South Africa trip – would you cancel?

[malteser]

We are booked to go to South Africa on 27 January. Myself, partner & our 3 parents in their 70s – but very healthy. Plan is few days in Cape Town and then Garden Route up to Addo. Got alll accomodation booked in private accomodation & have a mini van for getting around.

Now need to start thinking if we should go ahead or not as we need to cancel by 31 Dec for full refund.

What are people’s thoughts on SA? If you were booked to go are you going ahead or cancelled? Just want to know what people are thinking.

FOr us, i just think if we don’t go now we might never get another chance to go with parents and i have put a lot of effort in booking lovely places to stay & to get flights in Business so if it was a success the memories would be brilliant. But then dont want to put anyone at unecessary risks.

• This topic was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[Rhys]

Early suggestions seem to be that South Africa may already have peaked in terms of Omicron cases.

Either way though your parents will have to decide for themselves whether it is worth the risk – strangers on an internet forum aren’t going to be able to answer that for you! Assuming everyone is boostered the change of getting covid is small but it is not nil.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[malteser]

Thanks Rhys.Just wanted to hear what others are considering in making their decisions.

For us – at the moment everyone seems to still want to go but i just want to make sure we have thought of everything. Our current thoughts are we will be outside most of the time, the data looks like the worse will be over by then, and the risks are not much worse than here. On the other hand if something happened you are in a foreign country far from home.

[Thegasman]

My thoughts as a doctor who’s spent a lot of the last 21 months dealing with Covid (although not a virologist/epidemiologist): Very early indications (published today) suggest Omicron has a lower risk of hospitalisation/severe disease than previous variants. Confidence intervals are still wide though as based on small numbers. There will be more data released on an almost daily basis over next fortnight so by the 30th the picture should be even clearer (though still not conclusive).

Transmission rates are through the roof however. This is borne out by the data & my anecdotal experience. Our staff absence rates are far higher than at any other point (including pre vaccines) & we are also seeing whole households testing positive whereas previously maybe 50% would escape.

Putting that together, you would probably be safe from serious illness (assuming all triple jabbed) but very much not assured of avoiding catching it. Considering you have to test negative to fly home you need to consider how you would deal with a prolonged stay. I’d want to be very clear on how SA authorities would treat a positive pre-flight test & if my insurance company would pay for any additional costs.

If it was me, I would still travel but would be very careful with activities. Staying in villas instead of hotels, hiring a car vs taxis & eating outdoors rather than inside would be sensible precautions. Accept that if you catch it you would likely be ok but would probably still need a few days in bed to recover. I’d also strongly advise not getting on a 12 hour flight if you have any residual respiratory symptoms!

[Mikeact]

Does anybody happy to know, or stayed at the Kosi Bay Lodge? North of the Durban coast road before hitting the border to Mozambique ?
We are thinking of possibly flying into Durban and then driving North and returning home by driving back over to Johannesburg (or the other way round.)