My husbands home country is a popular holiday destination and his Mum has multiple serious conditions, including respiratory, so his parents haven’t really left the house for over a year. There was lots of distress at the beginning of the pandemic because we honestly believe if she caught Covid, she would die. His Mum has only recently had her
first vaccine about 2 weeks ago. His Dad isn’t in
the best health, he’s 68, and he hasn’t had any vaccination, he doesn’t even know when it will be.
I’m sure Steph is careful and she’s vaccinated and she wears her mask and she needs a holiday but I love his family dearly and,
for me personally, it doesn’t sit well with me that she should be allowed to go gallivanting around on the beach and in restaurants when his Mum and Dad are practically housebound simply because they happen to live in a poor country. Their vaccine rollout has been laughable and it makes you realise how privileged we are to be in the UK.
I know we “can’t live like this forever” as everyone keeps saying but I feel like we should at least let other countries catch up and vaccinate their vulnerable and elderly before we go on holiday.
edited to add: I’m not trying to shame anyone who wants a holiday, my sister and her husband have booked to go to Greece in September

, but having friends and family in a touristy country makes me look at things differently I guess.
I don’t argue that it’s complex, and tourism does bring in much needed cash, but equally a lot of these places don’t have widespread vaccine rollouts yet
Thank you for this! It’s such a complex issue, many of the countries with low vaccine rollouts are also the places who depend on tourism and it’s hard to weigh up the needs of the country and the economy over human lives.
I really can’t stress to people how lucky we’ve been in the UK. My grandparents are only 10 years older than my in-laws but they’ve been fully vaccinated since March. We’re in our 30’s and fully vaccinated. Even my 18 year old cousin had her first last week. Whilst my father in law is almost 70 and hasn’t got a clue when it will be his turn.
