Jerseygirl

Robin is a UK/US citizen.

andyrebell

He has no worries on that score then.

Jerseygirl

he knows that.

lansbury

As robin's wife is alone in NYS, and he is fearful of what might happen if she, or himself, is taken ill and alone, it is surely perfectly reasonable for him to want to get back to his family.

SanDiegogirl

I fully agree with you to a point; personally, if hubby was safe and comfortable in a second home, and I was safe and comfortable in my main residence I would prefer him not to to do a 3 to 4 hour journey (maybe on public transport) to Heathrow, take a 6 hour flight with who knows who on the flight, probably do a quarantine in Boston and then another flight to NYS in the current situation.

robin1234

Exactly, this is the dilemma I’ve been wrestling with since late February. Looking back on it, my determination to see my sister (she lives in Sussex) on her birthday, 27 February, was what delayed me from bailing out early and flying back to Canada/US at that time. Then I allowed my wife and my daughter to talk me out of changing my flight. Then, as we know, everything happened quickly and I didn’t want to be flying at a time when London and LHR were crazy busy.

Thanks everyone, for thoughtful and useful responses! Didn’t mean to totally hijack the thread!

robin1234

Plus, my neighbor’s daughter, who I dandled on my knee when she was a baby, is a supervisor at US Customs & Border Protection! (Not at Boston though.)

andyrebell

So i will hijack it back.

What does everyone reckon will happen with foreign travellers and tourism when the borders are reopened? Bearing in mind that a vaccine is probably months to a year away and I don't think they can leave them closed all that time?

civilservant

At some point the travel bans will be rescinded. That doesn't mean a flood of people will all of a sudden show up at US airports. It will ramp up again over the course of the next few years, probably more so if/when a vaccine becomes available.

However it should be noted that we have very little success in actually vaccinating against coronaviruses - including the flu. The flu vaccine each year is simply a best guess on what will be doing the rounds, and plenty of people still get the flu despite having the vaccine.

I suspect the same will be true of a SARS-Cov-2 vaccine since it is so easily transmitted, far more so than the original SARS or MERS was.

andyrebell

They reckon there will be a vaccine within 6-12 months some researchers claim to be very close according to some media outlets. Not a lot of people take up flu vaccine do they? In the UK they don't only the so called at risk groups get it not many people outside of those groups take it up to my knowledge. I think this vaccine will be rolled out to everyone like the childhood vaccines in schools and uptake will be very high.

There is story that emirates airlines are blood testing passengers before allowing them to board flights result get back within 10 minutes. Though I don't think that would work on a large scale.

Pulaski

I admire your optimism, but you don't seem to understand - this coronavirus is slippery (yeah, that's a real technical term - Google it!), and finding an effective vaccine may not be easy unless a fair bit of luck is involved. There are already two different strains of Covid-19 out there, and there is no certainty that both would would be covered by the same vaccine, and there is thought to be a high likelihood of more strains evolving - that's what slippery means. ..... Remember, the common cold is a coronavirus and after decades of research in the UK, eventually the search for vaccine was abandoned.

Oh, and the 6-12 months you mention is an "at least" not a "within".

andyrebell

The daily express ran a story which says could it be very close maybe September time. A firm is saying they are 80% confident that vaccine they have developed will be very good at doing what it needed to do and could be ready for September. The really need it for November of course because of the election. There is no way they can do anything but voting at a polling station in person and they can't call the election off. There will be a decent amount of herd immunity in play by then I think as well.

civilservant

Um. No. No chance. Even if you assume that 75% of people that have the virus are asymptomatic and therefore have never been tested that means that at most there are only 3m people that will have some kind of immunity. I'll grant you some leeway and quadruple that to 12m

1) We don't have any idea how long immunity lasts.
2) There are nearly 320,000,000 people in the US!
3) That means that only 4% of the population have been infected and are (potentially) immune.

That highly reputable source of information!

Pulaski

So it must be true.

Try getting away from the tabloids, and look at what is really happening, not the conspiracy blogs, but at reporting of medical professionals and scientists who really know what is going on, and what is actually possible, rather than what we "hope" will happen. Even the BBC's web site has some good, well grounded information that is more realistic than the noise and chatter that is grabbing all the headlines. .... I am going to take a wild guess that the Daily Express hasn't published any articles discussing coronavirus's slipperiness?

Jerseygirl

4+ months...I would be very surprised. Does that include all the clinical trials they will have to run? Regular Joe will be months away from getting the vaccine after it has been approved. Politicians, the rich and famous will no doubt be first in line. Followed by those most at risk and emergency workers.