UKH

As I understand it the government is planning that anyone entering - including UK nationals re-entering the country - should quarantine at a (airport)hotel for ten days. I've seen no suggestion that there will be any exemption for those who have been vaccinated.

It does beg the question; what is the point of the vaccination? I had assumed that one of the (many) reasons for the vaccine was to enable restrictions including those on travel to be eased.

What the hell IS going on? Am I missing something?

The vaccine will help bring the current pandemic under control bringing healthcare back from its current point as almost a one disease service running on the brink of exhaustion.  Eventually we can release lockdown as the vaccination takes over controlling healthcare overload.

There could be new variants of the virus out there that the vaccine doesn’t work against.  If we allow those to spread in the UK, the vaccination doesn’t control them, and they spread exponentially once control measures are released, and its back to healthcare overload and lockdown.

One such variant is already circulating in the UK; hopefully it’s still partially covered by immunity from past infection and from the vaccine. We need to eliminate or control that variant locally as a priority.  This is here because during 2020 we had the misapprehension that travel is okay if both ends are equally infected.  One of the reasons it isn’t okay is because the probability of a variant getting loose goes up over larger interconnected areas.  Cut travel links and it’s more contained.

At this rate I don’t see how travel without managed isolation and quarantine is going to be sensible before 2022.

Fair enough

Unfortunately that doesn't look very good for those of us(my dad) who, at the moment, are still active but may well, due to advancing years, not be so next year. Dad had been hoping to get to the Alps this year for some quality walking

I recall you mentioning that trip.  I wouldn’t give up hope yet, with work from home being more common, managed isolation and quarantine just means a different 4 walls for work...

Several reasons of the top of my head on top of what wintertree said.

Firstly vaccination takes time to become effective if indeed it does (remember it doesnt work in all cases although the success rate for these vaccines is high).

Secondly how do you check the vaccine really has been done and not a few quid handed to someone to tick the form.

Thirdly it would create an unequal situation where those with vaccines would be able to travel easily and those without cant. Now most people recognise the need to vaccinate the ones most at risk/working with most at risk first and not do the "lock the vulnerable up until herd immunity has spread amongst the healthy" rubbish but it would be put under rather more strain if those vulnerable had less restrictions than everyone else.

I would think the answer to that is fairly simple. I have a vaccination certificate, which I keep in my passport, certifying(by a doctor/nurse) that I have been vaccinated for several diseases including Rabies. That seems to be universally accepted when I travel to countries in which such diseases are prevalent. Surely it's no big deal to include Covid with its authenticity being verifiable by electronic means.

So you need every country to plug into this system? Also remember the incentives for lying here are a lot higher than fibbing about a rabies vaccine.

Have a heart, wintertree: you can't go round talking sense like that on UKC this early in the morning!

Travel is not part of the vaccine equation at the moment. It is to reduce your chance of being hospitalised.

You are not factoring in how other country’s are reacting.And your assumption is that other country’s will allow you to travel to that country.For a start there is no specific global agreement that allows you the right to travel with that vaccine.

most countries are slowly closing or restricting their borders unless you are a resident anyway irrespective of the vaccine.

At the moment I would not be planning any overseas trips irrespective of your views as the situation is clearly fluid.

As I understand it vaccination creates herd immunity. So even though the vaccine may only be 60% to 90% effective when enough people are vaccinated outbreaks become all but impossible. But that only happens about 80 to 90% of the population are vaccinated.