Just anecdotal/my 2c,<p>My little girl was born in September 2020 in Chicago, USA, she was diagnosed with heart disease, and as it turns out a really rare genetic condition. She passed away in May 2021.<p>My family all live in the UK.<p>My little girl died without ever meeting her granddad, her aunt, her uncle, etc. I had to livestream her funeral to my family/friends.<p>Added an additional level of pain and suffering, to an already incredibly terrible situation. I feel immense guilt, for whatever reason. COVID would have likely killed my severely immunocompromised child.<p>In the speech I read at her funeral, I said:<p>> For the people who didn’t meet her or spent little time with her. I am sorry. I’m not apologising personally, I’m just acknowledging how terrible it must have been to look but not touch. Some had it better than others. Some only got to see her through a screen. There were no winners in this situation, only losers.<p>I didn't kiss my child's face until the last week of her life.<p>I really am burnt out from all this, especially with no end in sight.<p>edit: I appreciate the condolences/well wishes. I wasn't trying to elicit sympathy, I just wanted to give some insight to someone who had no choice other than to do what was best for their child (or so I thought).
This, in reality, has little to with the increase of Delta cases in the US.<p>It's more about the lack of reciprocity from the US after the EU opened up for travel from the US. The rise of Delta cases in the US is just a convenient excuse to fix the inbalance.
I see a lot of smack talking and not much in numbers. Let's change that:
<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases#weekly-and-biweekly-cases-where-are-confirmed-cases-increasing-or-falling" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases#weekly-and-biweekly-c...</a>
This sucks for me, as it makes it way harder to return from my upcoming US trip.<p>It's already hard enough to travel to the US from Europe, you need a 14-day stop somewhere not banned, but now returning is going to get harder too.
My twins were born June 2020 and all my immediate family (parents, brother, etc) live in the EU and haven’t been able to see them (nor their other grandkids). Not allowing tourists to come visit I can get behind but splitting up close family, especially for these extended periods of time (and especially when they are vaccinated!) is just cruel and senseless. I really don’t see how this is helping anything, given that countless countries with much higher case rates are not on the banned list.
This is ridiculous. I can travel everywhere in Europe, drink inside and outside, walk in dense crowds and in some places go clubbing. No one asked to see my vaccination certificate. No one wears masks in some countries.<p>Americans aren't a threat when we've collectively moved on.
Any travel in current circumstances is absolute disaster anyway.<p>Expensive time consuming PCR tests, online registrations, temperature+visual checkpoints, qr codes, digital passes.<p>Different agencies now collect a lot of private information about travelers including biometrics!
why does everyone think this is a political thing? I didn't even know there is a ban on US travel to EU and it's not something being discussed a lot in europe. This summer had a lot of issues already (fires heatwaves floods afghanistan etc) and delta is gaining ground quick despite vaccinations so it makes sense to prepare for 4th wave as soon as holidaymakers return.<p>I also think that americans are underestimating the situation of the upcoming months
> This is without prejudice to the possibility for member states to lift the temporary restriction on non-essential travel to the EU for fully vaccinated travellers.<p>I already have a trip planned to a Shengen country, planned months in advance. Everything is already paid for. I am also vaccinated fully (with certificate). Am I going to be allowed on my vacation next week?
I wonder how this metric looks on a state-by-state basis (not that it is their responsibility to look at us on such a granular level, it just seem like it could be good for business to let in people from NYC or California or other major economic hubs).
> <i>The decision...comes after weeks of EU officials criticizing the Biden administration for not lifting U.S. restrictions on travel from Europe.</i><p>So it's strictly retaliatory.
As much as it pains me not to be able to travel to Europe, it's totally fair since the US isn't allowing Europeans in either.<p>At this point, travel bans are just politics. If we are only allowing vaccinated individuals in, the idea of a foreigner contributing to increased danger to our society is just nonsense.
This is a non-mandatory recommendation by an advisory agency. It is entirely up to individual EU member states about whether they will bar vaccinated and/or non-vaccinated travelers from the U.S.
Delta is past its high point in the US. This is just a retaliation because the Biden administration promised to allow EU visitors again and they didn’t do it.
How much do COVID policies (mask mandates, vaccine uptake, allowed/disallowed events and gatherings, ect...) vary within a single European country? Compared to differences between States in the USA for example?
Antimaskers and antivaxxers frequently talk about their "freedoms" in the abstract. Here is an example where I am concretely losing my freedom to travel, because a portion of the populace refuse to take basic precautions.
If citizens don't protest this is never going to end. That's why I don't understand why people hate antivax people. They exists mostly because politics have failed since the beginning.<p>For any new measures that politicians make today. The more people are in favor of it the longer we will have to deal with all this nonsense. Politicians contrary to the beginning of the pandemic, are strongly confident that what they do is useful. When in fact it's all completely useless.<p>Stop complaining about people who protest about the restrictions (whatever the restrictions), and support them. Politicians need to stop thinking that they need to act about covid. That's the only way we will end all that joke