Tourist Season Summer 2020 is History - Will Summer 2021 be Better? - Page 2

It’s the Irish blood in me.

From BBC news a few moments ago:- Scotland's chief medical officer will step out of the public eye but remain in her role, the first minister has confirmed.

Dr Catherine Calderwood has faced calls to resign after travelling to her Fife second home during the lockdown.

She was the face of a public information campaign encouraging people to stay at home "to help save lives".

Nicola Sturgeon said the government will be "revising" its campaign to maintain public trust.

In a further move away from the spotlight, she will also no longer be present at media briefings from the first minister "for the foreseeable future".

Nicola Sturgeon said: "I am acutely aware of the importance of public trust in the advice the government is giving to stay at home in order to save lives and protect our NHS.

"[Dr Calderwood] will continue to provide the Scottish government with the scientific and medical advice on the spread of Coronavirus."

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Dr Calderwood visited her holiday home not only this weekend but last weekend also. She is prominent in advising people to remain at home during the coronavirus pandemic. She tendered her apologies earlier today.

Do you see the Spaniards limiting people from the UK holidaying in Spain when this crisis is over? If the advisors flout the restrictions. How do they expect the ordinary people to behave properly? And guess what, Dr Calderwood is still a government advisor.

I saw an interesting post on the dreaded Facebook today that suggested, according to UK stats, that if 90% if people stayed home, it would be over in 4 weeks; if 80% of people stayed home, it would be 13 weeks and if only 70% of people stayed home, the apocalyptic warning was that the economy would crash and Britons would not enjoy the privilege of travel outside the country for many years to come.  It went on to say compliance was currently only 50% and so allowed you to draw your own conclusions.

Of course, this was Facebook and there is no source for these somewhat arbitrary figures; it is yet more “Facebook information” which is about as much value as “Breitbart News” as a reliable source of information.

But UKs somewhat non-confrontational approach in light of evidence to the contrary from the continent seems to indicate that Coronavirus will indeed be rampant there for some time yet - with 60 odd million people there, and 30 ventilators being supplied when 30.000 are needed, I think it is a fair expectation that there may well be blocks placed on travel to the European mainland for those from UK - almost certainly for the remainder of summer and possibly for the rest of the year.  Spain does not rely so heavily on income from UK tourism that it will risk the backlash of another shutdown and several thousand deaths, when it can be avoided.

I fear the UKs somewhat soft approach to its quarantine measures will make any visitor to these shores from UK a pariah.  I honestly believe you can write off 2020 tourist season and say “we’ll try again in 2021”.

Maybe.

What then I wonder for the Swedish holiday makers and their Governments even softer approach?

I had prepared a fairly lengthy post, but after I read it, I believe the content could be deliberately misinterpreted by those who want to misinterpret, so I consigned it to my bin. 

I'll keep this short:- I believe Spain and the Spaniards have changed their opinions of other europeans in the past six weeks. If anybody thinks otherwise and that things will return to the way they were, forget it! (I don't say this lightly).

Side Issue:- I spent some of yesterday reading through other fora (Torrevieja fora in particular) regarding upcoming Coronavirus scare. The amount of posts from last December suggesting CV-19 would just blow over is alarming. If anybody suggested there were difficult times ahead they were immediately blasted into silence. Outside of few honest posters, I don't think it is any different here.

A very valid question - how badly is Sweden affected though?  I think it will depend to a great degree on how badly the host country is affected - and infected - but if they are going for herd immunity, that usually takes a couple of generations to build up ......

We have just been informed  Jet2 have cancelled all flights until June 17th , which includes ours, so we have had to cancel our apartment booking through TA  . 

When the situation is given the all clear, how wise would it be to book a holiday, with the possible influx of owners  of 2nd homes going to the coast from say Madrid. A second wave of virus could happen. 

Hi Peter,

You're condemning Spain and its attitude to Covid-19 from the start. I can't disagree with you.

But, the Spaniards will sooner or later condemn the UK and its attitude to Covid-19 and I can't disagree with them either. 

There are difficult times ahead for the guy who rents out his apartment to cover expenses etc (of which I am one). I have no crystal ball, but I can't predict accurately when things will improve on the holiday demand front. There are so many difficulties ahead, I even fear to give an opinion.

Earlier, I contacted people who had booked with me for December 2020 and January 2021, February 2021 to refund deposits and hope they will still do business with me when times are favourable. I refunded the earlier bookings over 3 weeks ago.

Hi

Sweden has no policy trying to reach heard immunity. This is explained repeatedly but repeated abroad repeatedly as would it be true. The outcome in any country will however have this result. The policy  with rules, regulations and advice is to give the healthcare an opportunity to cope with demand. Few, extremely few women are not working full time and many found apart from chief executives work in healthcare incl retirement homes. Closing school for kids up to 15 has been ruled out as they have been considered not spreading the virus and Closing schools would heavily reduce the number of caretake workers. Older student can take of themselves and most of them not in school. 

Sad to say we are segregated agewise compared to some south European countries. But a good thing now, except for high deathrates here as well as other countries. I've had my father living with us previously for a couple of years, none of our friends have ever had that. This to Illustrate how the state address' the issue. 

We can go for walks, shop etc but advice to keep a distance. 70+ should, apart from trying to stay in shape with walks, stay at home - no shopping. The grocery store, the bank, the pharmacy has "all" vertical plexiglass protection between cashiers and the customer. No serving at a bar disc nor buffestyle and mist respect it, but of course not everyone. 

Info in English:

https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency-of-sweden/communicable-disease-control/covid-19/

Many thanks for that - of course, not knowing the demographics of the country makes it difficult to judge what is happening.

What you have written makes a great deal of sense - thank you.