Omicron: and so it begins

[Gordon0]

Our PM has just announced all arrivals (into the UK) will now need a PCR test...but guests will also need to isolate until they have their results. I wonder how many of of my pre-Christmas (all-from-overseas) guests will pull the plug within the next 24 hours...  

The testing companies must be praising God (or the Omicron variant) for their good fortune.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59443504 

[Sarah977]

@Gordon0  

Two KLM flights from S. Africa to Amsterdam yesterday with 600 people and apparently lots maskless on flights. Everyone got tested when the plane landed after being held onboard for an extra 4 hours.

61 people thus far tested positive. 

[Emiel1]

@Sarah977 

They are in isolation now in a nearby hotel, no yet sure if the Omicron variant is among them.

Now NL will start to trace and test another 5000 people who travelled from South Africa earlier this week....

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Gordon0 At least we are all being educated on the Greek alphabet. With a few missing for political reasons of course.

[Mark116]

@Gordon0  Ugh.  We just finally started getting European bookings again.  

[Gordon0]

We have our first guests from NYC in two years arriving next week. They promised to bring bagels too. 

[Michelle53]

@Sarah977   @Emiel1    They can isolate all the South Africans they want, but Omicron is already out in the world.   Isolating people from a single country didn't work the last time, either.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/27/omicron-variant-covid-southern-africa-travel-restrictions

[Sarah977]

@Michelle53  Yep. The way this pandemic has been dealt with from square one has made little sense. To stop the spread of a deadly pandemic all  borders have to be closed at the same time. Then you isolate and treat the infections within each area until there are no more cases. 

This would have all been over a year and a half ago had that been done. But apparently humans aren't capable of such logical solutions.

This opening and closing of borders, of schools, easing regulations when cases start to wane, then having to lock down again because the case count  then goes up, is really misguided and obviously doesn't work. Succumbing to pressure from those who insist on carrying on as if it's no big deal shows an irresponsible lack of leadership.

The simplest, most intelligent comment I read about this a year and a half ago now was, "If we want things to get back to normal, we have to stop pretending they're normal".

[Michelle53]

@Sarah977   Of course we also know that the reason we are getting these variants is that people are still contracting and passing along Covid in large numbers.  For reasons we know. 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Sarah977   well, here they have tried to close the cities twice . Nobody in, nobody out ... but as soon as the closing started we were hit by an earthquake so they had to reopen and let the workers and engineers come and work. Then, 6 months later they tried to close us again and a few days later the second large earthquake hit so they had to reopen again.

No more closed cities since  🙂

[Laurelle3]

@Branka and Silvia0 in Melbourne,Victoria, Australia they have had 7 shutdowns over the past 2 years so many small buisness have been affected. Australia is watching again and as we are an island overseas borders have been closed to overseas again until more information on Omicrom.

At the moment our guests have mainly from within our NSW state and we have had city lockdowns too. But as I am from the health proffession I do think all our goverments are trying to look after its people.

[Helen3]

Woke up this morning to five cancelled bookings because of the new PCR test regulations for those coming from abroad. To be clear guests can still travel from abroad but need to isolate for the first couple of days while waiting for their test results. 

Airbnb cancelled penalty free without asking me whether I would be happy to give a voluntary refund @Stephanie  @Nick . Could you look into this and see why Airbnb are giving guests full refund when hosts have cancellation policies in place which means this shouldn't happen?

According to Airbnb's EC policies guests shouldn't be able to cancel penalty free if there arrangements are affected by Covid as they were aware before they booked that restrictions could change at any time.

[Gordon0]

That’s pretty rubbish, @Helen3, and it seems like another Airbnb CS own-goal. 

I had expected to hear a few pings last night, but short of a booking in January, nothing yet. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Helen3 We have lost a Christmas week now due to travel difficulties from Switzerland. We say on our listing that we will refund if travel becomes impossible due to Covid and Airbnb were good enough to refund the guest in full after contacting us. I wonder why the inconsistency.

It is really hard for travellers as insurance doesn't seem to cover government travel restrictions.

Interestingly the legal position in the UK (at least for airlines) has been clarified that a guest unable to travel does not get a refund. Not sure what the position is for accommodation though.

[Helen3]

Hello @Mike @Stephanie 

Yes I would always refund a guest if legally they can't travel due to Covid restrictions.

But in these cases the guests can absolutely travel.

In four cases, they are just choosing not to because they don't want to have to isolate for the first two days while they await the results of their PCR tests. 

In one case, they say there company no longer require them to travel to my area for work because of the new virus strain.