Not mine, most definitely not mine. Personally I find the current "government" corrupt, incompetent, and dishonest - others are less charitable. They are messing around with the voting system and constituency boundaries to rig the election their own way - so they are putting forward legislation insisting on photo ID to be able to vote to stop fraudulent voting. At the last general election there were four (4) prosecutions for electoral fraud - however the number of people that don't have acceptable photo ID is around 6+ million.

They are also trying to silence the BBC so that they don't get criticism from that direction and they are already in the back pocket of the printed media. Their aim it appears - and the numbers back this up - is to ensure that the wealthy get wealthier at the poor's expense.

The path they are treading is down the authoritarian route that will do no-one any good in the long term. Hurrumph.

Some time ago someone - I can't remember who - said that Boris Johnson's version of leading people was to listen to see which way the larger part of the crowd were going and then running to the front shouting "follow me". The crowd he was hearing were his own "government" who would throw your mother and mine under a bus if they thought they could make a buck on it.

Got my second shot yesterday. Slightly fever during the night but nothing at all like the first time where I shivered and shaked for several hours and was unwell for 1,5 days. My immune system is definetively activated for the second time, this time by Pfizer, first time by AstraZeneca. I should soon be very safe now!

So now I have done my part, Im ready for the world....:D

Covid 19 vaccination
 

Second Pfizer jab last week - I have had quite severe influenza symptoms for several days. Small price to pay for the hoped for immunity, but for me international travel is off the menu for the foreseeable future. I live in Oslo, where the situation is stable, and I am very happy for that. The "itch" has more or less disappeared, as you all know Norway is a special mc experience, you just have to have weather luck, and a fat wallet!

Sadly I don't think we are finished with the Corona, crossing borders is going to be even more of a hassle, even if you are vaccinated. Bad situation to be trapped in a country with minimal medical resources if you got ill or injured, not just from Corona, and you can't get the help you need because their infrastructure is on the verge of collapse.

Whether the vaccines can be tweaked to counter the mutants that develop is another uncertainty that affects independent travel, people outside of the tourist industry will probably be very wary of travellers.

Stay safe

Peter, in Oslo

So many people I've spoken to think much the same about Boris in particular, that in the solitude of the voting booth he's a Brexit remainer but saw more fame and fortune for him personally if he championed leave. It's Boris no 1 and the rest of the country trailing along somewhere behind. They see that and still vote for him.

When he was our local MP I once spent a morning with him on a kind of ribbon cutting factory tour and found him to be a very personable, likeable and personable bloke, a kind of slightly eccentric and completely chaotic next door neighbour. I can see why those characteristics have propelled him up the greasy pole and he's been able to stay there because most of his reign has been during a 'national emergency' so the normal blood baying from the opposition / media has been reduced. They do say it's better to be lucky than talented in politics and he's been lucky to be around in this era.

The older I get the less 'gravitas' politicians of all sorts seem to have. Back when I was a kid they all seemed far more serious, verging on statesmanlike; people of ability selflessly dedicated to the furtherance of the national good. Now (and I've met a few over the years) they just seem to be people that in the sort of life the rest of us lead would be unemployable.

I am aware that in this moment the world is still fighting to control the outbreak and progression of corona. Vaccines will allow you to travel again but corona will - in what ever kind of characteristic - always be present in certain countries or regions for the near future. There is actually no scientific data existing how long and effective vaccination will work and nobody knows if or how many mutations will be created through different levels of vaccinations allover the world.

Because everybody is speculating about getting back to normal or to prepandemic life I think a stronger future divide between business travels, commercial tourism and individual travelers is imaginable.

Varying levels of restrictions like a limitation of Visas or of destinations allowed to visit could make self organized traveling more hard and of course more expensive.

Entrance at the border with own vehicle could be refused because you need more than a passport and a carnet. A certificate of vaccination could be rejected by the local goverment because you got the wrong shot in their view. Border crossings for private/individual travellers could be denied because of a missing of a valid travel purpose.

Visa valid time could be shortened to a time duration that some destinations will loose attraction for individual travelling people. Stronger regulations for re-entering borders to gain a new travel period could be turned into a tool to limit amounts of travellers
A deposit of cash or an insurance by force to cover healthcare cost in case of an covid related illness could turn into a mandatory measurement for border crossings.

Local social behaviors could change rapidly in the moment when a region is hitted by a new outbreak. Yesterday you where welcomed and today you will be forced to leave. Hospitality by people or by goverment could be refused suddenly because foreign travellers were identified as carriers of a new outbreak. Social media in this regions will provide a dark force of to help spreading rumors and to influence peoples opinions and manner.

Time will tell if my thoughts and imagination will turn into reality. But I still hope that it will be only the worst nightmare I ever suffered from.

This is a valid analysis. As travellers, we need to understand that countries will open up in the order of what's important to them. This means business first, for many developing economies welcoming foreign business people is paramount to growth. Video conferencing does not solve everything, especially when people want to invest money.

Next, the countries with a sizeable tourism sector will open up some touristy areas. This is a sensible approach, it limits the exposure of the society to travellers, while starting up the most important part of the travel economy. I would not be surprised if only package tours were allowed, this would make vaccine passports and insurance easier to handle. Oh, and some kind of confirmation of vaccination will be needed, most of us are good enough people to understand that countries that cannot afford quick vaccination or handle an outbreak are not ours to endanger.

But what about those of us who like to roam free, uninvited and unorganised? Border controls will open up after a time, quarantine requirements will be dropped when vaccine passports start working, etc. But insurance requirements will increase, tests will need to be done (and paid for), etc.

The biggest question on my mind is how outsiders will be welcomed by regular people. Will we be seen as potentially dangerous? In any case, a face mask is something that we should keep handy at all times over the next years to diffuse situations were we're seen as contagious threats. And we should accept this, we will always be the uninvited guests who have to be nice to be accepted into the conversation.

China have already said that they will only accept a Sinopharm vaccine as valid - oddly, that is the one they have developed.

Covid will be around for years - this will impact travelling for years and we will just have to either accept it or stop travelling. I don't see any quick way around it.

Watching Youtubers Itchy Boots and One Her Bike in South Africa and Zambia they seem to be getting on just fine. Biggest problem we're facing with the next trip is if we have to quarantine on our return to the UK.

Hope that's not tears of a clown style travel - smiling to the camera because that's your job but staring at the bottom of a glass in despair afterwards because all your plans are in tatters.

Quarantine is a bigger issue to some people than others. My son will have to quarantine when he comes over here in July but as he works from home at the moment, home is wherever his laptop can be plugged in.

Dunno, they both seem happy enough - I suspect Noraly more than Kinga because Kinga likes being around people more and everything seems super quiet at the moment down there.


Anyway, I've got my flights booked to SA for November. I'm hoping (and so, apparently, is British Airways) that SA comes off the Red List soon-ish because I do not want to have to pay the thick end of three grand doh to quarantine in a hotel when we return in mid December.

Still quite a lot of people travelling in Africa looking at various FB groups, smae with Europe. 6 of the gang I got stuck in lockdown with last year have travlled most of the last 12 month

Today I had my second jab of the Astra Zeneca vaccine. No ill effects. I am still going to wear my mask in shops etc as I could, in theory, still be contagious (though at reduced risk). quite when I will stop wearing the mask is up for debate. -I suspect that there will be some people, probably including myself, that will continue to use them particularly when we have a cold.

:thumbup1: for getting the second jab. I got mine back in April - and had a whole load of side effects, including a multi day headache. The medics took the headache so seriously that I got one of the very few face to face consultations with a GP down at the local health centre and a whole battery of blood tests to check me out. Whether it was an actual AZ headache or a psychosomatic one I invented for myself who knows as it eventually went off of its own accord. My emergency medicine consultant brother in law said though that as soon as the headache symptom hit the press back in the winter they were swamped with people coming in saying they had a headache. Many of them hadn't even had the vaccine.

Having the vaccine and mask wearing do seem to be two different things. Everyone over 40 - round here anyway - should have had / been offered (not the same) the vaccine x2 but mask wearing is still universal in shops etc - because they're insisting on it. At the start of all this last year the 'precautions' lagged behind the actual virus by quite some time. Now it's the other way round, with the removal of restrictions lagging behind what's happening with the bug. I don't see mask wearing being 'derestricted' for quite some time - mainly because it gives a kind of a sense of security to some people + it doesn't really cause much of an economic hit. And it continues this 'national emergency' feeling, so hold off on the divisive politics / strikes and stop complaining about no foreign holidays etc. Vote Boris, he'll see you all right. :rofl:

https://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hu...1&d=1623237841

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vac...s?country=~CHE

Too sad to see the values :( I had assumed, that the UK values gets better with a higer vaccination rate.

In switzerland the values gets better, even when skiing was allowed and also the restaurants are open like normal since a week.

Germany has a stronger policy, but too much better values - in direct comparison.

Link to UK News: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55274833

Surfy