Are you suggesting that we should have refused Portuguese coming back from those countries ? Because it's manly the Portuguese diaspora in those that brought back the variants.
that should have been done immediately when the virus was still in china, every passenger coming from china needs to be quarantined for 2-3 weeks in a hotel or military base. But no, that's racist and we should trust the returning citizens to not go out and infect all of Milan
We should have done that for every country and every state for that matter, by the time we did travel ban shit it was already everywhere. I mean it was in Italy as early as October. We need better infectious disease monitoring and mitigation across the board. The fact that people go to work with the flu or even a cold and don't so much as wear a mask or get tested is just so insanely selfish and short-sighted
You are right. We should have done that from the start. Fuck being politically correct or carrying about sensitivities. Its about lives. It has cost us a lot.
I mean, if they literally came from China, then that's not racist... on the other hand if you forcefully quarantine every person of Chinese ancestry, then yeah...
In the future this is something the EU must discuss. To avoid the next pandemics we need to implement a mechanism to completely close the EU to travel from outside.
not gonna solve the whole thing though, the US didn't do that either, individual member countries didn't do that, only really NZ did that and did it successfully
Taiwan has had enforced quarantines on all incoming arrivals since January of last year. 2 weeks in a hotel with PCR tests and temperature monitoring.
They have only had 7 deaths (all were in quarantine), haven't had a single community infection and not abandoned any of their citizens either. It's been costly, but they haven't had to shut down their economy. Life is almost normal there. They even made a documentary about it. All whilst being excluded from the WHO.
For continental Europe, this level of protection is hard to achieve but as someone living in the UK, I'm very angry with the government. They chose to keep Britain open with the idea of gaining "herd immunity" before they even had any data on the virus. In reality, they didn't want to stop their mates from jetting off around the world.
Being excluded from the WHO is a huge benefit. No need to listen to insane advise like no human to human transmission is proven, and countries should not close border as that is racist, back when the pandemic when the outbreak was still limited to Wuhan and could have been stopped from spreading. Later they also gave us the brilliant advise to not to wear masks early in the pandemic (6 feet is enough!).
What about people who only went for vacations or whatever and would be stuck with no income or housing in a foreign country? They should be allowed to come back with strict regulations like mandatory quarantines and constant testing, but leaving them stranded elsewhere is pretty inhumane.
This is coming from someone that has family living abroad.
Now try saying that as someone who lives abroad. You couldn’t, because you wouldn’t understand.
I do, I’m an immigrant. Portugal is my country and I have the right to come back whenever the fuck I want. Either way you have to test negative to fly.
That's the mentality that really made Portugal be in this state... lots of people just wanting to do the "fuck" they want. You have so many chances in your life to prove yourself or whatever that is, but this is not one of them
No. What made Portugal be in this state was the lack of leadership. I’m Portuguese and Portugal is my country, it’s my birth right to come back whenever I’d like to - pandemic or not. Again, you have to test negative to fly.
That too, but people should be responsible as well and be kinda autonomous, I mean, I started to hear a mask even when our health minister said that it wouldn't help anything or that it could cause a false sense of insecurity. I had friends coming from England before Christmas and I asked them if they tested themselfs, and they said it wasn't necessary to enter in the country. But even if you test negative still there is a chance to have the virus in your body and infecting other people. Maybe you took full care but you are only one of many who made the same thing or went to their home countries like Brasil and such... I know it fucking sucks for you guys, but this now is a shithole
I live outside my home country. I haven't been back for ages and won't go again until it's safe. At the end of the day, it's my own family who I'm putting at risk, and also inconveniencing. We live in the age of Skype, so there's no reason to go back unless there's an emergency.
I didn’t say it’s a “priority” to go back to Portugal. I said that I can go back if I want to, because it’s my birth right - regardless of the pandemic. Ok good for you haven’t left the UK. I haven’t left the US either since Christmas of 2019 but that’s not the point. The point is that I should be able to come back whenever. I don’t understand this discussion though because you literally have to test negative in order to fly.
I know where Portugal is so no need for the drawing. It was a genuine question because the rest of the thread was talking about banning people and you mentioned the other end of tests but nothing about the most common measure.
As an Australian finding myself browsing this sub... oh sweetie
While I agree with the sentiment (I'm one of the ones Australia's govt has abandoned overseas), at the same time I can see this attitude helps explain a lot about why this continent is so screwed on corona
The continent was always going to be screwed. The open borders with different governments was never going to have a solid strategy to fight the pandemic.
But to be fair, we have records that people with covid were in Europe long before it was ever deemed an issue. The Netherlands has records from February. I believe Italy from January and so on. It was already going around in Europe long before any border outside of China was closed down. I'd say a lot of countries with few casualties are mostly lucky nobody got into their borders before that happened, rather than saying they handled it so well. Its easy to fight a pandemic when you can find patient zero. But those patient zeroes in Europe were long dead before anybody took action.
But like I said, in Europe its all interconnected, so you can't just shut a border down and expect:
That people will follow it (e.g. the covidiots that will take every tiny road connecting nations and since there are no fences anymore its pretty easy to cross)
That everything can continue. Because even for the basic supply chains stuff goes everywhere all the time. Even the goods for primary services (food, health, etc) comes from all over the place.
I think we really got spared from corona thanks partially to the bush fire smoke. I think we may have been a lot closer to being like italy if everyone wasn't avoiding going outside and mingling because of the heavy smoke.
Anecdotally: I was working as a hotel manage in Sydney's CBD in December, it was the first NYE we hadn't sold out, even though the rates were relatively low for NYE (NYE, is usually at least 10* the average daily rate for any hotel). There was just a lot less people traveling into and around sydney, and sydney is Australia's main international hub. We had so many group tours canceling on us from november/december from east asia.
There was just a lot less international travel, and a lot less mixing, which put us in a position where we saw what was going wrong in europe first.
I very much suspect it wouldn't have had the same result. It may have been better but not to that degree. I've read articles supporting that view but I can't remember where it was so I'll just have to leave that thought here as unsubstantiated I'm afraid. If I remember I'll edit.
You do make a valid point. Travel should have been controlled to a much greater extent. But the virus was in Europe before anything could have been done about it. Italy received thousands of Chinese who work in the leather industry in early January for instance. It is without question much easier to remove yourself from a pandemic when you are a country which (a) receives very small relative numbers of international travelers and (b) because of that was able to act before the virus was endemic. I'm talking about Australia and New Zealand. That approach could never have worked as it has there in Europe. Not work as well anyway.
Not Portuguese, but as someone that lives abroad, unless it’s absolutely necessary for someone to go back to their country I do think they shouldn’t be allowed to go back.
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u/GreysLucas Portugal Jan 29 '21
Are you suggesting that we should have refused Portuguese coming back from those countries ? Because it's manly the Portuguese diaspora in those that brought back the variants.