neglect that restriction quite quickly, and those who did also neglected it in other places where it would have probably been useful to have a mask on. They lifted that, but kept obligatory mask wearing in stores and closed spaces - most people happily oblige as it's not a big effort at all. Transmission has remained stable, and I honestly do not believe wearing a mask in secluded areas is going to really impact anything.
I think it's human nature to question things they don't really believe in, and if there's no explanation given (in this case it's hard to explain how it can impact transmission), then they're going to stop believing in what they are being told. That's why it is super important for measures to be balanced. If you told me I had to live in current Poland for the next 3 years, I have no problem with that - and it seems that it's working pretty well in terms of preventing spread of infection.
The problem for me isn't that somebody's not wearing a mask in the woods per se, but people don't tend to teleport to the woods from their homes.
How do people who live in the city get to the woods? Some people drive a car, is there a parking meter there? Maybe they scratched their nose right before they parked their car, then touched the number pad and infected someone? Some people don't drive their own car, so they get on a bus to get out to the woods for a walk. And because they don't need to wear the mask in the woods they don't bring it with them on the bus. Then they sneeze or scratch their nose because they don't have the reminder to stop touching their face in the mask and then touch the armrest on the bus, and then an elderly person gets on the bus to get to the shop because they can't walk and they get infected.
If the government's decided that those are the rules you can write in the papers or write to your MP and say "this is absolute bollocks, change this now" (or even become an MP), but until it changes I suggest that people follow the rules that their government sets, no matter how rubbish you think they are. "Going out in the woods for a walk" isn't some sort of divine human right, so if you don't want to wear a mask and your government says you need to, then you have two options. 1) wear a mask, 2) don't go out. It's pretty simple.
You people can't really advocate that everyone decides for themselves what laws are appropriate to follow, are you? Sounds like your lot went "hang on, is this really necessary?" and made them change the rules. That's what I'm suggesting here, not everyone just deciding "nah, this law's not for me, sorry bud".
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We actually ban all non-Hongkongers from immigration. For Hongkongers, there are two scenarios:
- If he arrives in the morning, he will be sent to a sample collection centre nearby and the sample will be tested on the same day. He will stay in that centre until the result is released.
- If he arrives late, he will leave a sample at the sample collection centre and will be sent directly to a designated hotel until the result is released.
Contact tracing is only useful when the outbreak is still in a very early stage. When there's a major outbreak, it's virtually impossible to trace everyone involved.I don't get why it had to such blanket restrictions either. There's loads of forests and rural areas within the province, who's going to benefit from wearing a face mask when going for a walk or bike ride there? I live in the middle of Antwerp center so I'm fecked either way, though I'd still like to go out and ride my race bike. I haven't tried it but I don't see that working with a face mask. I guess my only option is to stay in my apartment for another 4 weeks, work all day and feel fecking miserable.
The politicians have let us down when they eased certain restrictions way too early. Most people were perfectly content seeing 10 fixed contacts per household, I certainly was. Why did it suddenly need to go to 15 variable contacts per person per week when there were still 80 daily new cases? Or allowing indoor events with 100 people? All while not giving a shit that contact tracing has not been working for months. They've let us down and we're paying the price now. Then again, they've made an entire career of doing exactly that, letting people down, over and over and over again.
In early stages or when the numbers are down and the situation is under control. That was supposed to be the point, once the numbers were down contact tracing was going to be used extensively to help keep track of any potential new outbreaks. In stead, it turned out to be an unworkable solution and the government started easing restrictions rapidly anyway. And now here we are.
I wonder if it’s to do with worrying that you will still miss too many cases with two tests a few days apart? Hence everyone is going for the full 14 days quarantine to give the pretence or locking down every single case brought in from overseas (even though, in reality, this will allow many many more cases slip through the cracks when people do what people do)
They would rather blame individuals for not following unworkable rules than make pragmatic/effective rules that might subsequently get accused of being flawed. One of umpteen frustrating PH decisions made over the course of this pandemic.
Problem is that you're assuming a whole lot here. First of all (not that it matters), I live 300m away from a forest where there are clearly indicated walking, running and biking lanes. As I said, chances of transmitting Covid-19 are 0.0% since you can easily stay 1.5m away from others passing by. Second of all, you can't get on a bus without a mask here since masks are obligatory on all public transport. So again, not possible.
So you'll blindly follow any rule that your government imposes on you, even though it goes against what they previously advised and you (and the experts with you) are certain that it poses zero threat to others? If they say tomorrow "we think showers are bad so please stop showering" even though they previously advised the public that showering was good for you, you'll stop showering? During the nationwide lockdown they advised people to exercise as much as possible outside to keep a healthy body and mindset, all the while saying that it's not possible to infect others when you're walking/running if you can adhere to social distancing rules (which, again, is easily possible around here).
Like I said, I'm definitely not one to interpret the rules just as I like and do what I think is good to prevent spreading corona, but you have to draw a line somewhere. What you get now is people getting creative with the imposed rules and instead of stopping the spread, it only gets worse because i) people will start to cherry-pick if you impose stupid rules which make no sense and ii) you create situations which otherwise wouldn't have occurred, e.g. people will get into their car and drive 30mins to run/walk where masks are not obliged, even though the infection rate is worse there, people will go to their apartments at the coast on the other side of the country because the rules are less stringent there, even though the infection rate is as bad as it is right here. It makes no sense. What good does a curfew right here where there are 3-4 infections for 40k people, while I can bike 10mins to a town in another province, where the infections are much higher, and stay out much later, all the while interacting and coming across people I wouldn't have met otherwise? They've taken a ridiculous approach which will only cause more chaos. If you haven't been following the soap that is our Belgian government from the beginning of the crisis I can understand it's difficult to grasp these things and my frustrations, but this has topped it all for me.
Looks like they're gonna go by a policy of tolerance anyway because our city council already decided that it made no sense.
Like I said I'm much closer to Limburg than the city of Antwerp and we have almost no infections here, so I really second this
I've said for a while that I am actually quite worried about the future of our country, it really won't take much to convince people to not only accept martial law, but also help implement it.
The amount of posts on various platforms of people virtually begging Boris to take away our right to exercise and put the country on a total Draconian lockdown was disturbing.
I’d call that a pretty basic human right.
I've lost count of the amount of times I've heard people proclaim second waves, and then for it to never materialise. The eat out programme is not going to cause wave two, every bar/restaurant I've been in so far has been very professional in their approach with patrons. The chains are more prepared than ever, so it's highly doubtful that this eat out is going to be a disaster here.
On parity with food and shelter?
moreso.
Food and shelter have for most of civilisation had to be built, earned, hunted or gathered.
Walking in the woods is the most basic of human rights.
Agreed, everywhere i have been locally in Cheshire or Manchester city centre has been great and taking it as serious as possible and doing the best they can, same with the public using masks majority are happy to do it.
Not far off. What else would you consider to be a basic human right if going for a walk isn’t one?
I really hope we don't see a second wave, or a third wave, or more. The issue though is that what tends to happen is that you get a small increase over a period of time but it has the potential to explode exponentially again very quickly. There are warning signs in some countries that this exponential growth could occur again (though with continued social distancing, etc. hopefully they won't).
Does a mask prevent your prerogative to this basic human right?
Does a mask have any additional value in light of this basic human right?
It disproportionally restricts it and cannot be reasonably justified, hence the rule shouldn't exist.
No, but that’s not the point. I’m responding to somebody suggesting it’s not a basic human right.