Thursday, 23 September 2021

Only a Favoured Few?

It's amazing how good the Brits are at p***ing other nations off. England's new Covid travel rules are, said to be designed to make travel easier for people. Hurray! The new rules give travellers 'fully vaccinated' by Astra/Zeneca; Pfizer/BioNTech; Moderna or Janssen shots, exemption from quarantine, when arriving from an amber list country. That is, however, only so long as they were vaccinated in Australia; an EU country; New Zealand; South Korea or the USA (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/23/englands-covid-travel-rules-spark-outrage-around-the-world). People vaccinated with precisely the same shots in Africa; Latin America or India are not considered fully vaccinated by the UK authorities. Travellers from these countries currently face 10 days of expensive quarantine. Many find this 'discriminatory' or even 'racist' (I wonder why?). 'Other factors' (unspecified) are said to provide the rationale for the distinction. It has been pointed out that the UK donated some of the vaccines used in Africa. These new rules are also said to be unhelpful in overcoming vaccine hesitancy in excluded countries. It will be problematic, if delegates from these countries, find themselves unable/unwilling to travel to COP26 in Glasgow. I thought the UK's 'newly matured' government wanted the whole world 'onboard', to deal with the climate crisis?

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