France, Netherlands, Malta and others added to the UK Government quarantine list

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• Trev says:

  14 Aug14 August 06:50

  For info what hotel is that pictures in the article?

  • Gareth says:

    14 Aug14 August 07:04

    Hotel du Palais in Biarritz, near ish to Bordeaux. Part of Hyatt group but currently having a refurbished until spring 2021

    • Trev says:

      14 Aug14 August 09:46

      Thank you

    • Lady London says:

      14 Aug14 August 12:46

      nearer to San Sebastian / Donostia, which is much better for tapas crawls 🙂

  • Anna says:

    14 Aug14 August 07:27

    It features in one of my favourite films, Hors de Prix, starring Audrey Tautou and Gad Elmaleh (who is a great comedian as well as having married one of the Monaco royals!)

    • Stanley says:

      14 Aug14 August 09:04

      Yes Anna! Huge in France on Netflix is superb. Got me in to his stand up stuff too.

    • Michael C says:

      15 Aug15 August 07:09

      Just had a peek, Anna – looks great!

• ChrisW says:

  14 Aug14 August 07:11

  I have 10 different friends who have either completed or are currently finishing up their 14 days quarantine in the UK after returning from Europe.

  Only 1 of them was called to check they were doing it properly.

  • John says:

    14 Aug14 August 07:14

    Sounds about right, I heard they follow up on 20% of forms

  • The Savage Squirrel says:

    14 Aug14 August 19:00

    To be fair, all laws other than the most serious offences ultimately rely mainly on voluntary compliance and a hope that people will follow reasonably closely. What % of instances of driving at 71mph or above are caught and penalised. 0.001%?

• Patrick c says:

  14 Aug14 August 07:46

  it is kind of funny that the UK has the balls to put a quarantaine in place anywhere, while the UK really is the most risky country to get infected: dysfunctional government, testing, tracing system and lowest mask usage…

  • Stoneman says:

    14 Aug14 August 07:51

    This is not a public health driven response but one driven by populist political calculation. Much like face coverings for example.

    • Lady London says:

      14 Aug14 August 12:38

      Well said both of you. It’s a farce. You could make a Fellini film about it that would make everyone laugh. Or can you imagine the endless material this would give Spitting Image every week.

      Thank heavens it’s not something much worse we’re trying to stop the spread of.

      • Dominic says:

        14 Aug14 August 15:16

        Thank goodness that Spitting Image is on its way back in in the autumn!

        • Lady London says:

          14 Aug14 August 18:49

          Is it? Oh, I wish Wordpress would have let me put that in size 18 font !!! where can i find out more?

  • pauldb says:

    14 Aug14 August 08:18

    Never mind that the numbers say otherwise?

    • Stoneman says:

      14 Aug14 August 08:34

      What numbers? What regions are you referring to? National numbers are a nonsense. It is about regions, indeed, even parts of towns which are seeing high infection rates.

      • pauldb says:

        14 Aug14 August 09:27

        It’s not about regions if I’m disputing the statement that the UK is riskier than other countries, when the other countries in question have higher rates of infection.

  • Andrew says:

    14 Aug14 August 09:06

    It’s your personal behaviours that drive the risk.

    You make the lifestyle choice whether you want to get pozzed up or not.

    Only you can decide whether or not to wear a mask, touch your face, pick your nose, bite your nails, eat food without washing your hands, or lick escalator belts.

    Of course the most ignorant of all, and probably the most likely to be infected, are those who hand wring and then talk about “UK” and then “government” (singular) as if devolution had never happened.

  • Josh says:

    14 Aug14 August 12:08

    Did someone spoil your holiday, Paddy?

  • Spaghetti Town says:

    14 Aug14 August 16:54

    UK test some of the highest in the world for tests per 1 million of population

• Chelseafi says:

  14 Aug14 August 08:17

  I’m hoping Greece stays off the list

  • Michael C says:

    14 Aug14 August 09:29

    Italy has just put Greece ON its list.

• James Vickers says:

  14 Aug14 August 08:29

  I returned from Gibraltar on 6th August so had no need to quarantine but on return was able to use the epassport lanes with no one asking if I’d been in Spain for example and needed to quarantine. I was intrigued how are the epassport gates still able to be used? Are they linked to you having a complete passenger locator form or are they just being trusting?

  • memesweeper says:

    14 Aug14 August 08:46

    I was pulled out of an egate last week and asked questions , along with my daughter. Just a random selection being targeted most likely.

  • Gavin says:

    14 Aug14 August 09:24

    When I entered at T5 a couple of weeks ago, all the e-gates were closed and the border officials at the desks were checking everyone’s form. Entered again one week ago and the gates were open, no checks.

    • Richmond_Surrey says:

      14 Aug14 August 09:27

      No checks at Eurotunnel either. No one asks about form.

      • Lady London says:

        14 Aug14 August 12:49

        ferries wont let you on without it apparently

  • Alex says:

    14 Aug14 August 09:27

    If you filled your passenger locator form then they’ll know where you were, that’s what they’re basing their checks on.

  • Alastair says:

    14 Aug14 August 10:41

    Would hope that they are linked because you have to add your passport number to the form…
    …but, my UK passport never works at the UK e gates (because they made the picture wrong according to the border force) and when I gave it to the guy and had to show him the form he went through the whole form, so I don’t know if they actually do have any way of bringing it up on their system :/

  • Simon says:

    14 Aug14 August 11:20

    I think they are trusting people for e-gates plus doing random checks interesting the comment below from Alastair they went through the whole form.

    First time through Heathrow no e-gates and first page of form looked at on phone without going through any of it, 2nd and 3rd times I filled in the form but used the e-gates, returning to Bristol no e-gates and first page of form looked at on phone. I asked the person sat next to me if he’d filled in the form returning to Heathrow from Munich and he said no and I saw him at baggage collection before me so I assume he used the e-gates and didn’t get a random check.

• ken says:

  14 Aug14 August 11:12

  Indeed, plus the numbers seem to be getting worse in France.

  • Lady London says:

    14 Aug14 August 12:59

    not surprised. the problem is idiots thinking masks are protective and not social distancing. Social distancing is the most important thing as it transmits by air and enters the body by attaching to mucous membranes.

    You could probably eat a fair amount of it without getting the disease as your stomach acids/enzymes can probably deal with a fair amount of it.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      14 Aug14 August 17:45

      Not sure about the science around eating it

      But completely agree about masks, people see it as an alternative to social distancing rather than as well as.

• Matthew Goode says:

  14 Aug14 August 11:18

  I just had a thought. I’m reading BBC News and seeing that the cheapest Eurostar tickets have been around £210. Would redeeming Club Eurostar points be a way of getting around this?

  • Rob says:

    14 Aug14 August 11:43

    Yes

  • Lady London says:

    14 Aug14 August 15:01

    Yes. This kind of situation where prices are sky high as last minute, is what points are for.

    This is why when a scheme changes to become “revenue based” i.e. the points earned, or the number of points you will need to pay for a reward ticket, become based on cash prices, that takes away the attractiveness of collecting in that scheme.

• Simeon says:

  14 Aug14 August 11:27

  Does anyone know about connecting flights in Amsterdam – will you have to quarantine if you are only passing through Schiphol?

  • Rob says:

    14 Aug14 August 11:42

    Yes you do, because you will come into contact with locals who work in the airport.

    Same with driving. Stop for petrol in France and you must quarantine. Drive straight through and you’re fine.

    • John says:

      14 Aug14 August 13:14

      Well if you drive straight into Germany from the ferry you wouldn’t have come into contact with anybody from France Belgium or the Netherlands

    • Heathrow Flyer says:

      14 Aug14 August 20:18

      If you’re literally just driving through a European country why would you need travel insurance?

      If you’re unlucky enough to have a serious road collision emergency services will take care of you like a local and your EHIC will pick up the tab.

      Also, many policies are covering medical, in-spite of any FCO advisories.

  • ChrisC says:

    14 Aug14 August 12:39

    Some of this is getting ridiculous.

    Last week when they announced the restriction on Belgium it meant that even spending an hour at Brusells Midi changing from the Thalys from Amsterdam to the Eurostar would mean going into quarentine on return home!

    • John says:

      14 Aug14 August 13:16

      How is this ridiculous? (Or at least any more ridiculous than the rest of it)

    • J says:

      14 Aug14 August 13:26

      Seriously why bother? Cummings or Boris’ own father can treat the rules as optional, why shouldn’t anyone else? Take sensible steps to protect your own health, and be particularly cautious if you’re in close contact with at risk groups – otherwise use your own judgement and ignore all this political theatre saying Turkey is safe but Luxembourg isn’t, Germany is safe but France isn’t, etc.

      • mutley says:

        14 Aug14 August 13:48

        Quite agree. The whole thing, like most of this governments policies seem to be made up without any coherent thought process.

        Add Robert Jenrick to that list.

      • Stoneman says:

        14 Aug14 August 14:50

        Yup. Anyone following the letter of the government’s advice is daft. When Professor Ferguson decided to bring his mistress around during the height of the pandemic/lockdown it was evident that the rulers follow one set of the rules and the oinks are expected to follow another.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          14 Aug14 August 15:13

          Be careful if you plan to break quarantine to go to work, I can’t think of any other reason anyone would actually need to leave home. I can see instant dismals taking place.

        • Bagoly says:

          14 Aug14 August 20:08

          Delightful irony there from your spellchecker adding an ‘n’.
          Per Animal Farm, the oinks are Cummings et al!

    • Nick_C says:

      14 Aug14 August 13:49

      An hour is long enough for you to get infected and infect others back in the UK.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        14 Aug14 August 15:12

        So is an hour in any other none quarantine countries.

        Anyway they need a better plan around testing To reduce the 14 days for everyone.

        This policy is purely to stop mud slinging and I think it’s failing miserably.

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