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> Both were early to restrict international arrivals. The UK lagged behind. This was a big factor. When Australia started closing its borders (on Feb 2), it wa
by SyneRyder 6y ago
> Both were early to restrict international arrivals. The UK lagged behind.
This was a big factor. When Australia started closing its borders (on Feb 2), it was being condemned by the WHO and China for doing so [1]:
"WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in Geneva that despite the emergency declaration, there is "no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade"."
I was tracking conferences in the UK at the time (I run a website with conference listings), and one of the UK conferences kept quoting that WHO statement as a reason to insist their conference was still happening and people should fly to the UK for it... for another six weeks, right up until the UK lockdown. Meanwhile conferences in the rest of the world were cancelling themselves "out of an abundance of caution". The UK was one of the countries that took the longest for their conferences to cancel (Germany was the other).
[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-02/coronavirus-china-slams-us-ban-as-who-warns-local-outbreaks/11921416 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-02/coronavirus-china-sla...
- bigiain 6y agoDid we really "start closing our borders" that early? I know we'd restricted direct flights from China or the Wuhan area earlier, but citizens and permanent residents (and their families) could still arrive. We were still allowing international visitors in mid March - they only cancelled the F1 GP in March 12th, the day it was supposed to star, when all the international drivers/teams/fans/media-circus were already in Melbourne. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/mar/13/formula-one-australian-grand-prix-melbourne-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/mar/13/formula-one-au...
- SyneRyder 6y agoThat's fair - I meant that we'd started closing our border to China. Apparently Australia blocked tourists from China from February 1 and required other travellers from China to go into quarantine. I'm still trying to find when the UK implemented the same restrictions on China that Australia did. Apologies for a Daily Mail link, but it suggests that a week later the UK was still struggling to implement restrictions on travel from China due to EU rules [1] (but then, the Daily Mail would say that). Deutsche Welle suggests that a Europe-wide ban didn't happen until 17th March, and even then the Schengen still remained open [2]. As for the F1 GP, I'll just paraphrase our WA Premier: "They do things differently on the east coast" ;) [1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7968785/UK-ban-flights-China-block-foreign-citizens-entering.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7968785/UK-ban-fl... [2] https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-germany-implements-non-eu-travel-ban/a-52802039 https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-germany-implements-non-eu-...
- Gibbon1 6y agoMore amusingly the Insane Clown Posse canceled their yearly event of themselves without any whining. Makes you wonder about the competence of a lot of people running things.