It's the 'variants of concern' thing that has the Government's knickers in a twist. They're making decisions based on what SAGE is telling them, but not taking account of vaccination rates, vaccination status or rates of infection. Mutated strains is now the hot-button, more than total infections and vaccination status. Yet, there's no evidence to date that suggests any mutated strains are more deadly. They've proven to be more transmittable (e.g. Delta), but this hasn't led to a rise in deaths. Mexico, pretty much all South America is seeing a bigger % of cases coming back as the Gamma variant. That's why it's still red listed. I'm so frustrated with it all. For those that are double-jabbed, I see no valid reason to stop people from travelling wherever the hell they want now. You know the risks, that should be your choice. Until majority of the world is vaccinated, COVID mutations are always going to be a risk, you can't stop it by simply saying nobody can travel to those parts of the world, unless the rest of the world closed borders with those 'hot spots' too. It will spread regardless, so why block travel? People keep telling me 'well just cancel and book somewhere else'...they don't understand. There's nowhere else in the world I want to go. TTR and Mexico in general is too good! I'd rather wait it out and save my money for when I can eventually go back, whenever that is. I'm just mad as hell they can legally block travel in this way. How 'hotel prison' is legal is beyond me. £4k+ for 2 people, when I'm 100% sure quarantining at home would offer the same assurances. It's basically a way of stopping people travelling, unless you're one of the super rich that can spare an extra 11 days to launder yourself in a neighbouring country that isn't blocking travel to Mexico. It's absolute madness. Next 'review' on 7th or 8th is our last chance for a status change. Supposedly the red list is being slashed by half...whether Mexico meets the arbitrary criteria that they've decided is important that month, who knows. The only positive right now, emailed TTR yesterday, and they've confirmed in writing that we have 2 weeks before the booking date to transfer our booking to another date next year. That, at least, is some peace of mind. That should be within the timeframe that if status stays red, the flight will get cancelled, meaning we can get a refund on that instead of accepting another bloody voucher from British Airways.
Good rant!! This line of yours sums it up..... It's absolute madness. (I also liked this one...."You know the risks, that should be your choice".) Hope you are back in the sky soon!
Thanks very much for the reply. Great info. We went to France in June and nobody asked us for anything- no vaccine proof, no tests, nothing. Hope to see you in Mexico maybe in Spring 2022?
Looking like the UK will be removing Mexico from the red list in a few hours. It may not take effect until Thursday though. Also a very good chance that Cancun will move to our own Green traffic light (no restrictions at all) from Yellow very soon. The Federal system has already moved us to Green, but State usurps Federal so will need to wait for next Thursday to be sure. Come on down! It's been too long!
Vaguely positive we might have good news by end of the week. What worries me still, there's some hinting that it won't strictly be an 'off the red list' thing, more a 'yes the mandatory hotel quarantine for the double-jabbed is criminally wrong' thing, and that will get scrapped. I mean, still good news if we're free to travel without that hanging over our heads, but as far as I can tell, insurance companies won't sell insurance for red-listed countries. That could still be problematic. Steve did you see that our Foreign Minister visited Mexico a few weeks ago, was back out and about a few days after getting back! Where's her 'mandatory hotel prison' coming back from red-listed nations, or face £10k in fines. It's do as I say, not as I do. I'm sick of it all.
From Gov.uk.... Mexico Will move off the red list at 4am Monday 11 October. If you arrive in England before then, you need to follow the red list rules. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My holiday is back on. So glad I took the risk and didn't cancel. Today was our last chance for making it end of Oct. Whether that's luck or government finally seeing sense, I don't care. I get back to my happy place in just under 3 weeks. Christ I've got a lot to sort out for that. Latest I've ever left packing for a trip!
