• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Air bridges with European countries given "green light"

Status
Not open for further replies.

Richard Scott

Established Member
Joined
13 Dec 2018
Messages
3,673
New Zealand is a smaller country, yes, we know that.



Wrong again! 63% of their GDP is based on the service sector, agriculture accounts for only 6%.

So it has a similar economy to the UK, and a similarly urbanised population, but what worked there couldn't work in the UK. Aye, right.
The big differences are UK population roughly 15 times the size, we are only 20miles from nearest neighbour not 1000. We have many entry point by sea even if we did control air traffic and we even have the Channel Tunnel. You cannot seriously compare the two.
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

HSTEd

Veteran Member
Joined
14 Jul 2011
Messages
16,636
New Zealand is a smaller country, yes, we know that.

The number of imported cases will scale with the number of passengers passing through the country.

Since the number of imported cases must be an integer, and we are in the position where only a very few cases are actually imported, it is entirely possible for New Zealand to escape infection early in the epidemic because the number of imported cases happens to be zero or extremely low!

By the time we knew what was happening it is likely that significant numbers of cases were already visible in the population.
The excess deaths figure starts climbing (becoming less strongly negative) before the case numbers started taking off - people weren't looking specifically for coronavirus at that time.




So it has a similar economy to the UK, and a similarly urbanised population, but what worked there couldn't work in the UK. Aye, right.

Services are not some homogenous sector!
There are different types of service economy.

NZ has far less international travel per person in the population
New Zealand has a population of 4.87 million, and had approximately 7 million total visitor and resident arrivals in 2019, about evenly split between residents and visitors. That is about 1.4 per capita per year.
In the UK population of 66 million, about 125 million in 2016, which is about 1.9 per capita per year - substantially greater.

We must also consider that this does not include people who do not cross the border and remain airside at transit airports, that can still infect people before they reboard flights and leave, so the true figure will be still higher but I don't have it easily accessible.

Since diseases are exponential in nature, the number of imported cases is less important than the number of people being imported.
Once you get more than a tiny handful of cases it will run away and beyond that the number of cases imported is unimportant. Once community transmission is running away, importing a number of cases from abroad is unimportant because it will inevitably be swamped by domestically produced cases.

Interestingly this is the same phenemona that means that moderated nuclear weapons don't work very well.

The UK was at least 18 times more likely to import a certain number of cases than New Zealand, and thus would reach the community transmission certain threshold much faster.
The UK likely reached this factor about the time that China finally admitted they had a serious problem in Wuhan.
 

Domh245

Established Member
Joined
6 Apr 2013
Messages
8,426
Location
nowhere
The other consideration is that New Zealand was even later down the curve than most. It's that much easier to impose a lockdown when you can point at Italy and Spain, which were the first (visible) major outbreaks and stress the importance of locking down early
 

Tetchytyke

Veteran Member
Joined
12 Sep 2013
Messages
13,305
Location
Isle of Man
The big differences are UK population roughly 15 times the size, we are only 20miles from nearest neighbour not 1000. We have many entry point by sea even if we did control air traffic and we even have the Channel Tunnel.

The population is bigger, yes, but in terms of infection rates that makes no odds.

As for distance from other countries, that's why we have the Border Force, the UK border should be secure. Yes, even the soft border in Ireland, given the South have consistently had firmer restrictions than England or the North.

And even if it's not watertight- the IOM border certainly isn't, from what I hear- it stops most people and makes the ones who do get through act with circumspection.

That is about 1.4 per capita per year.
In the UK population of 66 million, about 125 million in 2016, which is about 1.9 per capita per year - substantially greater.

0.5 trips per person per year is neither here nor there.

But "lots of people travel to the UK" is precisely why the border should have been shut, and why leaving it wide open is contributing to England's failure to get a grip on the illness. Get domestic control before importing more illness into the country.

The Irish government reckon 17% of their new infections come from abroad.

The UK likely reached this factor about the time that China finally admitted they had a serious problem in Wuhan.

Unlikely.

I've no doubt there were cases here before Christmas, related to one choir from Bradford who had a member go to Wuhan just before Christmas, and related to the band Gang of Four who toured Wuhan in November and whose guitarist sadly died in February.

But there's no evidence to suggest there was any transmission in the UK before the end of February- these cases were all imported.

Again, you're not really helping your "sure whack the borders open, it'll be grand" argument!
 
Last edited:

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,554
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
But "lots of people travel to the UK" is precisely why the border should have been shut, and why leaving it wide open is contributing to England's failure to get a grip on the illness. Get domestic control before importing more illness into the country.

Yes, exactly. 14 days quarantine until we have the domestic rate well down, and then consider how we can manage imported cases. It all seems to have been pressure so people could have 2 weeks all inclusive in some rathole in Spain, and look where that's got us.
 

Tetchytyke

Veteran Member
Joined
12 Sep 2013
Messages
13,305
Location
Isle of Man
Yes, exactly. 14 days quarantine until we have the domestic rate well down, and then consider how we can manage imported cases. It all seems to have been pressure so people could have 2 weeks all inclusive in some rathole in Spain, and look where that's got us.

Agreed. Boris wanted some Good News to deflect attention away from his corrupt housing minister and his ophthalmologically challenged adviser.

Holiday resorts, like universities in Freshers Week, are a petri dish of airborne bugs even at the best of times.

And I love my week's All Inclusive in Ibiza (5*, so I get to trough on serrano ham and a nice rioja ;)) But you couldn't pay me to go this year, not least because social distancing will make it all a bit crap.
 

43066

Established Member
Joined
24 Nov 2019
Messages
9,229
Location
London
It all seems to have been pressure so people could have 2 weeks all inclusive in some rathole in Spain, and look where that's got us.

Ha! I had to laugh at this. You’re quite right.

Everything this government has done over the last few months is underpinned by their desperate need to be “seen to be doing something”.
 

adc82140

Established Member
Joined
10 May 2008
Messages
2,928
Yes, exactly. 14 days quarantine until we have the domestic rate well down, and then consider how we can manage imported cases. It all seems to have been pressure so people could have 2 weeks all inclusive in some rathole in Spain, and look where that's got us.

You have this odd obsession about all foreign trips being Cosmos package tours to Magaluf.
 

Bantamzen

Established Member
Joined
4 Dec 2013
Messages
9,680
Location
Baildon, West Yorkshire
The government seem to be flailing about at the moment, some suggestions that 14 days may become 10 or 7, other reports suggesting that negative tests taken a few days after will be "released" from quarantine. And of course pressure is growing to introduce tests at airports when arriving back from badly affected areas, to which the government have responded thusly:


Some countries, such as Iceland, offer travellers a choice on arrival if they have stayed in areas with high virus levels. Anyone entering must either self-quarantine for 14 days or get tested for Covid-19.
And Germany is planning compulsory tests at its airports for anyone arriving from a high-risk country.
At the moment, the UK says it has no plans to introduce testing at airports, saying it is not just logistically difficult but risks missing some cases of coronavirus.
Nose or throat swab tests are safe and accurate, but can sometimes give a false negative result.
"This is concerning as a negative test result may give people a false sense of security," said Dr Joshua Moon from the University of Sussex Business School.
Earlier, the boss of Heathrow told the BBC that airports should be allowed to test for coronavirus to avoid the "cliff edge" of quarantine. We have about what he had to say here.

Logistically it might be difficult, but far from impossible as shown by other countries. So this leaves the rather odd excuse of the risks of the tests missing cases. Well surely if this would be true of tests at airports, it would also be true of tests at all test centres, hospitals etc? Its all starting to sound a little political again, we won't follow methods used by some EU countries, because EU? I am starting to wonder!
 

WestCoast

Established Member
Joined
19 Jun 2010
Messages
5,574
Location
Glasgow
Logistically it might be difficult, but far from impossible as shown by other countries. So this leaves the rather odd excuse of the risks of the tests missing cases. Well surely if this would be true of tests at airports, it would also be true of tests at all test centres, hospitals etc? Its all starting to sound a little political again, we won't follow methods used by some EU countries, because EU? I am starting to wonder!

It does seem like an excuse to me. I think that targeted testing at airports for passengers arriving from high risk countries like Brasil and India should at least be trialled, as is already happening in lots of other lower risk countries. It's not going to pick up everyone carrying Covid of course not, but it would at least give us more data on the the risk profile moving forward. There must be far less people than normal arriving from these places anyway.
 

Bantamzen

Established Member
Joined
4 Dec 2013
Messages
9,680
Location
Baildon, West Yorkshire
It does seem like an excuse to me. I think that targeted testing at airports for passengers arriving from high risk countries like Brasil and India should at least be trialled, as is already happening in lots of other lower risk countries. It's not going to pick up everyone carrying Covid of course not, but it would at least give us more data on the the risk profile moving forward. There must be far less people than normal arriving from these places anyway.

Absolutley, in fact it gets worse (taken again from the BBC live feed today):

The idea of introducing testing at airports is an attractive idea.
The theory being people could travel where they like and just get tested as they arrive back in the country, negating the need to self-isolate.
But the government is not convinced.

Why? Logistically, testing all the travellers who arrive every week will be difficult.
Testing capacity has increased, but this would stretch the system. Not to mention the practical difficulties of setting up testing facilities in busy airports.
But the other factor, which is perhaps more crucial, is that in the early stages of infection the test may not even pick up the infection.
Instead, officials are much more persuaded by a more intelligent, targeted approach to self-isolation.

That would involve asking only those coming from certain regions in a country - where the infection rates are highest - to self-isolate.
That could then be complemented by then asking them to get tested after a week, meaning that if they test negative, there would be no need for the full 14-day self-isolation.
All this and more is being discussed behind the scenes.

So on the one hand there not enough resources to test on arrival, but on the other there is after 7 days at home? Erm... And as for the "intelligent" approach because they might miss some cases, well that's happening now anyway. It really is all sounding like excuse after excuse, especially after many months in which the government could, and should have been planning all this.
 

AdamWW

Established Member
Joined
6 Nov 2012
Messages
3,604
Absolutley, in fact it gets worse (taken again from the BBC live feed today):



So on the one hand there not enough resources to test on arrival, but on the other there is after 7 days at home? Erm... And as for the "intelligent" approach because they might miss some cases, well that's happening now anyway. It really is all sounding like excuse after excuse, especially after many months in which the government could, and should have been planning all this.

Makes sense to me.

They give two problems - lack of capacity, and the fact that testing someone as they arrive is too early.

The proposed solution solves both - target testing, so less capacity needed, and test after 7 days so you are much more likely to pick up someone who is infected.

It presumably relies on people being honest about where they've been in the last 14 days though, so I couldn't see much point in making it compulsory.
 

HSTEd

Veteran Member
Joined
14 Jul 2011
Messages
16,636
The population is bigger, yes, but in terms of infection rates that makes no odds.
It most certainly does, because diseases are not linear phenomena!


As for distance from other countries, that's why we have the Border Force, the UK border should be secure. Yes, even the soft border in Ireland, given the South have consistently had firmer restrictions than England or the North.
When was the last time someone crossed the Tasman Sea on a surfboard?
Or swum across it unassisted?

And doing anything on the border with the Irish Republic is politically impossible for obvious reasons.

0.5 trips per person per year is neither here nor there.
It most certainly is.
1.9/1.4 is 35% more

And as I said, that only counts people crossing the boarder, with huge numbers of people remaining airside.

The Irish government reckon 17% of their new infections come from abroad.

Yes, 17% of their new infections come from abroad now, in a situation where the number of new cases in Ireland is pretty negligible.
It was 37 tosday, 11 yesterday, 12 the day before that.

So that would imply a grand total of ~10 imported cases per day.
And 37 seems to be a rather dramatic outlier, at which point the figure is closer to 2.

Unlikely.

I've no doubt there were cases here before Christmas, related to one choir from Bradford who had a member go to Wuhan just before Christmas, and related to the band Gang of Four who toured Wuhan in November and whose guitarist sadly died in February.

But there's no evidence to suggest there was any transmission in the UK before the end of February- these cases were all imported.

So the virus magically decided not to infect anyone before the end of February, despite a rather strange dramatic increase in mortality that occured before case numbers started climbing?
 

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,554
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
So on the one hand there not enough resources to test on arrival, but on the other there is after 7 days at home? Erm... And as for the "intelligent" approach because they might miss some cases, well that's happening now anyway. It really is all sounding like excuse after excuse, especially after many months in which the government could, and should have been planning all this.

Well, the obvious explanation there is that if you test on arrival you have to do literally that - you've got nowhere to keep them, the testing has to be possible as part of the normal arrival flow. If you do it after N days (N can be debated) it can be booked in for any time on day N or even sent as a home test kit.

If you've seen the meat-market that is Stansted arrivals when a couple of Ryanairs arrive at once, you'd appreciate the difference.

I do however agree with your latter point - the incompetence here is blinding.
 

philosopher

Established Member
Joined
23 Sep 2015
Messages
1,346
This is an interesting article advocating why the UK should pursue a goal of elimination:

Personally I think ideas proposed and reasoning behind them make sense, however I am not convinced such a strategy would work in practice, some people will break quarantine plus there is the issue of illegal immigrants.
 

AdamWW

Established Member
Joined
6 Nov 2012
Messages
3,604
It most certainly does, because diseases are not linear phenomena!

No, they're not, but I think the real impact on per capita rates due to size of population is in so much as it affects travel rates and thus when and at what rate cases are imported.

If you drop one infection per thousand people into two countries, all other things being equal won't the per capita rates do the same thing?
 

HSTEd

Veteran Member
Joined
14 Jul 2011
Messages
16,636
If you drop one infection per thousand people into two countries, all other things being equal won't the per capita rates do the same thing?

Yes.

However, if we make the assumption that the number of people infected at any given time is small, the statistical assumption about importing a certain number of cases per capita starts to fall apart.
Since you have to import an integer number of cases each day.

Can't import 0.001 cases at a time.

EDIT:

Additionally, once you have community transmission you are stuffed.

Let's say one country has 1 imported case, and another has 9.
If we say the R-value is 3.

Country one reaches 9 inside two cycles (about 2 weeks for this illness) - so it ends up a couple of weeks behind the country that had nine imported cases.

Two weeks later it has 81 cases and suddenly importing one additional case makes almost no difference.
 

Bantamzen

Established Member
Joined
4 Dec 2013
Messages
9,680
Location
Baildon, West Yorkshire
Well, the obvious explanation there is that if you test on arrival you have to do literally that - you've got nowhere to keep them, the testing has to be possible as part of the normal arrival flow.

That's really quite simply logistics that funnily enough other countries manage with ease.

If you do it after N days (N can be debated) it can be booked in for any time on day N or even sent as a home test kit.


Why, get the test done ASAP surely? Once people disappear away from the controlled environment of the arrivals terminal you are going lose the chances as a lot of people simply won't bother.

This is an interesting article advocating why the UK should pursue a goal of elimination:

Personally I think ideas proposed and reasoning behind them make sense, however I am not convinced such a strategy would work in practice, some people will break quarantine plus there is the issue of illegal immigrants.

That article is so loaded with clichés is barely worth reading. To be fair though, it is about the current standard of media reporting & opinion making these days so I can't blame them for not sticking their heads above the trenches.
 

Tetchytyke

Veteran Member
Joined
12 Sep 2013
Messages
13,305
Location
Isle of Man
It most certainly does, because diseases are not linear phenomena!

They are, however, proportional. A small number into a small community has the same overall proportional effect as a large number into a large community.

When was the last time someone crossed the Tasman Sea on a surfboard?
Or swum across it unassisted?

And doing anything on the border with the Irish Republic is politically impossible for obvious reasons.

When was the last time anyone swam across the English Channel without the consent of the UK Border Force, and without being noticed by the UK Border Force or Coastguard?

And as I said, the internal border in Ireland is no issue at all because the south of Ireland has stricter quarantine rules than England and the north of Ireland.

Country one reaches 9 inside two cycles (about 2 weeks for this illness) - so it ends up a couple of weeks behind the country that had nine imported cases.

I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make here at all.

You seem to be arguing that restricting the importation of cases is a bad thing, yet you're also saying there is a clear and appreciable benefit of reducing the importation of cases because it will slow or delay the spread. I'm confused.

You seem to be making my point for me. Exponentially, starting with a bigger number is worse than starting with a smaller number.

Two weeks later it has 81 cases and suddenly importing one additional case makes almost no difference.

If R=2, each person infects two people.

So with 1 imported infection it goes 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc.

With 5 imported infections it goes 5, 10, 20, 40, 80, 160, etc

See the problem yet?

it is about the current standard of media reporting & opinion making these days

I didnt realise you are a professor of epidemiology :lol:
 
Last edited:

Domh245

Established Member
Joined
6 Apr 2013
Messages
8,426
Location
nowhere
They are, however, proportional. A small number into a small community has the same overall proportional effect as a large number into a large community.

I would say it's quite the opposite! If you import 5 cases into a country and R is the same in both countries, cases will grow identically in both countries, at least in the early phases when there are no control measures in the population, allowing it to spread. There isn't really any sort of proportional effects until mid-late stage in a pandemic, in the beginning it's all simply exponential growth and the number of 'seeds'
 

Smidster

Member
Joined
23 Oct 2014
Messages
561
I have to say I struggle to see much of an argument to not have at least a proper quarantine system - and that is from someone who would love to go travelling again.

All the effort that goes into things like track and trace, local restrictions etc are useless if we then re-import a bunch of cases from people going on holiday.

Of course it would be bad for the tourism industry but the cost of rescuing one sector of the economy are so much lower than the costs of keeping everything at 50% and needing to bail out everything.
 

AdamWW

Established Member
Joined
6 Nov 2012
Messages
3,604
I would say it's quite the opposite! If you import 5 cases into a country and R is the same in both countries, cases will grow identically in both countries, at least in the early phases when there are no control measures in the population, allowing it to spread. There isn't really any sort of proportional effects until mid-late stage in a pandemic, in the beginning it's all simply exponential growth and the number of 'seeds'

Yes but per capita you get the same result.

5 cases in a population of 100 000 will give you similar per capita figures to 50 cases in a population of 1 000 000.

But the larger country is (all other things being equal) likely to have infections imported earlier than the smaller country.
 

Reliablebeam

Member
Joined
14 Jun 2017
Messages
247
It's interesting how entrenched views are on either side of this debate. This polarisation in our society is going to cause ructions over the next few months. My feeling is if we tried an 'elimination' strategy we will end up in the same place as Australia with The Rona spreading through the 'secure quarantine' system and back into the community - and the Australians have an effective customs and immigration regime. Whether we like it or not we are very closely integrated with mainland Europe. Now whether there should be more Europe and Near Europe co-operation on what strategy is best is another matter.

EDIT- Something else sprung to mind - even if we went down this route, the likely long list of 'exemptions' for sports stars and film crews and other groups favoured by BoJo will inevitably cause resentments and hatred....

I still maintain it will be interesting to see what happens the first time staycationers are blamed -rightly or wrongly- for an outbreak here in the UK. The screaming and shouting if the Saeson/Sassenach bring it into Wales or Scotland will be a sight to behold (I am a Celt BTW!!)
 

Tetchytyke

Veteran Member
Joined
12 Sep 2013
Messages
13,305
Location
Isle of Man
If you import 5 cases into a country and R is the same in both countries, cases will grow identically in both countries, at least in the early phases when there are no control measures in the population, allowing it to spread.

I agree, however x cases in a population of 2,000,000 is proportionally a bigger deal than x cases in a population of 20,000,000.
 

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,554
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
EDIT- Something else sprung to mind - even if we went down this route, the likely long list of 'exemptions' for sports stars and film crews and other groups favoured by BoJo will inevitably cause resentments and hatred....

It will only work if there are no exceptions whatsoever, and therefore there must be none.
 

AdamWW

Established Member
Joined
6 Nov 2012
Messages
3,604
It's interesting how entrenched views are on either side of this debate. This polarisation in our society is going to cause ructions over the next few months. My feeling is if we tried an 'elimination' strategy we will end up in the same place as Australia with The Rona spreading through the 'secure quarantine' system and back into the community - and the Australians have an effective customs and immigration regime. Whether we like it or not we are very closely integrated with mainland Europe. Now whether there should be more Europe and Near Europe co-operation on what strategy is best is another matter.

EDIT- Something else sprung to mind - even if we went down this route, the likely long list of 'exemptions' for sports stars and film crews and other groups favoured by BoJo will inevitably cause resentments and hatred....

I still maintain it will be interesting to see what happens the first time staycationers are blamed -rightly or wrongly- for an outbreak here in the UK. The screaming and shouting if the Saeson/Sassenach bring it into Wales or Scotland will be a sight to behold (I am a Celt BTW!!)

I'm not convinced that the two strategies look all that different at the moment.

Yes England has relaxed more and faster than Scotland and Wales (and in Wales it's still illegal to visit someone in their home) but on the whole the differences aren't that great I think.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top