 Poster: A snowHead
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Sat in the van, on the train heading under the Channel. All straightforward at check in, only interested in passports and vaxx certs.
Will let you know how I get on with the Tous Covid App in the pub tomorrow 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Cycled over to see friends who run the Edelweiss Hotel in La Grave.
Checks are not due to start until August 9th, reason for mine not working the other day is that it will only work after 14 days.
They think all establishments will tow the line even if they know the clients well as the Police Municipal will be checking, especially those bars where maybe there's not a good relationship with the local plod.
And just published in the Telegraph.
Holidaymakers returning from France are being required to self-isolate because of high cases of a coronavirus variant on an island 6,000 miles from Paris, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has revealed.
Mr Raab told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that the decision to put France on the amber plus list was "based on the prevalence of the so-called Beta variant, in particular in the Reunion bit of France".
Reunion is a French island in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar.
Asked why the travel restriction remained in place for mainland France, the Cabinet minister replied: "It's not the distance that matters, it's the ease of travel between different component parts of any individual country."
He insisted that "we want to get France up the traffic light system as soon as possible".
A spokesman for Brittany Ferries said: "This is madness. It would be like France hammering British holidaymakers due to a Covid outbreak on the Falkland Islands. It makes you wonder if those in the centre of power have access to an atlas or a geography GCSE between them."
France is the only EU country from which people vaccinated under the UK programme must self-isolate for 10 days when they return.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Weathercam wrote: |
Mr Raab told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that the decision to put France on the amber plus list was "based on the prevalence of the so-called Beta variant, in particular in the Reunion bit of France". |
What a grade-A prize-winning knob! 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Weathercam wrote: |
| Asked why the travel restriction remained in place for mainland France, the Cabinet minister replied: "It's not the distance that matters, it's the ease of travel between different component parts of any individual country." |
I’ve been to Reunion, it has a very nice volcano. It’s not easy to get to, and I doubt there’s a large amount of daily traffic back and fore between the mainland and the Indian Ocean. Sounds like nonsense from Raab. The more info comes out about the decision to putFrance on the Amber Plus list, the more I think it was nonsense.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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@under a new name, how do you know whether you are in a "busier street exterior" as opposed to a normal street?
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| rob@rar wrote: |
| Weathercam wrote: |
| Asked why the travel restriction remained in place for mainland France, the Cabinet minister replied: "It's not the distance that matters, it's the ease of travel between different component parts of any individual country." |
I’ve been to Reunion, it has a very nice volcano. It’s not easy to get to, and I doubt there’s a large amount of daily traffic back and fore between the mainland and the Indian Ocean. Sounds like nonsense from Raab. The more info comes out about the decision to putFrance on the Amber Plus list, the more I think it was nonsense. |
And there are strict travel requirements between Reunion and mainland France including quarantine for the non-jabbed, still, wouldn't expect the UK government to know that, given that after 2 weeks they've only just noticed that the part of France with the Beta problem is 6000 km away.......
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| KenX wrote: |
| And there are strict travel requirements between Reunion and mainland France including quarantine for the non-jabbed, still, wouldn't expect the UK government to know that, given that after 2 weeks they've only just noticed that the part of France with the Beta problem is 6000 km away....... |
It gets worse!
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Of course, there's always the possibility that Raaaaab is parroting (in best "yes minister" style) what he is being told by some civil servant?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Possibly, but he’s the one made to look a knob and it’s not difficult to see it’s a completely wacky protocol.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I just checked and the island of Reunion is on the UK’s Amber list, one grade below the Amber Plus that mainland France is on.
If Raab is simply parroting his brief given to him by a civil servant he has no place in a government department. This is an issue you have to command your brief on, it’s not reading out a speech to congratulate a foreign minister on their birthday.
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| rob@rar wrote: |
I just checked and the island of Reunion is on the UK’s Amber list, one grade below the Amber Plus that mainland France is on.
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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@rob@rar, I don't think you are mis-reading.
@j b, Cham have listed the streets. obvs the veerus knows not to go elsewhere. I would be sending M. Fourrier a snotty email but it's been dropped on him by the Prefect. Who is a "Champion of Pompidilioussness"* or some such which I must presume is some very elevated scientific qualification in epidemiology, or thereabouts, thus no point.
* I think also "Chevallier du legion d'Honteur" which is either "knight of the high horse" or "mucker out of the stalls". Which don't sound like medical qualifications to me, but what do I know, I'm not French.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Listening to the Today programme just now and Grant Shapps, transport secretary, made reference to Macron's snap unilateral decision to ban UK visitors last December. Tit for tat/Macron dividend?
Anyway, the good news is that Shapps gave a broad hint that the status of France would be revised in six days' time, when the review is due.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| mitcva wrote: |
Listening to the Today programme just now and Grant Shapps, transport secretary, made reference to Macron's snap unilateral decision to ban UK visitors last December. Tit for tat/Macron dividend?
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Which would be a dumb thing to even if it were only non-UK residents who were disadvantaged by the decision. But it probably affected more UK residents than people from other countries, so a particularly stupid decision IMO. Hopefully “the evidence will change” ( ) and France will be returned to the Amber list next week.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Yes, Macron is indeed pretty dumb. Look how he wrecked public confidence in a perfectly good vaccine out of jealousy and spite, after the home-grown French attempt failed.
Shapps said the percentage of Beta variant percentage in France was declining. My guess is that he will use this to reverse the decision in due course, as you suggest.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| mitcva wrote: |
| Yes, Macron is indeed pretty dumb. Look how he wrecked public confidence in a perfectly good vaccine out of jealousy and spite, after the home-grown French attempt failed..... |
Good article in the Telegraph along the lines of....but do bear in mind they are Pro Brexit etc so you have to read between the lines most of the time etc
How EU leaders destroyed AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine dream
The company is weighing up whether it wants a future in vaccines as its jab remains marred by early criticism
In the darkest days of the coronavirus crisis, Emmanuel Macron took to the media circuit with a scathing attack on the world’s cheapest Covid vaccine – and the only one to be produced at cost.
In Britain, ministers have reacted with blind fury to what they see as a European Union campaign motivated chiefly by envy at British scientific expertise and animosity over Brexit.
Britain’s pioneering jab, developed by Oxford University and manufactured by AstraZeneca, was “quasi-ineffective” on older people, the French President said. “The real problem on AstraZeneca is that it doesn’t work the way we were expecting it to,” he added.
Weeks later, when a study suggested there was a tiny chance that patients could develop blood clots, the vaccine’s use was curtailed across Europe. In America, it was never approved at all.
The damage caused by Europe’s assault on AstraZeneca is now becoming clear. The company’s decision to make its jab without taking a profit has squeezed margins. The company is now weighing up whether it wants a future in vaccines at all.
After all, AstraZeneca’s vaccine has been the only one available to many people in poorer parts of the world. Under the Covax scheme, which distributes vaccines to developing countries.
AstraZeneca’s leading role in getting vaccines to the poorer countries is one which few would have predicted. But insiders have said there was no doubt in chief executive Pascal Soriot’s mind that he wanted to help when the University of Oxford asked to team up with the company last year.
Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Fri 30-07-21 9:46; edited 1 time in total
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Don't blame Raab or Shapps. They just happen to have been the spokesmen in front of the microphone that day. Their departments will have opposed putting france on the red list, as demanded by Health ministers (and Gove I assume). The new 'amber plus' category appears to be the resulting compromise, involving isolation at home rather than imprisonment in one of those requistioned hotels.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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| mitcva wrote: |
Yes, Macron is indeed pretty dumb. Look how he wrecked public confidence in a perfectly good vaccine out of jealousy and spite, after the home-grown French attempt failed.
Shapps said the percentage of Beta variant percentage in France was declining. My guess is that he will use this to reverse the decision in due course, as you suggest. |
Haha, is that the same Macron who has now overseen a French vax program that is about to overtake the UK for total doses given? The same Macron who massively helped businesses and employees throughout the crisis?
The issue is that AZ totally let down the EU on the amount of doses it would deliver, the EU was supposed to receive 300 million doses by end of June, and in fact only received 50 million.
I'm glad to be living in France and being governed by Macron, rather than the car crash that is the UK and Boris.
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| mitcva wrote: |
| Yes, Macron is indeed pretty dumb. Look how he wrecked public confidence in a perfectly good vaccine out of jealousy and spite, after the home-grown French attempt failed. |
Sure, I was very critical of what happened in France and in Germany is respect of the Oxford/AZ vaccine. But if you are right to suggest that the UK’s decision to make a U-Turn on travel from France to the UK was on a tit for tat basis I’d say that’s pretty dumb.
| Quote: |
| Shapps said the percentage of Beta variant percentage in France was declining. My guess is that he will use this to reverse the decision in due course, as you suggest. |
The percentage of Beta has been declining for weeks. If they use that as justification to move France back to the Amber list, they could perhaps explain why France was on the Amber Plus list in the first place, because they have not explained that so far and I haven’t seen anything which could provide some rationality to the U-Turn.
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Re the 'pretty dumb' travel decisions: - Mark Drakeford, welsh first minister, was helpfully more revealing than his London counterparts, when quizzed recently on why he and other politicians seem so keen to discourage holidays abroad, even when the balearic islands (for example) have a lower covid rate than the UK and the same variant.
He said that when people are on holiday abroad, they tend to relax and let their hair down a bit, and don't comply so well with social distancing and other restrictions, they mix more with each other, etc.
He referred to well publicised examples from summer 2020 of planeloads coming back to Cardiff, Glasgow etc from mediterranean islands.
He didn't quite add, many public health officials would doubtless agree that leisure travel abroad by the UK public is associated with many behaviours of which such officials don't approve, such as casual sex, and drinking lots of cheap booze.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Hi all, having cancelled my Swiss holiday am now rapidly coming up to speed with French rules and TAC / TAC Verif app issues etc… We are looking at going to St Martin de Belleville for a week in August, does anyone know if ski lifts in Savoie/France generally require the pass sanitaire?
From my reading around it seems not to be mentioned (just long distance trains). I can live with being turned away from restaurants if the app won’t scan so long as we can buy food but the ski lifts are clearly a necessity!
Clearly hoping this will all get sorted out in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for any experience!
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| peerless ploughman wrote: |
Re the 'pretty dumb' travel decisions: - Mark Drakeford, welsh first minister, was helpfully more revealing than his London counterparts, when quizzed recently on why he and other politicians seem so keen to discourage holidays abroad, even when the balearic islands (for example) have a lower covid rate than the UK and the same variant.
He said that when people are on holiday abroad, they tend to relax and let their hair down a bit, and don't comply so well with social distancing and other restrictions, they mix more with each other, etc.
He referred to well publicised examples from summer 2020 of planeloads coming back to Cardiff, Glasgow etc from mediterranean islands.
He didn't quite add, many public health officials would doubtless agree that leisure travel abroad by the UK public is associated with many behaviours of which such officials don't approve, such as casual sex, and drinking lots of cheap booze. |
But unlike 2020 a vast % are now double vaxed and they should be allowed to travel?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Skimum1 wrote: |
Hi all, having cancelled my Swiss holiday am now rapidly coming up to speed with French rules and TAC / TAC Verif app issues etc… We are looking at going to St Martin de Belleville for a week in August, does anyone know if ski lifts in Savoie/France generally require the pass sanitaire?
From my reading around it seems not to be mentioned (just long distance trains). I can live with being turned away from restaurants if the app won’t scan so long as we can buy food but the ski lifts are clearly a necessity!
Clearly hoping this will all get sorted out in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for any experience! |
You do not need the pass sanitaire to use ski lifts, throughout France.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@Skimum1, we have been using the ski lifts around the PDS for the last ten days and no pass sanitary required. As far as masks go we carry them and they are generally required for gondolas, and signs up saying even if in the same family keep them on; we tend to look at the lefties and if they are wearing them we put ours on at the chairlifts, just seems a courtesy. Things might change in August.
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Re weathercam's point : yes most people are now double vaxed, but that hasn't changed what public health officials and many UK politicians think about people going on mass-market holidays abroad.
If pressed on the subject, they would say that vaccines aren't perfect against mild infection so transmission can still occur, and there might be new variants popping up in exotic foreign places like Ibiza or Paris/Mykonos/wherever, where you might get too relaxed and forget the rules. So please stay in a caravan watching the rain in UK.
Just for this year (says Drakeford).
Of course next year there will still be some covid, there will still be worries about new variants of covid, or indeed of flu or whatever. So next year the story will presumably be, just for 2022.
Also, politicians are well aware from opinion polls that although some voters want freedom to travel, others want tighter restrictions. I gather there was one poll saying over 20% of respondents favour a permanent rule that all holidaymakers returning from anywhere abroad should be hotel-quarantined for a fortnight at their own expense.
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You know it makes sense.
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| peerless ploughman wrote: |
| If pressed on the subject, they would say that vaccines aren't perfect against mild infection so transmission can still occur, and there might be new variants popping up in exotic foreign places like Ibiza or Paris/Mykonos/wherever, where you might get too relaxed and forget the rules. So please stay in a caravan watching the rain in UK. |
Just stating the obvious, but a new variant can emerge in a damp caravan park in the UK just as easily as a hotel in Mykonos. Indeed, it could also emerge in any of our own houses as a result of a random mutation in one of your own family infected by the virus.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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@Pamski and @timlongs, thank you, much appreciated
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Poster: A snowHead
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The UK PLF is a bit of a mess isn't it?!
I've got 2 kids with me, so they go on my PLF, but there's no way to fill in their day 2/8/test to release details. One of them isn't mine, so doesn't live with us, but there's no way to put a different address for her.
I've also ticked the "you can only SMS me" box (as opposed to "you can call me") and see how that goes...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Rob@rar - you're right about mutations of course, but Mr Drakeford & others think that in your own house, or at that damp caravan park in Llandudno, you will probably behave yourself and obey their rules & restrictions.
Whereas if you are let loose on Mykonos, you might relax and let your hair down a bit & take risks, etc, thereby spreading any mutant variant that might have arisen. Or through relaxed carelessness you might get some other infection or injury which would increase the burden on the NHS when you get back.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| peerless ploughman wrote: |
Rob@rar - you're right about mutations of course, but Mr Drakeford & others think that in your own house, or at that damp caravan park in Llandudno, you will probably behave yourself and obey their rules & restrictions.
Whereas if you are let loose on Mykonos, you might relax and let your hair down a bit & take risks, etc, thereby spreading any mutant variant that might have arisen. Or through relaxed carelessness you might get some other infection or injury which would increase the burden on the NHS when you get back. |
He might be correct about changes in behaviour on holiday, but that’s no different from changes in behaviour from watching sports events here in the UK, or any other activity such as a family BBQ, getting together to celebrate a wedding, or countless other types of social interaction. The fact that some of these events take place abroad doesn’t seem relevant to me when we are talking about risk from a random set of mutations which initially occur in a single individual. It would make sense to avoid the most transmissible variants, but for the UK that ship sailed a few months ago and now Delta is totally dominant.
If there’s evidence of an surge in case numbers, particularly if that is outside current parameters of how we know the virus spreads, then that’s a different matter. But trying to avoid an event which could equally happen in Cardiff or Caen seems rather pointless to me.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Re: Drakey... If you lift restrictions, there are, funnily enough, no restrictions. If you keep them in place they will, with time, become something to be dodged or openly ignored. But if retained... some, maybe many, WILL continue to follow the rules, and that's a small win. So just leave em in, keep jabbing, and then open the gates. I can live with that.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Spent half a day today on the lifts today, and no masks were requested, apart from the Telecabin. My wife went to the swimming baths, and although her TousCovid app didn't work in respect to being scanned, the lady on reception realised that the codes were from the UK, checked the dates and all was good.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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| Gilly76 wrote: |
| although her TousCovid app didn't work in respect to being scanned, the lady on reception realised that the codes were from the UK, checked the dates and all was good. |
Good to hear, hope other places take similar view about proving vaccine status.
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Well my TousCovid App pinged me first thing today saying my pass was now valid, only after a week of my second jab here in France?
So various media suggesting decisions will be made this week re France coming off the Amber Plus list, and could be from August 9th, though I have also seen 16th which would be a real PITA !
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As long as we get to know as soon as possible as it’s the uncertainty that makes everything so difficult.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Can't help thinking that the travel industry might have shot itself in the foot by pushing for the abandonment of the Amber-watchlist. With such a list in place people might have been more comfortable travelling to an Amber (non-watchlist) country, as minimal risk of it becoming Red before returning. But without it anywhere on the Amber list is potentially risky, and they might now only consider Green.
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I spotted this on Facebook. Is it an accurate summary of the places where a Health Pass is or will be required?
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FAQ
