Bridges to nowhere

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This last week, some government ministers have been floating the idea of establishing ‘air bridges’ with other countries to enable air travel to restart without quarantine requirements. It’s an interesting idea, based on the assumption that there is a lower risk of transmission by people travelling between any two countries which have the pandemic under control than between two countries which do not have it under control. But the problem with bridges is that they have to have two ends; the idea depends on the countries at the other end of the bridge accepting that the people they admit are coming from a country where the pandemic is controlled. That raises one simple and obvious question – which other countries in their right minds would consider the UK government to have the pandemic under control? This is another classic example of English exceptionalism at its best – assuming that the problem is with other countries, not here in the UK.