A charter flight carrying British and EU citizens from Havana, Cuba recently landed at MoD Boscombe Down in Wiltshire.
The passengers in transit had been on the Braemar cruise ship belonging to Fred Olson Cruise Lines.
The Royal Air Force say that the flight contained military medical staff that monitored the passengers in transit, with passengers now transiting to a quarantine centre.
“With authorities worldwide battling to contain the spread of the virus and many airlines suspending their flight schedule, the British government has stepped in to repatriate UK and EU citizens.”
What else are the military doing?
• 150 troops are learning to drive oxygen tankers to supply hospitals
• Soldiers are preparing to fill some roles in police, prison service & border force
• Reservists are also likely to be called up
In addition, the Armed Forces are on standby to assist with civil emergencies and the MoD are deploying nurses, surgeons and other healthcare trained personnel to assist where required.
I do wish some people would start to act like the adults they claim to be. The COVID 19 outbreak has been the top story since January after china locked down. We have had British people complaining that the Uk Gov has let them down airing on the media after they were placed in quarantine on the Diamond Princess in Japan on the 4th Feb 2020.
Now almost 2 months later, we are been regaled to similar stories of people stuck in exotic places complaining that the Uk isn’t doing enough . Yesterday there were two stories from peru
One a couple (bloke has heart issues) saying they are stuck at Machu picchu, and the Uk is doing nothing.
Another is an Irish woman based in London married to a Peruvian who decided to visit family in Lima at the start of the month with new baby, now complaining they are stuck I quote:
“Ms Daly, who is originally from Dublin, Ireland, flew to Lima with her husband Carlos Abisrror and two young children in February for a four-week holiday and to see family.But their Air France flight home, which was scheduled for Friday night, was cancelled, and now they do not know how or when they will get back to the UK. To make matters worse, Ms Daly spent three days in hospital this week after her baby picked up a virus which led to pneumonia. Ms Daly told the PA news agency: “If things get really bad here I’m worried for my children’s health, particularly with the baby recovering from pneumonia.”
As much as I feel sorry for people, it would be nice to see some people taking a little responsibility for their actions.
I somewhat agree with your sentiments in regards to people travelling despite the myriad warnings, advice and a bit of foresight and not so common sense. That said, Air France has been an absolute nightmare for people to deal with – some reports from friends of friends about treatment and guidance from them have been downright shameful. I think those who had AF flights and have paid through the nose for alternative flights and are getting bankrupted deserve some empathy.
This morning, the travel journalist, Simon Calder, made an excellent point. He said many of our Embassies and Consulates in smaller countries have only a few staff, who normally deal with half a dozen problems a week for British citizens – lost passports, illnesses, trouble with local cops, etc. However, all of a sudden, they are inundated with literally hundreds of Brits per week, who are on holiday (Peru? Mitsu Bishi – sorry, Machu Picchu) wanting to get home quickly. They work themselves to a frazzle, doing what they can, but still people moan about not being put on a flight home TOMORROW MORNING! and blaming the local consulate, etc.
So we have HMG advice to socially distance yet this weekend people are walking en masse bunched together down the seafront and parks.
They don’t seem to get it that it is not about them, but the elderly and vulnerable they pass it on to.
Seems half the population have taken heed and are following the instructions, and the other half were still in the pubs ( to Friday night ) and just don’t give a ****
At what point is the army deployed to force people to disperse?
It makes you pull your hair out Daniele!
Looking at the news today regarding those cretins training together in the open air gyms and crowding onto beaches etc…..
The stupidity they display is utterly breath taking, one young couple stating ” no clear advice has been given” .
No doubt these idiots are responsible for panic buying too….
It’s so simple, the sooner the infection rate is controlled, the NHS will have the best chance of keeping on top of it.
What’s hard to understand about that guys??!!
The first countries to recover from this will also economically recover first, those that are lax, will see regular lockdowns ( isolation) as
re- infections are dealt with and their economies will tank!
This could well destroy the EU in its present form, if it’s a few EU countries that can’t shift the infection, the cost will be staggering and possibly unsupportable, even by Germany.
The government is still too indecisive in many respects. I read today there are still inbound flights from China, Italy, Iran. These should have stopped totally 100% weeks ago. In fact, UK should close airports to all but critical flights – period. Whether its the airports themselves, the airlines I’m not sure but these organizations are still putting revenue ahead of safety and common sense. The government needs to step in and stop it. Don’t forget, taxpayer will be bailing them out!
I’m curious, why Boscombe Down?
Military airfield , away from public which means less contact with the population, not that it matters when we still have flights landing from china, Iran and Italy and the public at large throwing caution to the wind.
Just checked the Heathrow airport website
1 flight from Iran
3 from Shanghai
8 from Milan alone (never bother counting the rest from italy)
https://www.heathrow.com/arrivals
Yes seems logical. I automatically assume Brize for repatriation.
Agree on public. Selfish pr**s many of them.
DSTL Laboratories at Porton Down, Defence CBRN Group at Winterbourne and a very large Public Health England facility are just to the South of the airfield. All the people who deal with the really nasty bio stuff are supposed to be in a big cluster around there. I’m guessing that Boscombe Down probably supports that cluster? The response to the Russian chemical attack at Salisbury was supposed to have been mobilised out of this cluster.
Duh! Of course. Silly me for not thinking of that. And the CEPR too.
Agree.
The West should send the bill for all this mess to the communist Chinese gov’t. They ignored it for way too long and the rest of the world is now paying a very heavy price. Even after this is over I hate to even think of the money that people have lost in their retirement accounts, ect. But I’m sure Tim Cook at Apple will be continue to be China’s biggest cheerleader.
Looking at the frightening numbers Italy is sadly posting and watching Spain/France following suit about a week behind that trend its blatantly obvious China has told an awful lot of porky pies in this. A lot of the modelling has been done on China initially but clearly it was not correct, now proper accountable data is being inputted from the likes of Italy the true scale of it is starting to show.
The public need a severe wake up call to take this seriously, sadly we live in a world that too many self obsessed/entitled idiots exist and they will only think of themselves and no one else but will gladly blame every other person for half the issues they cause. Rendezvous with reality is needed for many.