(16-03-2020, 11:58 AM)milestone 11 Wrote: (16-03-2020, 11:22 AM)Archer Wrote: Everytime another arrives from Madrid carrying the virus and walking the supermarkets, we all have to re-start our 14 day isolation!
Stop the flights now, or quarantine every single one who comes in. Otherwise the sacrifice we have all made is totally pointless.
I thought that I was on my own with that philosophy Archer.
You're really not alone there, but the onus has to be on the authorities rather than the individual to inform, facilitate, and enforce.
Individual people cannot be expected to make sacrifices when they are not compensated for doing so (ie, flights cancelled based on DFA advice meaning insurance cover is valid vs choosing to not go and eating the loss as an individual, accommodation being provided vs having to find and fund your own), or are even encouraged to do so. Allowing flights from heavily infected areas is bad, but would be understandable if people coming off them were forced into quarantine. There are so many hotels on this island, none of which are full in early March.
The government here could easily have commandeered a self-catering facility near the airport, moved the existing guests elsewhere, then set up quarantine and bussed in supplies. They didn't. The airline and tour companies could have warned people who travelled before this weekend that they were likely to experience servere disruption. They didn't. The government at home could have forced companies to refund holiday bookings and cancelled flights. They didn't. They government here could have sent out mass alerts by SMS. They didn't.
The neighbour just said they were on a beach in the middle of nowhere yesterday when the
Police fetched up and told them to get back in their hire car and go home! This was the first they had heard of any of this because they weren't on the internet to follow the situation and no effort had been made to inform them.
People should of course behave responsibly and try not to infect others— We've been practising social distancing and maximum hygiene for the last month. However, individuals can only do so much. the authorities are so afraid of causing a panic (perhaps rightly, I don't know) that they have downplayed the severity of this, were slow to implement measures to force distance, and have not implemented half the measures they should have. There are two or three flights from mainland Spain coming in today with people who won't be quarantined, and that's crazy. I absolutely support everyone's right to repatriate, but quarantine measures should absolutely be enforced.
However, Ireland is telling people to get home from Spain by 19th, so I'm guessing either they or the Spanish are going to close the borders after that date. It'll be of benefit to whichever one does it, anyway.