I've changed my mind on vaccine "passports" for limiting access to shared venues to only those who've got the vaccine or aren't able to for genuine reasons... Possibly as a result of seeing them in action in Italy.
What do you think? Bombard me with your thoughts.
It feels like a non-intrusive way of penalising people who've chosen not to vaccinate themselves and thus put all of us at risk and keep *all this* happening...
Before, I was against it as it felt a bit slippery slope-like, but in reality it's mostly just like age ID is already.
Actually, as the very clever person next to me has pointed out, it's less about the nutter anti-vaxxers and more about lazy people (lots of them young, it must be said) who've not got round to it yet... Not being able to go indoors to eat/drink would give them a gentle shove.
The quality of reply/discussion under this tweet has been fab - you're all ace. Lots of really interesting and insightful thoughts from everyone.
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So, our journey from Rome to Paris begins... With the 62 bus, and its total lack of suspension. My spine has popped up into my brain and is giving me a headache.
We're catching the Turin train from Tiburtina station which is a striking enough edifice... Though I must say for a ten year old station its fabric hasn't aged well.
We're roughly 1000km into a ~4000km flight-free return journey from Belgrade... We've also very much taken the slow route back 🏖️
Here's our route... Train from Belgrade to Bar, bus to Dubrovnik, ferry to Bari, train all the way back to York (via Rome and Paris).
Countries passed through: 🇷🇸🇧🇦🇲🇪🇭🇷🇮🇹🇫🇷🇬🇧
(we're in a pretty privileged position to be able to make such a trip, let's face it)
Because we've stopped off in Italy for some days, our average speed is only ~15km/h, but if we had done this route at full pace, we'd have managed it in 4 days and three hours (with a day in Dubrovnik) at ~40km/h.
This is also very much not the quickest route home from Belgrade.
I'm on my holidays but have nipped off on some brief #PointlessPerambulations to look at the rather unique and squeezed-in former railways in Barnstaple...
Here's what it looked like! It was properly squished in next to the old Barnstaple Bridge, popping out over the muddy Taw at around 90° and joining the other bank almost parallel to the river. #PointlessPerambulations
By the end of the month, rail ridership will be at its highest level since the start of the pandemic (45%). I would be very surprised if it didn't reach 60% before the end of June, and I think it might be quicker than that.
What happens afterwards depends largely on London.
Here's a higher resolution version of the "traveller type" graph in that thread, using quarterly data...
You can see that, during the pandemic, London travellers ended up accounting for a *higher* percentage of rail journeys. Which potentially confounds a lot of predictions.
My question is not "will rail reach 75% of pre-COVID ridership by the end of the year?" but "will ridership top out before the end of summer and at what level?".