Flying to London from Australia in Covid: What to expect in a pandemic

Flying into a wintry London, it virtually appears as if Covid actually is over. Or maybe we now have landed on a planet the place it by no means existed.

Nearly no person is sporting a masks, even on the Tube, the place it’s supposed to be obligatory. You’re additionally, in principle, required to masks up in retailers, however once more, few folks do, and enforcement appears to be non-existent, as does any type of examine in for contact tracing or verification of vaccination standing. Jabbed or not, you’ll be able to principally go wherever you need. We’re but to be requested to present our vaccination certificates.

You don’t have to put on a masks in pubs, bars and eating places, so in fact they’re all packed. Go proper forward and have your Christmas events, Boris Johnson proclaimed this week, whilst Omicron started spreading via the UK.

I suppose it must be anticipated that a metropolis which has endured many existential threats over the millennia, together with a number of tried and precise invasions, the Plague, the Nice Hearth, the Blitz and Dame Edna Everage, will deal with the Covid pandemic with pragmatism relatively than hysteria, nevertheless it actually is sort of astounding how unfazed Londoners appear by Covid. Hold Calm and Carry On? Completely.

There appears to be a sure sense of contempt for the EU’s response to Omicron, with more and more robust restrictions, together with obligatory vaccination in some international locations. That’s not on the agenda right here, although there may be mounting concern concerning the accelerating unfold of Omicron, underneath the duvet of gray, wintry skies.

For now, although, London is a refuge of pleasure and freedom in an in any other case angst-ridden, fearful world.

It’s additionally nearly empty of vacationers. Round Westminster, for instance, the place in BC (Earlier than Covid) the streets have been principally a carpark filled with package deal tour buses and also you shuffled alongside the footpaths as a part of a large seething mass of world humanity, it’s now solely the locals going about their enterprise, town’s signature crimson double deckers – now operating way more quietly on clear, inexperienced hybrid, electrical or hydrogen energy — and comparatively little site visitors.

At Westminster Abbey, the place when you had to queue for up to three hours to get in, we stroll up to the gate, present our pre-booked tickets, and in a state of shock wander straight via the entrance door. Contained in the Abbey, we enter the small chamber the place Elizabeth 1 lies sleeping. We’re the one folks there. We all know we’ll by no means have the ability to do that once more.

It’s the identical story throughout city, so we go berserk on museums which are in regular occasions a check of your persistence and resolve. On the Victoria and Albert, we’re additionally straight in. It’s the best design museum in the world, and it’s ours for the afternoon.

We go to the British Library to see an exhibition of Paul McCartney’s handwritten lyrics from his private archive, plus Elizabeth and Mary, Royal Cousins, Rival Queens, which tells the story, once more utilizing unique paperwork, of their fractious relationship and its ugly finish.

A working from residence coverage formally ended in England in July, however it appears that evidently many Londoners have nonetheless not returned to the workplace on a full time foundation. The Tube is far much less crowded than beforehand, as are the footpaths. On each side of the Thames, strolling between Westminster and Waterloo Bridge, you now have a lot of non-public house. Unusual.

London lodging isn’t low cost, however in a Covid winter its about as inexpensive because it’s ever going to get. Except you’re a squillionaire and might gap up in luxurious on the Dorchester or the Savoy, resort rooms in town have a tendency to be small and stuffy, so we e book an condo, by way of Air B&B, on the highest ground of a Georgian terrace home in Earl’s Court docket, simply a few Tube stops from the centre of town. It’s $1400 for a week, and after we haul our baggage up the 4 flights of stairs, we open the door to discover a discount. And the plumbing even works! Bonus.

As I discussed earlier, the pubs and eating places are doing a roaring commerce, particularly in the lead in to Christmas, which in the UK is lengthy, boisterous and, thanks to Omicron, this yr tinged with apprehension.

We spend our final day in London strolling round St James’s Park, the place the final of the autumn leaves cowl the bottom in a riot of amber, russet and gold. It’s chilly, sunny and virtually abandoned, as is the Mall, between Buckingham Palace and Admiralty Arch. For a second, we marvel if we should always actually be right here, having fun with this nice metropolis, however we stuffed in all of the varieties, did the Covid checks and adopted all the foundations, so right here we’re. It was definitely worth the effort, however we knew that it might, and nonetheless can, be a dangerous enterprise being up to now from residence in a pandemic-plagued world.

As evening falls we wander into Piccadilly, the place the Christmas lights are ablaze, persons are celebrating and, effectively, all appears proper with the world, regardless that it’s not.

In London, no less than, it appears extra hopeful than hopeless.