uk_grenada

You know we airlifted 6000 us uk and Canadian students home as this began from our medical uni, repatriation flights to elsewhere are still ongoing but almost over.

Fortress Grenada is almost here but it’s going to be a bit porous in places like the outer islands and those plus errant yachties and illegals are the main issue I guess.

BUT how does it cease?

Pistolpete2

I'm following you here and other threads and generally agree with everything that you have said regarding Grenada's predicament. Where do we go from here?

We were due to fly back to the UK last week and return here later in the month but obviously all flights have been cancelled. Even a month ago, with all of this, we really really didn't want to make the flights anyway. BA have offered to rebook our flights for a later date but I just can't imagine whether our rebook date would actually end up having a flight, even in say August.

Frankly, I can't see any way that BA (for example) can resume flights until potential passengers can be satisfied that they aren't going to catch this thing by sitting next to somebody for ten hours.

And why would you head for Grenada for a couple of weeks and risk getting promptly sick and having to be confined in a faraway hospital to see out your vacation period and how would insurance respond?

SO it really seems that we are (like everybody else really) forced to move to the Sweden 'model' even though they have a reluctant crowd agitating internally that it was the wrong way to go at the outset.

By extension, that would seem to be a large chunk of the population catching it, then the science showing that that chunk actually has immunity and then they have papers to prove it and then can be in the overall herd who are free to travel and head back to work even in a confined workspace.

UK Guardian yesterday saying that we basically have to be in lock-down (in some fashion) until the vaccine arrives - where does that leave a place like little Grenada or any other Caribbean island that relies on tourism for one huge chunk of national income, as does a country the size of Portugal for that matter (which does seem to have put some sort of lid on it in spite of its proximity/adjoining to Spain)?.

In passing, I sure hope that the Saturday and Sunday grocery shopping arrangement (split by surname into two groups and then switcherood ) works this weekend so that when we actually get into the shop there is something to buy this time, the shops having now been able to properly restock (today?). Should be interesting - mainly Catholics on Saturday and Seventh Day on Sunday? I had to check hard to see whether I can restock my seriously depleted rum supplies.

uk_grenada

Someone did the math for the weekend shopping, and its not pretty... I think nobody has ever done any modelling on this stuff and its all ‘finger in the air’ stuff

Heres some math to keep you amused this morning. 100,000 people on Grenada, assume 6 per household, that’s 16,500+ people to shop at the weekend. 6 feet apart, that’s nearly 19miles of queues this weekend. Or if shared, 9.5miles per day. Lets say 30 supermarkets share those customers. So each shop will on average have 555 people queuing. Say on average each shop has 6 tills (some will have 2 and some will have 10) and that each person spends 10 minutes at the till, means 15hrs will be required per day for shopping for the nation.

Pistolpete2

Yep last Friday up where I am the queue was definitely up near 555 but the till time seems a lot. BUT it's been a while since I saw a cheque (some folks pay with cheque here) and even a credit card needs a signature and ID so it all takes time along with some bar code deficiency meaning some items get keyed in manually. Then social distancing goes out of the window at the till. Fortunately senior citizens can pull rank, in spite of a certain reluctance on my part. Better to be called forward - "hey you look old, come on!"

uk_grenada

Fortunately we british all have chip and pin cards so no id or signature needed, and i assume we are supposed to pull rank in the big queue, well thats whatthe adverts say. ‘Inform security or the police’ but the big 3 supermarkets are going to get a lot more in their queues than the others and im betting they will be without stock very rapidly.

Serendipidy

Ummmm surely they have this information from the cards you have to fill in at airports that they can pull - everyone has to give a location and telephone number - obviously a few might fall through the cracks but am surprised that the onus appears to be s on the individuals to contact?

It is being said that the UK may have the biggest European death rate of CV19 however I think the stats will need to be taken over the 3 month period. France Spain and Italy are on severe lockdown whereas UK are on moderate. Therefore obviously the figures will be higher right now in UK as more people are exposed and the majority of these cases are hopefully building their immunity (94%). Because of a lack of tests we are only showing as around 80,000 positive cases at present. If other countries stats who are testing are applied ie 10% of those infected end up in hospital, then we in the UK currently with around 20,000 in hospitals would indicate that (if we were testing as we should) there could be around 200,000 who would have tested positive. Our death rate at just past 10,000 and that is 5% of that estimated figure - way too high compared to other countries with similar population numbers!! (I am not the best with numbers so if my stats don't add up then happy to be re educated) NB: just heard an expert say our mortality rate in UK is 1% (although 1% of what is not explained ie is it cases tested or population etc!)

However, once the rest of Europe moves to a moderate lockdown approach as part of their exit strategy their numbers will rise and I suspect ours will level off. Let us pray and hope that 5% is the peak figure and drops dramatically

I honestly feel this is not a case of "if" you get the virus but when for most people. The UK approach to ensure that the health demand does not exceed NHS capacity is helping people stay alive longer to be able to fight the virus, however ultimately your own immune system will be the deciding factor. Worrying, drinking, smoking, vexation etc are all going to contribute negatively to your personal fight with this virus. Having had the virus (I think as not tested) looking inwards to what you can do to prepare yourself is my recommendation.

Right now most governments are just doing what they think is best for their people and no one will know until hindsight is available how that will pan out.

The only thing that we can control is that which is in our control.

As an addendum this is a fascinating article from the Telegraph regarding stats for Europe:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...aign=DM1234297

Sunniebgi

Dipety,.. I think they did away with the immigration cards a while back.. but they have had the inbound kiosks that you sign into. I have no idea why they aren't using these.. but. . that's how our immigration office works.. (you might be familiar with them.....)
we have , in the last few days, had people coming forward for dates that were earlier than requested.. 11 March was one person who showed up last week in serious condition.. my question is. .do they not watch the news.. do they not understand what is going on.. are they too embarrassed to come forward?? Who knows.

3 more tested yesterday.. 2 people who came in on a flight and 1 person who came in contact with someone who came in on a flight.. so.. they will trickle in. .which is fortunate for our health care providers, but unfortunate for the unknowing people they are coming in contact with.