Princess Diana - death by a million clicks

[Robert Collins]

8 hours ago, MrSMW said:

The summary of which is even if 99.9% follow the rules, it only takes the 0.1% and the system (and point) of it is fucked.

So what is the point?

Some people just feel a need to do ‘something’ and the rest see an opportunity to make a few quid.

I rather think in the UK it is slightly different to 0.1% disobeying the rules.

If you say 'self-quarantine' to a Brit he sort of goes 'Sure, you are vaguely serious about this but not really.' So people are pretty much bound 'not' to follow the rules.

Here in Thailand you get escorted by people in hazmat suits to a hotel for 14 days quarantine (no alcohol, no yoghurt (!) and 1 hour a day outside for exercise.) You can even play tennis but you must play by yourself.

Of course with these restrictions noone actually comes to Thailand but it is pretty effective.

[MrSMW]

3 hours ago, Robert Collins said:

If you say 'self-quarantine' to a Brit he sort of goes 'Sure, you are vaguely serious about this but not really.' So people are pretty much bound 'not' to follow the rules.

Yes, that’s about the sum of it and here in France even more so where rules apply to ‘other’ people.

Pretty much nothing is enforced.

Most of these systems rely on folks following the rules and the only people that do that are those people that follow the rules anyway which makes anything that is not realistically enforceable, pointless.

And 35 million to develop an app and then 1000x that to implement it... How many fully staffed hospitals could you build with that?

Or spend the money on helping countries like Brazil. Though in that particular case, it’s more the lunatic in charge than a question of chucking money at it I think.

Yep, we live in a pretty wishy washy world in Western Europe and the US.

[Andrew Reid]

15 hours ago, Robert Collins said:

I rather think in the UK it is slightly different to 0.1% disobeying the rules.

If you say 'self-quarantine' to a Brit he sort of goes 'Sure, you are vaguely serious about this but not really.' So people are pretty much bound 'not' to follow the rules.

Here in Thailand you get escorted by people in hazmat suits to a hotel for 14 days quarantine (no alcohol, no yoghurt (!) and 1 hour a day outside for exercise.) You can even play tennis but you must play by yourself.

Of course with these restrictions noone actually comes to Thailand but it is pretty effective.

How much has covid cost the UK economy these past 12 months?

If the government had spent a tiny fraction of that disastrous economic cost on the following:

- Free hotel quarantine, mandatory for all arrivals

- Mandatory testing at airports

We could have been like New Zealand.

Instead everything is vaguely mandatory, or optional, or even just done on goodwill.

And instead of giving people the freedom to travel, they ground planes because they have no system in place to cope with an effective quarantine and testing that actually makes a difference.

Instead they spent countless billions on a system that just added up to a hassle for travellers, slapped £300 in tests on a flight per person, or worse a terrible £1800 Holiday Inn stay from hell at the end of it, and in the end didn't even make a difference as to whether new variants were coming into the country or not, because people were so desperate to avoid the £1800 bill and Holiday Inn food, that they diverted via Turkey first.