Proof of vaccination status is likely to be the key to getting the travel industry going again but I've been wondering exactly what that proof ought to look like. The days of a piece of folded card with some rubber stamps on it is likely to be over as it's just too easy to make one yourself on a home printer - or buy one on eBay like you've been able to get 'novelty' driving licences.

Incorporating it into the biometric data on your passport means sending it off, something that's likely to take months when the offices are swamped if it becomes a prerequisite for travel. Plus expect a backlash from civil liberties organisations as well. Some kind of phone app may be an alternative but seeing what a pigs ear they made of the track and trace app you might want to postpone your travel plans until it actually works.

Having said that I've heard that the vaccination programme is actually starting next week - I know some people who are scheduled to get it ('it' being the Pfizer version) on the 1st /2nd Dec. So far though I'm not aware of any thought having been put into proving you've had it.

I think there is some merit to Touring Ted's post.

Although I really think that it is a great thing that more people are overlanding, and although I have no needs to neither brag or feel special or unique, there is still a point to be made.

Many places arround the world has been over excerted by tourists - taking away from the exotic and uniqueness that was part of the attraction in the first place.

When I as a visitor is as exotic to my host as the host is to me, there is a mutual exhange of something wonderful. However, assimilation grows with the number of similar encounters - one become more tailored and adapt to eachother - in everything. And that can become a bit mundane and boring.

That much said, I think we are a long ways away from overlanding becoming your regular James Cook package holiday. I don't get the sense that I am traveling in a herd. Sure I meet overlanders along the way, but mostly in the typical bottlenecks (ferries, border crossings, etc) or on the main throughways, the common overlanding friendly camp grounds, or on famous heritage sites, etc - but that is nothing new.

I still get the sence that if I only just skip a border or two away out of western or northern Europe (whre regular motorvehicle insurance no longer has coverage), things get exotic quickly - especially if I get even only a few miles off the the main throughway.

I think travellers can get the best of two worlds now - go on the main routes if you need more comfort and convenience, or just turn off the main road and be on Mars after only a few clicks.

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These days, the vaccination passports require a special sticker that comes on the vial of the vaccine you were injected with. It's a holographic sticker with fairly serious protection elements on it, in addition to a serial number.

Basically, consider that proof of vaccination for pet passports has been a thing for many years, and fraud protection for those has also been thought through.

Well, sure, but the same used to be true for visas.

coming back to topic I would say yes, there are some positives from that whole situation. This pandemic propaganda showed how naive people are, showed governments and media cannot be trusted same as so called public health care and other services. Taking all these into account traveling now will be a challenge and will require some intelligence hence will be more entertaining. Actually already is when I was riding around during lockdown. BTW coming once from communist country didn't expect that freedom can be taken away so easily from people under any regime. History is repeating itself.

For those that know little about vaccines and how they work here is a link to a World Health Organisation website that teaches the reader about vaccines.

https://vaccine-safety-training.org/

Sadly, what it doesn't do is to try to convince the anti-vaxxers that the world is round rather than flat, that man actually did go to the moon, that the CIA did not blow up the World Trade Centre etc

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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

Part of the trouble is that vaccine biochemistry is a complex subject - and even more so with the approach Pfizer took with theirs. I have a degree in the subject (although from a long time ago) and I had to sit down and look carefully at what they'd done to understand it.

If you either dumb it down to cartoon level for people or just say 'trust us' you're laying yourself open to all sort of distortions or misinterpretations. If you've never heard of mRNA or have no idea what it does you could well be convinced by 'fake news' and the usual suspicion of government activities that it's something malign because you've no basis on which to judge the merits or otherwise of each sides argument. In some respects the fake news / conspiracy theory mob have an advantage as they can say pretty much anything they like whereas the scientific community is bound by various codes of ethics etc.

Nah!

Yes history is repeating itself, isolation has long been a preventative for dealing with pandemics, back to the days that the Venicians used a 40 day quarantine to help prevent Black Death. It’s a minor loss of freedom for the common good.


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Charles CCM450, BMW R90/6, BMW R50
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I dont think Everyone is doing it at all . What is one person's adventure is another person's walk in the park . Remember most people are not in the position to walk away from their job , mortgage, loans , family etc nor do most people have that sort of spare cash hanging around . I remember doing a trip to Bosnia when it poured nearly every day , roads were washed out and I'd forgotten it was Ramadan.........adventure enough for some I would suggest......another day in the office for others .
Going by my customers , a large proportion couldnt give a fxxx about travelling by bike to places far away some do western Europe and only have a week or so , whilst a small group are genuinely what I would call travellers....little wonder there arent many if any rtw bikes on the market , by that I mean built solely for that task

It is clear that in the UK at least not everyone is taking all reasonable measures. Go to the shops around the town where I live and there is around 90% of the people wearing masks and wearing them properly rather than with their nose hanging out. Go to a town just 5 miles away and it is closer to 75%. The town where I work it is around 50% of people in shops wearing a mask - but that is getting better. Oddly, the infection rates are inversely proportional to the mask wearing rate. That is what can be seen easily and I suspect that that is a higher figure than other aspects of keeping the virus numbers low because it is visible. Certainly social distancing appears to be optional for many people.

As regards people working well I have had our factory open for the whole time with reduced staff initially but with everyone back in since July - occasional days when I have furloughed people but generally everyone in. The difference between now and this time last year is that we insist on face coverings if you are coming onto the site - we meet people wearing our masks. As far as I know I am the only one to have had Covid and I got that from my wife back in March. The staff are really good about keeping away from each other and from visitors / customers.

It really is not hard to follow the rules - obviously we have some cretins in the UK that think that driving 250 miles home with a sick wife and having Covid yourself is acceptable - the sort of cretin that then goes for a drive as an eye test.... I would love to know the views of his insurance company as to whether his insurance would have been valid for such an exercise.

With the arrival of the vaccine we can see a light that we think is the end of the tunnel - so some people are dropping their guard at precisely the wrong time, it has been a long journey lets not screw it up at the end, but people are.

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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.