Aaron747 wrote:

Francoflier wrote:

Toenga wrote:

At this stage also we cannot expect any relaxation of border controls until at least all eligible people have had reasonable chance to get vaccinated.
Right now out priority is to eliminate the current outbreak of 30 known cases and get back to life without covid induced restrictions bar those operating at our border. More info will come with the PMs press conference in half an hour.

I am still somewhat puzzled by what the end game is for NZ, OZ and all the Asian nations that seem to still pursue zero-Covid policies...
Even a largely vaccinated population does not prevent infection waves, nor completely eliminates hospitalizations or even deaths.

Where is the line drawn and how do they go from 'We cannot accept a single Covid case' to 'Catching Covid is now acceptable' ?

Given that Covid will likely end up being endemic, zero-Covid policies are essentially doomed to fail over time, or at least doomed to strict self-isolation and harsh restrictions forever.
Granted, if you're going to make the switch, you want to wait until as much as the population as possible is vaccinated, which makes sense, but I've always wondered how, on a political and psychological level, these nations will go from considering Covid an inacceptable threat to accepting that it will spread among people and make many sick, even kill quite a few people.

The logic escapes me as well. Only a combination of widely implemented vaccination and mask protocols for given situations will be successful. Limiting the movement of people is neither effective or necessary if the prior two conditions are met.

Currently NZ is maintaining it's strategy of preventing covid incursions across its border and rapidly extinguishing any outbreaks when they occur in parallel with its vaccination program. The objectives of this vaccination program are to get it done as fast as possible whilst ulimately ensuring that coverage is as thorough as is reasonably possible. This both requires countering any vaccination hesitancy and allocating sufficient time.
There is actually only a very limited economic imperative for any haste here. For by far the bulk of our tourism and hospitality operators any disruption by covid or any covid control measures far outweighs any enlargement of their customer base by overseas tourists could bring.
This is especially true in our peak holiday season mid December to February already heavily booked by domestic travellers. So next Autumn shoulder season when our vaccination program should be well completed is perhaps the earliest we can expect changes.
Expect a staged opening only and only to fully vaccinated travellers Firstly to residents travelling directly from countries with low current transmission rates. We will probably then manage covid like we do polio and measles, certainly not just live with it, but rather local notification and isolation measures.
It most likely will be a dynamic risk based border assessment similar to how terrorism threats are currently handled in most of the world.

Toenga wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

Francoflier wrote:

I am still somewhat puzzled by what the end game is for NZ, OZ and all the Asian nations that seem to still pursue zero-Covid policies...
Even a largely vaccinated population does not prevent infection waves, nor completely eliminates hospitalizations or even deaths.

Where is the line drawn and how do they go from 'We cannot accept a single Covid case' to 'Catching Covid is now acceptable' ?

Given that Covid will likely end up being endemic, zero-Covid policies are essentially doomed to fail over time, or at least doomed to strict self-isolation and harsh restrictions forever.
Granted, if you're going to make the switch, you want to wait until as much as the population as possible is vaccinated, which makes sense, but I've always wondered how, on a political and psychological level, these nations will go from considering Covid an inacceptable threat to accepting that it will spread among people and make many sick, even kill quite a few people.

The logic escapes me as well. Only a combination of widely implemented vaccination and mask protocols for given situations will be successful. Limiting the movement of people is neither effective or necessary if the prior two conditions are met.

Currently NZ is maintaining it's strategy of preventing covid incursions across its border and rapidly extinguishing any outbreaks when they occur in parallel with its vaccination program. The objectives of this vaccination program are to get it done as fast as possible whilst ulimately ensuring that coverage is as thorough as is reasonably possible. This both requires countering any vaccination hesitancy and allocating sufficient time.
There is actually only a very limited economic imperative for any haste here. For by far the bulk of our tourism and hospitality operators any disruption by covid or any covid control measures far outweighs any enlargement of their customer base by overseas tourists could bring.
This is especially true in our peak holiday season mid December to February already heavily booked by domestic travellers. So next Autumn shoulder season when our vaccination program should be well completed is perhaps the earliest we can expect changes.
Expect a staged opening only and only to fully vaccinated travellers Firstly to residents travelling directly from countries with low current transmission rates. We will probably then manage covid like we do polio and measles, certainly not just live with it, but rather local notification and isolation measures.
It most likely will be a dynamic risk based border assessment similar to how terrorism threats are currently handled in most of the world.

That makes good sense to me. Australia and some Asian countries are a different matter though.

Toenga wrote:

Expect a staged opening only and only to fully vaccinated travellers Firstly to residents travelling directly from countries with low current transmission rates. We will probably then manage covid like we do polio and measles, certainly not just live with it, but rather local notification and isolation measures.
It most likely will be a dynamic risk based border assessment similar to how terrorism threats are currently handled in most of the world.

Restricted travel, local isolation, Polio, measles... That still sounds to me like a zero-Covid policy.

That's the thing about Covid, it will either run around or not at all. There is no real in-between other than implementing increasingly restrictive measures to curtail it as much as possible.
Covid is not terrorism. Terrorism is not contagious (at least not easily), and treating every traveler as a potential Covid-terrorist is essentially what NZ and others are already doing right now.

There is no normalcy possible in this case other than if borders remain closed or with strict quarantine. Covid will enter with passengers the moment quarantine-free travel starts, regardless of whether they come from a low risk country or not, and it only takes one case to come in for the exponential contagion to begin... as you know since this is the reason you are in a lockdown right now.
Unfortunately, vaccines may dampen transmission, but do not eliminate it altogether.
If you then shift the burden to local communities to eliminate any outbreak through lockdowns or others, then you just punish your own citizens even more for the same avoidance policy. It also means you start setting up borders within your own nation, just like Australia does.

I get that NZ, being a tiny nation that is inherently isolated, would be happy with maintaining this extreme isolation ad infinitum, and that's fine, but that is hardly a possibility for most other nations maintaining the same approach, at least not without a great sacrifices.

Francoflier wrote:

Toenga wrote:

Expect a staged opening only and only to fully vaccinated travellers Firstly to residents travelling directly from countries with low current transmission rates. We will probably then manage covid like we do polio and measles, certainly not just live with it, but rather local notification and isolation measures.
It most likely will be a dynamic risk based border assessment similar to how terrorism threats are currently handled in most of the world.

Restricted travel, local isolation, Polio, measles... That still sounds to me like a zero-Covid policy.

That's the thing about Covid, it will either run around or not at all. There is no real in-between other than implementing increasingly restrictive measures to curtail it as much as possible.
Covid is not terrorism. Terrorism is not contagious (at least not easily), and treating every traveler as a potential Covid-terrorist is essentially what NZ and others are already doing right now.

There is no normalcy possible in this case other than if borders remain closed or with strict quarantine. Covid will enter with passengers the moment quarantine-free travel starts, regardless of whether they come from a low risk country or not, and it only takes one case to come in for the exponential contagion to begin... as you know since this is the reason you are in a lockdown right now.
Unfortunately, vaccines may dampen transmission, but do not eliminate it altogether.
If you then shift the burden to local communities to eliminate any outbreak through lockdowns or others, then you just punish your own citizens even more for the same avoidance policy. It also means you start setting up borders within your own nation, just like Australia does.

I get that NZ, being a tiny nation that is inherently isolated, would be happy with maintaining this extreme isolation ad infinitum, and that's fine, but that is hardly a possibility for most other nations maintaining the same approach, at least not without a great sacrifices.

I hear what you're saying but it seems NZ's strategy is phased, not ad infinitum. Once they have completed their vaccination goals, they will then open to vaccinated travelers and so on.

Francoflier wrote:

Toenga wrote:

Expect a staged opening only and only to fully vaccinated travellers Firstly to residents travelling directly from countries with low current transmission rates. We will probably then manage covid like we do polio and measles, certainly not just live with it, but rather local notification and isolation measures.
It most likely will be a dynamic risk based border assessment similar to how terrorism threats are currently handled in most of the world.

, local isolation, Polio, measles... That still sounds to me like a zero-Covid policy.

Entirely consistent. We have had these policies around measles, and polio for years.
We have, also like other countries maintained controls for international entry to counter a multitude of threats. Hence the standard question at our border :
What countries have you been in the last x no of days?
We do not want to completly relinquish all our hard gained control to a rapidly evolving virus regardless of what decisions, or rather lack of decisions other countries have made.

Aaron747 wrote:

Francoflier wrote:

Toenga wrote:

Expect a staged opening only and only to fully vaccinated travellers Firstly to residents travelling directly from countries with low current transmission rates. We will probably then manage covid like we do polio and measles, certainly not just live with it, but rather local notification and isolation measures.
It most likely will be a dynamic risk based border assessment similar to how terrorism threats are currently handled in most of the world.

Restricted travel, local isolation, Polio, measles... That still sounds to me like a zero-Covid policy.

That's the thing about Covid, it will either run around or not at all. There is no real in-between other than implementing increasingly restrictive measures to curtail it as much as possible.
Covid is not terrorism. Terrorism is not contagious (at least not easily), and treating every traveler as a potential Covid-terrorist is essentially what NZ and others are already doing right now.

There is no normalcy possible in this case other than if borders remain closed or with strict quarantine. Covid will enter with passengers the moment quarantine-free travel starts, regardless of whether they come from a low risk country or not, and it only takes one case to come in for the exponential contagion to begin... as you know since this is the reason you are in a lockdown right now.
Unfortunately, vaccines may dampen transmission, but do not eliminate it altogether.
If you then shift the burden to local communities to eliminate any outbreak through lockdowns or others, then you just punish your own citizens even more for the same avoidance policy. It also means you start setting up borders within your own nation, just like Australia does.

I get that NZ, being a tiny nation that is inherently isolated, would be happy with maintaining this extreme isolation ad infinitum, and that's fine, but that is hardly a possibility for most other nations maintaining the same approach, at least not without a great sacrifices.

I hear what you're saying but it seems NZ's strategy is phased, not ad infinitum. Once they have completed their vaccination goals, they will then open to vaccinated travelers and so on.

Australia has nominally adopted a policy of increased freedoms once 80% adult vaccination plus low caseload is reached. Bookings are opening up for 16-39yo aged groups for vaccination, and there is active discussion around vaccinating 12 and up - all dependent on vaccine supply.

The modelling to support that 80% target includes likely higher caseload and higher deaths that we currently have. The failure of our national government has been to prosecute any real case around risk tolerance, and there has been little or no public conversation around the circumstances for freeing up international travel.

The Australian Government has been Australia's biggest governance failure during this pandemic, a fact widely acknowledged by both supporters of the parties making up the government and opposition.

Aaron747 wrote:

Francoflier wrote:

Toenga wrote:

Expect a staged opening only and only to fully vaccinated travellers Firstly to residents travelling directly from countries with low current transmission rates. We will probably then manage covid like we do polio and measles, certainly not just live with it, but rather local notification and isolation measures.
It most likely will be a dynamic risk based border assessment similar to how terrorism threats are currently handled in most of the world.

Restricted travel, local isolation, Polio, measles... That still sounds to me like a zero-Covid policy.

That's the thing about Covid, it will either run around or not at all. There is no real in-between other than implementing increasingly restrictive measures to curtail it as much as possible.
Covid is not terrorism. Terrorism is not contagious (at least not easily), and treating every traveler as a potential Covid-terrorist is essentially what NZ and others are already doing right now.

There is no normalcy possible in this case other than if borders remain closed or with strict quarantine. Covid will enter with passengers the moment quarantine-free travel starts, regardless of whether they come from a low risk country or not, and it only takes one case to come in for the exponential contagion to begin... as you know since this is the reason you are in a lockdown right now.
Unfortunately, vaccines may dampen transmission, but do not eliminate it altogether.
If you then shift the burden to local communities to eliminate any outbreak through lockdowns or others, then you just punish your own citizens even more for the same avoidance policy. It also means you start setting up borders within your own nation, just like Australia does.

I get that NZ, being a tiny nation that is inherently isolated, would be happy with maintaining this extreme isolation ad infinitum, and that's fine, but that is hardly a possibility for most other nations maintaining the same approach, at least not without a great sacrifices.

I hear what you're saying but it seems NZ's strategy is phased, not ad infinitum. Once they have completed their vaccination goals, they will then open to vaccinated travelers and so on.

I agree that a phased reopening makes sense, but I think the overall point that Francoflier is making is that, even with a phased reopening to vaccinated travelers, Covid will take off to some large degree. Once that happens, then what? Is it going to be a constant affair of various communities locking down and reopening in perpetuity? Or do they just absorb the pain of contagion propagating with hopefully enough vaccination and resources to ensure the healthcare system doesn’t get overburdened? There really is no in-between barring development of a vaccine with long-lasting near-sterilizing protection.

One thing about being a little to the side of things is we have time to observe how different situations and strategies are working out in other countries and adapt our own strategies accordingly.
Currently we have several parallel outbreaks to our own progressing in various states in Australia, all with the same varient, and very similar vaccination rates, so the biggest variable is responses.
But also very relevant to us is Iceland. Like us surrounded by a big moat, but they are now highly vaccinated.
As I said we are intending to glean as much information from those ahead of us in the process before we depart our elimination strategy.

flyguy89 wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

Francoflier wrote:

Restricted travel, local isolation, Polio, measles... That still sounds to me like a zero-Covid policy.

That's the thing about Covid, it will either run around or not at all. There is no real in-between other than implementing increasingly restrictive measures to curtail it as much as possible.
Covid is not terrorism. Terrorism is not contagious (at least not easily), and treating every traveler as a potential Covid-terrorist is essentially what NZ and others are already doing right now.

There is no normalcy possible in this case other than if borders remain closed or with strict quarantine. Covid will enter with passengers the moment quarantine-free travel starts, regardless of whether they come from a low risk country or not, and it only takes one case to come in for the exponential contagion to begin... as you know since this is the reason you are in a lockdown right now.
Unfortunately, vaccines may dampen transmission, but do not eliminate it altogether.
If you then shift the burden to local communities to eliminate any outbreak through lockdowns or others, then you just punish your own citizens even more for the same avoidance policy. It also means you start setting up borders within your own nation, just like Australia does.

I get that NZ, being a tiny nation that is inherently isolated, would be happy with maintaining this extreme isolation ad infinitum, and that's fine, but that is hardly a possibility for most other nations maintaining the same approach, at least not without a great sacrifices.

I hear what you're saying but it seems NZ's strategy is phased, not ad infinitum. Once they have completed their vaccination goals, they will then open to vaccinated travelers and so on.

I agree that a phased reopening makes sense, but I think the overall point that Francoflier is making is that, even with a phased reopening to vaccinated travelers, Covid will take off to some large degree. Once that happens, then what? Is it going to be a constant affair of various communities locking down and reopening in perpetuity? Or do they just absorb the pain of contagion propagating with hopefully enough vaccination and resources to ensure the healthcare system doesn’t get overburdened? There really is no in-between barring development of a vaccine with long-lasting near-sterilizing protection.

If they reach a high vaccination rate it won't really matter since the data now promotes high confidence in vaccine suppression of serious illness and hospitalization.

https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/medical/20210819-OYT1T50324/
Japan: Delta causing increase in infection among kids (age uner 20), even while schools are still closed for summer vacation
Weekly kid infection count in Japan have already reached 22,960, quadrupling the maximum number of the previous peak in May. Their share among all infected patients are also increasing towards 18%, up from ~10% from earlier this year
There are still mo death among infected children, but last month there're two kids aged under-10 in Tokyo categorized as severe case.
The report interviewed guardian of an infected 11 years old whose source of infection cannot be traced, said while her symptom were mild, she was down as it caused trouble to people around, and the guardian said she cannot attend the company for work for a month due to being close contact amid the kid being taken care at home, saying that while she can WFH there might be other guardians in similar situation who couldn't and thus lose their works.

I think it indicate the rise in Delta infection among kids isn't the result of school reopening

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/17/who-say ... elta-.html
WHO claim, data from some countries suggest, Delta would increase rate of severe cases, but not death rate

Here is an interesting article:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/94-o ... -vrdgr9sqc

(paywalled, but the gist of it is in the first paragraph)

Essentially, 94% of adults in the UK have Covid-19 antibodies.

It's unclear how much of this comes from vaccination and how much of it is from natural infection, but since less than 10% of the UK population has been officially diagnosed with Covid, it goes to show how many undetected asymptomatic cases there are.

Given the high rate of transmission of this virus, it is not going to take very long until almost everyone on the planet has been exposed to it.

Francoflier wrote:

Here is an interesting article:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/94-o ... -vrdgr9sqc

(paywalled, but the gist of it is in the first paragraph)

Essentially, 94% of adults in the UK have Covid-19 antibodies.

It's unclear how much of this comes from vaccination and how much of it is from natural infection, but since less than 10% of the UK population has been officially diagnosed with Covid, it goes to show how many undetected asymptomatic cases there are.

Given the high rate of transmission of this virus, it is not going to take very long until almost everyone on the planet has been exposed to it.

Here is the scary bit, the UK has moderate hospitalizations and growing cases:
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-hospitalizations
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co ... EU~FRA~ISR

Now, their hospitalizations seem to be under control, which until we get some better variant vaccines (3rd jab?), seems to be the benefit of the vaccines:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/curr ... s-hospital

Now getting fully vaccinated requires more supply. We are at 4.88 billion administered:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumu ... A~OWID_WRL

It seems that well past 70% (my math say 87.5% is required to get Ro < 1.0) is needed to keep the hospitals at low demand.

I actually understand a zero-Covid19 strategy if there is high vaccine production/investment. At least Australia is making AZ and is buying doses on the secondary market.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/artic ... 9-caseload
I approve in rapid deployment of vaccines to help contain an outbreak.

These lockdowns are impressive, but the poor businesses...
https://apnews.com/article/canada-busin ... 916b024246

There is a point you have to just accept infections. When?

Lightsaber

I found this a fascinating read on the impact of Coronavirus on tourism and thus the people who work the industry. Unfortunately, until people feel safe traveling, tourism will suffer:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... ut-tourism

Lightsaber

Aaron747 wrote:

flyguy89 wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

I hear what you're saying but it seems NZ's strategy is phased, not ad infinitum. Once they have completed their vaccination goals, they will then open to vaccinated travelers and so on.

I agree that a phased reopening makes sense, but I think the overall point that Francoflier is making is that, even with a phased reopening to vaccinated travelers, Covid will take off to some large degree. Once that happens, then what? Is it going to be a constant affair of various communities locking down and reopening in perpetuity? Or do they just absorb the pain of contagion propagating with hopefully enough vaccination and resources to ensure the healthcare system doesn’t get overburdened? There really is no in-between barring development of a vaccine with long-lasting near-sterilizing protection.

If they reach a high vaccination rate it won't really matter since the data now promotes high confidence in vaccine suppression of serious illness and hospitalization.

It’s going to suppress them for sure, but it’s not going to stop them. Even with vaccines there will still be significant incremental pressure on the healthcare system, at least initially. Will they accept that? Or as mentioned are they going to just constantly lock down localities to try and tamp down the virus?

https://stars.udn.com/star/story/10091/5688436
In Taiwan, a driver who was one of the first domestic Delta case confirmed infector and with origin of infection cannot be traced, despite he have now recovered and Taiwan have also succeeded in containing the Delta and prevented Delta outbreak, he face severe discrimination following, as he live in a small community where everyone know eaxh other and are aware of his history, he was kicked out of community centers, being cursed while visiting suoermarket, and was "living a life less than a dog", then only have one friend who're willing to help send meals to them.

I love how people will not get a vaccine BILLIONS have received, but will take experimental medication to save their life after the virus does its damage:
https://kfor.com/news/local/mercy-to-be ... -patients/

I'm completely baffled at the "logic" of the current era. We'll just say I am old enough to recall who supported vaccines way back when.

If we had more vaccination, my opinion is the health care system would have more slack (capacity to deal with other issues). Too many hospitals are in "black" (emergency, reactive mode only).

Lightsaber

lightsaber wrote:

I love how people will not get a vaccine BILLIONS have received, but will take experimental medication to save their life after the virus does its damage:
https://kfor.com/news/local/mercy-to-be ... -patients/

I'm completely baffled at the "logic" of the current era. We'll just say I am old enough to recall who supported vaccines way back when.

If we had more vaccination, my opinion is the health care system would have more slack (capacity to deal with other issues). Too many hospitals are in "black" (emergency, reactive mode only).

Lightsaber

It only hits some folks that it is "that bad" when it happens to them. I do hope the Regeneron works, but there are some serious dark forces pumping this cure through politicians that have not been pumping the vaccinations.

Florida's crazy reporting style just dumped an extra 1400 + deaths over the last week.

https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-15 ... /37360409#

The Florida Department of Health released new data showing 150,118 new cases of COVID-19 within the state over the past week. The numbers are down from the previous week's new case numbers of 151,468.

The total number of Floridians who have died from COVID-19 in the latest report is up to 42,252, which is 1,486 more deaths than last week’s report.

The good news, is that hopefully cases have plateaued. The bad news is that schools are being forced into no mask policies by the executive branch of Florida.

https://www.clickorlando.com/news/2021/ ... sk-battle/

tate Board of Education on Friday followed up on its threat to financially penalize local school officials who impose student mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic, detailing how it is targeting salaries of school board members in Alachua and Broward counties.

casinterest wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

I love how people will not get a vaccine BILLIONS have received, but will take experimental medication to save their life after the virus does its damage:
https://kfor.com/news/local/mercy-to-be ... -patients/

I'm completely baffled at the "logic" of the current era. We'll just say I am old enough to recall who supported vaccines way back when.

If we had more vaccination, my opinion is the health care system would have more slack (capacity to deal with other issues). Too many hospitals are in "black" (emergency, reactive mode only).

Lightsaber

It only hits some folks that it is "that bad" when it happens to them. I do hope the Regeneron works, but there are some serious dark forces pumping this cure through politicians that have not been pumping the vaccinations.

Florida's crazy reporting style just dumped an extra 1400 + deaths over the last week.

https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-15 ... /37360409#

It amazes me how some people just wait until something bad happens and then wonder why the clock didn't reverse. I'm currently on vacation in Florida in one of the few not so hard hit areas as it is an unusually highly vaccinated area. All the hospitals north and south of us are full, there is just a little band of hospitals with capacity:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... r-you.html

I'm in the South part of Sarasota county. We follow the swiss cheese model (on the beach when not crowded, though not this week, red tide) and all but my too young to be vaccinated are vaccinated. But we see people not social distancing, mask wearing is very mixed. But at least this little enclave is well vaccinated. But when I talk boosters or masks, I'm looked at is paranoid.

It astounds me the amusement parks are open, at capacity, right now. Errr...

Orlando cannot process enough water as the liquid oxygen used to process the water has been diverted to the hospitals. I don't know if that makes me want to laugh or cry:
https://news.yahoo.com/floridas-covid-1 ... 00308.html

We'll just say I'm not regretting cancelling a trip to see family in NorthEast Florida. I cancelled early as they weren't taking coronavirus seriously and now the area... That area is really driving this virus:
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Bra ... 399699.php

Lightsaber

lightsaber wrote:

casinterest wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

I love how people will not get a vaccine BILLIONS have received, but will take experimental medication to save their life after the virus does its damage:
https://kfor.com/news/local/mercy-to-be ... -patients/

I'm completely baffled at the "logic" of the current era. We'll just say I am old enough to recall who supported vaccines way back when.

If we had more vaccination, my opinion is the health care system would have more slack (capacity to deal with other issues). Too many hospitals are in "black" (emergency, reactive mode only).

Lightsaber

It only hits some folks that it is "that bad" when it happens to them. I do hope the Regeneron works, but there are some serious dark forces pumping this cure through politicians that have not been pumping the vaccinations.

Florida's crazy reporting style just dumped an extra 1400 + deaths over the last week.

https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-15 ... /37360409#

It amazes me how some people just wait until something bad happens and then wonder why the clock didn't reverse. I'm currently on vacation in Florida in one of the few not so hard hit areas as it is an unusually highly vaccinated area. All the hospitals north and south of us are full, there is just a little band of hospitals with capacity:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... r-you.html

I'm in the South part of Sarasota county. We follow the swiss cheese model (on the beach when not crowded, though not this week, red tide) and all but my too young to be vaccinated are vaccinated. But we see people not social distancing, mask wearing is very mixed. But at least this little enclave is well vaccinated. But when I talk boosters or masks, I'm looked at is paranoid.

It astounds me the amusement parks are open, at capacity, right now. Errr...

Orlando cannot process enough water as the liquid oxygen used to process the water has been diverted to the hospitals. I don't know if that makes me want to laugh or cry:
https://news.yahoo.com/floridas-covid-1 ... 00308.html

We'll just say I'm not regretting cancelling a trip to see family in NorthEast Florida. I cancelled early as they weren't taking coronavirus seriously and now the area... That area is really driving this virus:
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Bra ... 399699.php

Lightsaber

Good luck with the trip. All I can say is conversation with relatives still not taking prevention seriously has been incredibly awkward.

An interesting link on how care is being rationed in Oregon. Unfortunately, when hospitals are overloaded, one doesn't get the care one needs timely. This is going to create worse outcomes.

https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/ ... en-up.html
“Patients are spending days in emergency departments because critical care beds are not available.”

He said about 200 patients were boarding in ERs, waiting for intensive care beds.

“Patients are parked in hallways. Staffing is critically short,” Allen said. “I need to be direct about what’s causing this crisis: a growing wave of unvaccinated patients who have become so sick with the delta variant they need to be hospitalized.”

Is it going to take losing a loved one to get people vaccinated?

Aaron747 wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

casinterest wrote:

It only hits some folks that it is "that bad" when it happens to them. I do hope the Regeneron works, but there are some serious dark forces pumping this cure through politicians that have not been pumping the vaccinations.

Florida's crazy reporting style just dumped an extra 1400 + deaths over the last week.

https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-15 ... /37360409#

It amazes me how some people just wait until something bad happens and then wonder why the clock didn't reverse. I'm currently on vacation in Florida in one of the few not so hard hit areas as it is an unusually highly vaccinated area. All the hospitals north and south of us are full, there is just a little band of hospitals with capacity:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... r-you.html

I'm in the South part of Sarasota county. We follow the swiss cheese model (on the beach when not crowded, though not this week, red tide) and all but my too young to be vaccinated are vaccinated. But we see people not social distancing, mask wearing is very mixed. But at least this little enclave is well vaccinated. But when I talk boosters or masks, I'm looked at is paranoid.

It astounds me the amusement parks are open, at capacity, right now. Errr...

Orlando cannot process enough water as the liquid oxygen used to process the water has been diverted to the hospitals. I don't know if that makes me want to laugh or cry:
https://news.yahoo.com/floridas-covid-1 ... 00308.html

We'll just say I'm not regretting cancelling a trip to see family in NorthEast Florida. I cancelled early as they weren't taking coronavirus seriously and now the area... That area is really driving this virus:
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Bra ... 399699.php

Lightsaber

Good luck with the trip. All I can say is conversation with relatives still not taking prevention seriously has been incredibly awkward.

The conversation... I admit I avoided the conflict and just cancelled a meet up. We didn't drive to see them. They wouldn't have listened and I didn't feel like starting an argument.

Lightsaber

Aaron747 wrote:

flyguy89 wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

I hear what you're saying but it seems NZ's strategy is phased, not ad infinitum. Once they have completed their vaccination goals, they will then open to vaccinated travelers and so on.

I agree that a phased reopening makes sense, but I think the overall point that Francoflier is making is that, even with a phased reopening to vaccinated travelers, Covid will take off to some large degree. Once that happens, then what? Is it going to be a constant affair of various communities locking down and reopening in perpetuity? Or do they just absorb the pain of contagion propagating with hopefully enough vaccination and resources to ensure the healthcare system doesn’t get overburdened? There really is no in-between barring development of a vaccine with long-lasting near-sterilizing protection.

If they reach a high vaccination rate it won't really matter since the data now promotes high confidence in vaccine suppression of serious illness and hospitalization.

Tell that to my 75 year old aunt. Fully vaccinated (moderna) is now on a ventilator with covid she caught from her great grand daughter. This Delta variant proved to me that vaccines are not going to get us out of this mess. Most all my friends now have covid here in Mississippi and Tennessee. My aunt is in Florida. Of the friends I have here the ones in MS and TN most are unvaccinated only 2 of them are vaccinated but none of the them are hospitalized and are in roughly the same shape vaccinated or not and surprisingly they all have different symptoms. I am vaccinated but I have lost what confidence I did have in the vaccines . Our country is roughly half vaccinated or more and probably another 1/3 have had covid so our hospitals should not by definition be in a critical state like we were last year but yet we are worse in a lot of cases. We are back to square one I am back to wearing a mask and isolating in my house again just like before I was vaccinated. This is a learn as you go process. There is still not enough data about these vaccines. When I got mine back in Feb and Mar they were supposed to offer decent protection for at least a year now they are saying it's half that and are pushing boosters. This is why most of my friends never got this vaccine they didn't trust that enough data was known about it and it is proving itself to be correct. While it may have offered protection it doesn't seem to be helping us get out of this. Just my opinion. Oh and I will not be getting a booster.

stratosphere wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

flyguy89 wrote:

I agree that a phased reopening makes sense, but I think the overall point that Francoflier is making is that, even with a phased reopening to vaccinated travelers, Covid will take off to some large degree. Once that happens, then what? Is it going to be a constant affair of various communities locking down and reopening in perpetuity? Or do they just absorb the pain of contagion propagating with hopefully enough vaccination and resources to ensure the healthcare system doesn’t get overburdened? There really is no in-between barring development of a vaccine with long-lasting near-sterilizing protection.

If they reach a high vaccination rate it won't really matter since the data now promotes high confidence in vaccine suppression of serious illness and hospitalization.

Tell that to my 75 year old aunt. Fully vaccinated (moderna) is now on a ventilator with covid she caught from her great grand daughter. This Delta variant proved to me that vaccines are not going to get us out of this mess. Most all my friends now have covid here in Mississippi and Tennessee. My aunt is in Florida. Of the friends I have here the ones in MS and TN most are unvaccinated only 2 of them are vaccinated but none of the them are hospitalized and are in roughly the same shape vaccinated or not and surprisingly they all have different symptoms. I am vaccinated but I have lost what confidence I did have in the vaccines . Our country is roughly half vaccinated or more and probably another 1/3 have had covid so our hospitals should not by definition be in a critical state like we were last year but yet we are worse in a lot of cases. We are back to square one I am back to wearing a mask and isolating in my house again just like before I was vaccinated. This is a learn as you go process. There is still not enough data about these vaccines. When I got mine back in Feb and Mar they were supposed to offer decent protection for at least a year now they are saying it's half that and are pushing boosters. This is why most of my friends never got this vaccine they didn't trust that enough data was known about it and it is proving itself to be correct. While it may have offered protection it doesn't seem to be helping us get out of this. Just my opinion. Oh and I will not be getting a booster.

I am sorry to hear about your aunt, but there are too many things being conflated here to approach any kind of accuracy.

Of the friends I have here the ones in MS and TN most are unvaccinated only 2 of them are vaccinated but none of the them are hospitalized and are in roughly the same shape vaccinated or not and surprisingly they all have different symptoms.

This kind of anecdotal reference is not medically useful without knowing the weight, lifestyle factors, and other health conditions of everyone involved. Almost any respiratory illness outcome depends heavily on such factors.

Our country is roughly half vaccinated or more and probably another 1/3 have had covid so our hospitals should not by definition be in a critical state like we were last year but yet we are worse in a lot of cases.

The top ten states in population fully vaccinated range from 58% to 67%. The bottom 15 states are all below 50%. This is nowhere near where epidemiology's targets are. The current situation was more or less predicted if we could not achieve targets. This tracker was updated yesterday:

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/p ... ch-15.html

The situation you describe is basically because as soon as the vaccine became available everyone rushed to open everything, and take the masks off. The data available to doctors and public health experts is still indicative of excellent protection against serious illness if fully vaccinated.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-v ... -gottlieb/

I am sorry to say but there are a lot of American citizens who still don't grasp the big picture of how these things work as a numbers game.

Unfortunately it has happened, deaths in the USA are starting to go exponential. I hypothesize this is due to the hospital system being (locally) overloaded.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths

However, don't get arrogant, while there might be one or two states who escape this, we see the hospitals overloaded:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... r-you.html

Please peruse the above link. Not just your local area, but nationally. I'm in Florida in the belt near lake Okeechobee of not overloaded hospitals. But that doesn't matter, the rest of the state is doomed. Look at how the Orlando tourists filled up the hospitals and there is a trail of full hospitals to Tampa (I watched it filling up in horror). Look at the impacted north Atlanta and the spread of full hospitals, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas. The Air National guard is earning their pay transporting the sick (I know doctors who now know the ANG medics on a first name basis as they have transported so many).

But look at my Southern California (I fly back later today). Notice hospitals filling up ? Seattle, Portland (OMG have I watched Portland fill up quick).


I'm in agreement with Aaron747, we dropped the rules too quick. This is a respiratory virus where too much exposure creates a "breakthrough." The doctors in the coronavirus wards all now have many stories of vaccinated people snogging (kissing) sick unvaccinated people and ending up in the wards. The young are quick turns (high flow oxygen and remdesivir), out within 72 hours if vaccinated per verbal from the doctors.

We haven't been following as a society the Swiss Cheese model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model
I never stopped wearing masks at work, indoors at any public area, and I avoided crowded areas.

Vaccines aren't perfect, but a 17x difference, for above age 50, in deaths should be a motivator...
https://mynewsla.com/life/2021/08/22/un ... erparts-2/

I wish people would protect grandma by getting vaccinated.

Lightsaber

The worst part is the healthcare workers are so burned out.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellne ... NewsSearch

As the Delta variant continues to fill hospitals, a new survey shows more than half of healthcare workers are experiencing burnout.
Anyone who has worked through burnout knows you just cannot care. You push your self to go to work, but one day some just... walk out. After 18 months of hell, I do not judge the healthcare workers who cannot take seeing more death, more pain, more suffering.

In one hospital, all the dead are unvaccinated, scary that the death toll in Florida more than doubled in a week. Judging from the graph in my prior post, it will be much worse next week as hospitals have reached giving as much as they can give in many areas:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medica ... NewsSearch

The scary thing is people are not considering the time lag (they never do):
“We expect to see increasing hospitalization and deaths in the coming weeks,”

Vaccines aren't perfect. I feel for Stratosphere's Aunt. The Mayo Clinic determined Moderna was 76% effective for illness. I hope she pulls through.
This is going to get really bad before it gets better.

Lightsaber

My county of Kitsap which had done so well, about as well as any county in the country, is precipitously going in the wrong and bad direction. We were at zero deaths per 100K on average for most of the last couple months, now up to 0.4, cases less than 15, now pushing 100.

For the past three weeks I've been on the island of Grenada in the Caribbean. During this time I've gotten an interesting snapshot of the COVID situation here. Despite the AstraZeneca vaccine being available for quite sometime now, only about 15-20% of the population here is vaccinated. The Pfizer vaccine roll-out begins tomorrow so we'll see if that changes things. Based on my discussions with locals it seems like uptake is very low because 1.) There is a fear of long-term side effects that may not be known due to the rushed manner in which the vaccines were made and 2.) There has only been a miniscule amount of COVID here (211 cases since March 2020) and therefore people don't really see the need to get vaccinated (this might also apply to the other countries that have adopted a "zero-COVID" policy). There's been complaints that the US is hogging the vaccine supply when there are people in other countries who desperately want the vaccine, but I think its pretty clear that hesitancy exists all over and in some places it is even worse.

When I first arrived there was a curfew in place from midnight-4 AM, but recently about 20 new cases were discovered stemming from "unauthorised social activities" so now the curfew has been extended from 9 PM-5 AM. Interestingly, the prime minister has just left the country for the first time since the start of the pandemic in order undergo his annual medical check-up.

mke717spotter wrote:

For the past three weeks I've been on the island of Grenada in the Caribbean. During this time I've gotten an interesting snapshot of the COVID situation here. Despite the AstraZeneca vaccine being available for quite sometime now, only about 15-20% of the population here is vaccinated. The Pfizer vaccine roll-out begins tomorrow so we'll see if that changes things. Based on my discussions with locals it seems like uptake is very low because 1.) There is a fear of long-term side effects that may not be known due to the rushed manner in which the vaccines were made and 2.) There has only been a miniscule amount of COVID here (211 cases since March 2020) and therefore people don't really see the need to get vaccinated (this might also apply to the other countries that have adopted a "zero-COVID" policy). There's been complaints that the US is hogging the vaccine supply when there are people in other countries who desperately want the vaccine, but I think its pretty clear that hesitancy exists all over and in some places it is even worse.

When I first arrived there was a curfew in place from midnight-4 AM, but recently about 20 new cases were discovered stemming from "unauthorised social activities" so now the curfew has been extended from 9 PM-5 AM. Interestingly, the prime minister has just left the country for the first time since the start of the pandemic in order undergo his annual medical check-up.

Hesitancy at that level would be expected in any locale where government has failed to provide proper counseling and info campaigning to a low science literacy population.

lightsaber wrote:

An interesting link on how care is being rationed in Oregon. Unfortunately, when hospitals are overloaded, one doesn't get the care one needs timely. This is going to create worse outcomes.

https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/ ... en-up.html
“Patients are spending days in emergency departments because critical care beds are not available.”

He said about 200 patients were boarding in ERs, waiting for intensive care beds.

“Patients are parked in hallways. Staffing is critically short,” Allen said. “I need to be direct about what’s causing this crisis: a growing wave of unvaccinated patients who have become so sick with the delta variant they need to be hospitalized.”

Is it going to take losing a loved one to get people vaccinated?


Lightsaber

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-wor ... r-divides/

where Apley was well known, however, there was little mention of COVID-19 or how to prevent it. Two days after mourning their former vice chairman in a Facebook post that did not say what put him on a ventilator, the Galveston County Republican Party shared a far-right website’s medical-evidence-free claim that immunization against the coronavirus had killed a young conservative activist. “Another tragedy — From the Vaccine!!!!!” they warned.

This article highlights some of the ongoing issues with getting folks vaccinated. Those that are promoting the anti-vaxx stance are not caving in for one or two deaths. Rather they are doubling down, and it is deeply troubling.

And another article from today in NC of a 32 year old assistant football coach passing away.

https://www.wralsportsfan.com/western-c ... /19837652/

FOOTBALL
Western Carolina University assistant football coach dies from COVID-19
Tags: Western Carolina, football
Posted August 22, 2021 2:56 p.m. EDT
Updated August 22, 2021 4:09 p.m. EDT


​
By Maggie Brown, WRAL multiplatform producer

CULLOWHEE, N.C. — The assistant coach of the Western Carolina University football team died from coronavirus on Wednesday.

John Peacock died at his home in Sylva, the university announced on Saturday. ESPN reports he was 32-years-old.

"Known by his colleagues and student athletes as a selfless, hard worker, who was always upbeat and constantly humming or singing, Coach Peacock will sorely be missed," a statement from Western Carolina Athletics said.


Erika Alexander, Peacock's fiancee, said that he tested positive for the virus last Saturday, and doctors told him his oxygen levels were low on Sunday.

"Those of you who knew him knew he was stubborn as hell, and hated the doctor, so he didn't want to go to the hospital," she wrote on Facebook
"Go get the vaccine and wear your mask," she said..

casinterest wrote:

This article highlights some of the ongoing issues with getting folks vaccinated. Those that are promoting the anti-vaxx stance are not caving in for one or two deaths. Rather they are doubling down, and it is deeply troubling.

Covid has gone from a deadly respiratory disease to a deadly mental disease...

And for advice on getting exercise away from the house during lockdown you can't go beyond the actual "Minister for Covid" of the country that has undisputedly handled the epidemic best thus far.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ters-gaffe
Now in stringent lockdown how good is that? And the following comments.
A whole new meaning to our PM's signature statement Go hard Go early

Francoflier wrote:

casinterest wrote:

This article highlights some of the ongoing issues with getting folks vaccinated. Those that are promoting the anti-vaxx stance are not caving in for one or two deaths. Rather they are doubling down, and it is deeply troubling.

Covid has gone from a deadly respiratory disease to a deadly mental disease...

I am very sad this was politicized. This is a disease we need to work together on.

Sigh... Instead the only solution is to be in a well protected bubble.

Lightsaber

I don't know the solution, but we have pushed the medical system too hard for too long.
In Anchorage:
https://www.alaskapublic.org/2021/08/20 ... -collapse/
“The nursing ratio is usually 2-to-1 — two patients for one nurse — but we are consistently pushing it to 3-to-1, which is a dangerous intervention that is used only in times of desperation,” said Dr. Javid Kamali, an intensivist who works at Providence.

I can only imagine how many more mistakes will happen at such lean staffing ratios, not the nurses fault, it is the workload.

It also means that emergency rooms are forced to keep patients longer instead of passing them off to ICUs, delaying the time before doctors can admit patients with less urgent injuries.

“We’re seeing [waits of] four and five hours sometimes now. And that’s really because our flow is so disrupted,” said Dr. Ivan Ramirez, an emergency doctor who works at Providence.
I think the low vaccinated areas are seeing this first, but unless an area lacks a cluster of unvaccinated, I think this will be the norm.

Note: I dislike articles that play with the denominator to make our vaccination rate look better than it is (I believe this one uses eligible people).

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co ... A~OWID_WRL

If the Pfizer vaccine is only 42% effective, I posted a link for the elderly it went to 86%, in other words a 3rd jab cuts infections by more than half, we really need boosters.
https://www.foxnews.com/health/pfizer-c ... a-preprint

Yes, we need to give the unvaccinated higher priority, in particular those who will be willing (e.g., open up the next tranche of kids, we might not get a high fraction, but at least it does something to protect classrooms). But with 204.1 million of 361.34 million doses administered in the USA being Pfizer and it looks like it has < 6 month effective life with 2 jabs... That means our healthcare workers who were vaccinated very early will now be spreading the virus. We started jabbing 12/14/2020... Rhoo Rhoo

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covi ... untry=~USA
https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-administer ... d=74703018

We have the ability to vaccinate at about 4X the rate we currently are. My #1 preference of order
1. Healthcare workers (stop the spread in the hospitals), whatever jab to maximize immunity, do so by 5 months after 2nd jab.
2. Vulnerable. Again, whatever jab
3. Children, we need more age groups open
4. The rest to slow the spread.

I'm baffled by the decision making process. We're in a bad wave that has overloaded the hospitals (see map in next link). There are certainly clusters that are bad outside the point the finger at states (e.g., Portland, my part of LA has 22 available ICU beds of 134 which isn't enough for one bad freeway accident, much less Covid19) and I'm in a better area! (Highly vaccinated, people taking masking more seriously than what I saw in other states).
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... r-you.html

One gripe, exactly who do the people with lowered masks think they are fooling? That is just making them more likely to be a carrier. I noted that if I wouldn't say anything but instead "fixed" the nose of my mask most people would cover their nose. My respect for mankind is dropping.

Lightsaber
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... r-you.html

One more side effect.
Higher medical premiums are coming to pay for the Anti-Vaxx freedom.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart ... 6d0ff2df68

Over 100,000 Covid-19 hospitalizations could have been prevented by vaccination in June and July, research by Kaiser found.

These preventable hospitalizations cost the U.S. healthcare system around $2.3 billion, the Kaiser report said, based on an average Covid-19 hospitalization costing around $20,000.

Due to laws preventing insurers from charging unvaccinated people higher premiums, the Kaiser report said the bill will fall on everyone as they will pay only “a small share of the cost” directly.

This means those refusing Covid-19 vaccines inflict a greater burden on the taxpayer and risk higher insurance premiums for businesses and workers, the Kaiser report said, as well as imposing indirect costs like risking the health and safety of others and prolonging the country’s economic recovery

The people pushing anti-vaxx freedoms are strangely the ones most likely to benefit from socialization.

Germany no longer planning to use "cases" as a guide, scrap it from the law books. Instead, only hospitalizations will matter.

Die Bundesregierung kippt die Inzidenz als Wegweiser für ihr Corona-Krisenmanagement. Nun rücken die Krankenhauseinweisungen in den Fokus. Faktisch ist ein Lockdown zumindest für den ungeimpften Teil der Bevölkerung aber weiter denkbar

(Bad Google translation)

The German government is overturning the incidence as a guide for its corona crisis management. Now the focus is on hospital admissions. In fact, a lockdown is still conceivable, at least for the unvaccinated part of the population.

https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland ... fnung.html

I looked at US vaccinations per month, these are rounded numbers, in 2021
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covi ... untry=~USA

March 77 million vaccinations (doses)
April 100 million vaccinations (just shy, but this is the peak month)
May 53 million vaccinations (yes, it dropped off almost by half, even when 12 year olds were added)
June 31 million
July 19 million
August (so far, but at faster rate than July) 16 million (we're now back up at a quarter of the peak rate, per my prior post, so on track for 22 to 23 million).

Edit: I put in the wrong units (corrected).

I want to vaccinate the unvaccinated. But those trends show how since Early May anyone could start the process. I'd be thrilled if we went up to 1/3rd of the prior jabbing rate, but I expect we will not get close. When I look at prior wave hospitalization peaks, I see a "jagged climb" until the peak. Because of the much higher Ro of this Delta variant, I suspect we are anywhere between 4 to 8 weeks away from the hospital peak here in the USA. Rhoo Rhoo.

That is why I am so for 3rd jabs. Anything to slow this wave. The current pace of say 23 million jabs per month means 11.5 million fully vaccinated or about 3% of the population, I'm not seeing that moving the immunity needle Based on polling, 130 million adults are willing to get booster jabbed. If we assume all doses before 3/1 or possibly 4/1 that is (using the 1st link and dividing by 2) 38 to 76 million people less infectious depending if we 3rd jab after 6 or 5 months. Since Israeli data suggests waning immunity after month six... Boosters provide the greatest quick societal immunity that would work other than expanding the age groups eligible for vaccination.

Ghad, I would love to get over 50 million jabs/month in the USA again.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/more- ... NewsSearch

Lightsaber

Aaron747 wrote:

Hesitancy at that level would be expected in any locale where government has failed to provide proper counseling and info campaigning to a low science literacy population.

Its not like there's any shortage of those kinds of places in the world.

mke717spotter wrote:

Aaron747 wrote:

Hesitancy at that level would be expected in any locale where government has failed to provide proper counseling and info campaigning to a low science literacy population.

Its not like there's any shortage of those kinds of places in the world.

The sad thing is it should be very easy to do. The mRNA material only stays in the body a few days so there is no chance of long term effects. This can be communicated with a simple infographic or animation.

Dieuwer wrote:

Germany no longer planning to use "cases" as a guide, scrap it from the law books. Instead, only hospitalizations will matter.

Die Bundesregierung kippt die Inzidenz als Wegweiser für ihr Corona-Krisenmanagement. Nun rücken die Krankenhauseinweisungen in den Fokus. Faktisch ist ein Lockdown zumindest für den ungeimpften Teil der Bevölkerung aber weiter denkbar

(Bad Google translation)

The German government is overturning the incidence as a guide for its corona crisis management. Now the focus is on hospital admissions. In fact, a lockdown is still conceivable, at least for the unvaccinated part of the population.

https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland ... fnung.html

This is a topical discussion for Australia as our vaccination numbers rapidly increase. Out of 12,000 active cases currently, almost 600 are in hospital and 100 in ICU. There have been well over half a million tests in my state of 8 million in the last two days, with around 800 new cases per day. We should pass 60% of our state adult pop with first dose today (although pouring rain for the first time in weeks won't help vax hubs), and get close to 32% two doses.

We are in our 8th week of lockdown, with measures having got progressively tighter, yet there are still around 800 new cases per day and we have not obviously reached a peak. A big issue in Australia is a lack of national consensus on strategy, with at least one State happy to close its borders (including to the rest of the country) to maintain elimination.

Also from my home state - of the 106 people in ICU, none had been fully vaccinated.

Singapore goes nuts, demands FOUR COVID-19 Tests for FULLY vaccinated Germans.

Citizens of Germany can now travel to Singapore without being required to follow quarantine rules provided they are fully vaccinated. However, they must test negative to four COVID-19 tests.

https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/g ... vid-tests/

I suggest to boycott Singapore until they implement a more sane policy. Either way, I would never visit again as the heat and humidity of Singapore by themselves are impossible to endure.

Dieuwer wrote:

Singapore goes nuts, demands FOUR COVID-19 Tests for FULLY vaccinated Germans.

What's nuts is that this is still ( tentatively) a massive improvement over the previous situation...

Most of Asia is stuck in paralysing anxiety over Covid. The only strategy there seems to aim for eternal elimination.
Singapore is the only nation in the region which has acknowledged the need to open up so far, though by necessity more than through a real wish to do so. You can still feel the underlying paranoid fear which threatens to pour water on these 'opening' plans, even though Singapore is largely vaccinated.

We've seen it before, when Singapore tried to open a 'travel bubble' with Hong Kong a couple of times.
Despite those being two cities with barely any cases and similar approaches to eliminate Covid, a handful of cases popping up were enough to scrub these plans every time.

Asia (and the Pacific) still don't have an exit strategy. They are working through the stages towards acceptance, but seem to be stuck in denial, even with the vaccines.

Francoflier wrote:

Dieuwer wrote:

Singapore goes nuts, demands FOUR COVID-19 Tests for FULLY vaccinated Germans.

What's nuts is that this is still ( tentatively) a massive improvement over the previous situation...

Most of Asia is stuck in paralysing anxiety over Covid. The only strategy there seems to aim for eternal elimination.
Singapore is the only nation in the region which has acknowledged the need to open up so far, though by necessity more than through a real wish to do so. You can still feel the underlying paranoid fear which threatens to pour water on these 'opening' plans, even though Singapore is largely vaccinated.

We've seen it before, when Singapore tried to open a 'travel bubble' with Hong Kong a couple of times.
Despite those being two cities with barely any cases and similar approaches to eliminate Covid, a handful of cases popping up were enough to scrub these plans every time.

Asia (and the Pacific) still don't have an exit strategy. They are working through the stages towards acceptance, but seem to be stuck in denial, even with the vaccines.

I would say the un (or under) vaccinated are just at the end of denial, at best.
Then anger (not enough vaccine, anger at suggestion they must vaccinate).
Bargaining will be what is a fair policy. Iceland might be one of the few here.
Acceptance is opening up, with unvaccinated on their own.

To accelerate getting through stages, we need more vaccines. I agree, I am not seeing defined exit strategies.

Lightsaber

A fascinating link on why Delta is so transmittable:
https://www.financialexpress.com/lifest ... 6871/lite/
A study in China’s Guangzhou found that high infectiousness even in pre-symptomatic phases was a reason behind the delta’s rapid spread. This means people are likely to spread the virus even before suspicion of themselves being infected arises.

A recent study led by University of Hong Kong Epidemiologist Benjamin Cowling found that symptoms were manifesting 5.8 days after Delta infections — 1.8 days after first testing positive for viral RNA. This leaves a dangerous window for transmission.

The study found that 74 per cent of delta infections occurred during the pre-symptomatic period. The Delta’s R-naught, representing the number of individuals a single infected person can transmit the disease to on an average, is 6.4. The Wuhan strain’s R-naught of the Wuhan strain, according to earlier studies done earlier, was between 2 and 4.

Ummm... roughly three quarters of infections are occuring when people feel well?!? If a test detects the virus, than the person is infectious... 1.8 days is basically two workdays, schooldays, or a weekend of feeling fine while being the next Typhoid Mary/Mack.

Rhoo Rhoo.

Lightsaber

lightsaber wrote:

Francoflier wrote:

Dieuwer wrote:

Singapore goes nuts, demands FOUR COVID-19 Tests for FULLY vaccinated Germans.

What's nuts is that this is still ( tentatively) a massive improvement over the previous situation...

Most of Asia is stuck in paralysing anxiety over Covid. The only strategy there seems to aim for eternal elimination.
Singapore is the only nation in the region which has acknowledged the need to open up so far, though by necessity more than through a real wish to do so. You can still feel the underlying paranoid fear which threatens to pour water on these 'opening' plans, even though Singapore is largely vaccinated.

We've seen it before, when Singapore tried to open a 'travel bubble' with Hong Kong a couple of times.
Despite those being two cities with barely any cases and similar approaches to eliminate Covid, a handful of cases popping up were enough to scrub these plans every time.

Asia (and the Pacific) still don't have an exit strategy. They are working through the stages towards acceptance, but seem to be stuck in denial, even with the vaccines.

I would say the un (or under) vaccinated are just at the end of denial, at best.
Then anger (not enough vaccine, anger at suggestion they must vaccinate).
Bargaining will be what is a fair policy. Iceland might be one of the few here.
Acceptance is opening up, with unvaccinated on their own.

To accelerate getting through stages, we need more vaccines. I agree, I am not seeing defined exit strategies.

Lightsaber

Australia nominally has an exit strategy, at least from domestic lockdowns, but there has been little public discussion of international travel. High vaccination rates are the key to opening up public thinking.

WIth over 12,000 active cases in Australia but far lower hospitalisation and death rates than earlier outbreaks there is active discussion around moving form reporting caseload - towards vaccination rates. A big psychological challenge is the number of children 0-9yo infected and hospitalised, given their health will be totally reliant on the adults around them being vaccination under current parameters.

The NZ exit strategy is still in it's infancy. There are so many variables, and these variables are dynamic.
Our parallel, almost all consuming immediate priorities, are to get on top of our current outbreak only discovered a week ago, and to maximise and complete, our slow to start vaccination program that has recently expanded to include everyone from age 12 and up.
Because of earlier vaccine supply constraints this program is still rapidly and impressively gaining pace.
But whatever, this initial vaccination program is most likely to be still with us early into the New Year.
So during this time we have the time to observe and adapt overseas experience, and assess the risks that travellers from each country will pose, and the risk of travel from those countries. And to formulate and detail that exit strategy.
Expect a staged relaxation of traveller entry criteria, and a staged reduction in border processes, depending on the origin of the travellers. It has been already announced that it will be stating later this year for certain groups of travellers coming from certain destinations that will have less stringent quarantine including to be able do that at home.
It would have been logical for Australia to be next in line for reduced entry criteria, but their current outbreak with wildly differing infection situations and political responses in each state complicates matters.
NZ has put a huge amount of effort into keeping covid under control and it has served us incredibly well, so there is a huge reluctance reducing any of this control prematurely without a good understanding of the risks and rewards.
We have to cope with and prioritise entry of everybody from a shore excursionist from a tightly controlled cruiseship, to repatriating a citizen and their family from a covid hotspot via multiple flights.
There is no doubt we will open up, it is just the pace and processes that have still to be formulated.
We just don't need to join those countries that opening up quickly and "living with covid" has been adopted by their populist leaders to distract from their own very sub par covid leadership.

.

In Oklahoma, the disparity of hospitalizations is staggering.
Vaccinated: 16
Unvaccinated/partial: 1,116

https://www.newson6.com/story/61256eb80 ... n-oklahoma


"It is absolutely obvious that the unvaccinated people are the ones that are being hospitalized and are dying at much higher numbers,” said Clark. “We can talk 90 percent, 95 percent, 97 percent, it doesn't matter in the long run."

Do recall cancer & kidney patients, and other imniosupresed would have been vaccinated, but often do not develop immunity.

There are 90 million who are eligible to be vaccinated who are not.
https://www.yahoo.com/amphtml/entertain ... 28766.html

171.37 million fully vaccinated in USA:
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

That leaves roughly 69 million kids to go. (seems high considering 12+ eligible...) . There are about 330 million US citizens.

Somehow we need to accelerate kids vaccine availability. The current timeline was ok for Alpha that didn't impact 5-17 year olds as much, CDC notes infections same as 18-49, I would argue kids always get priority.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nc ... hools.html

Everyone I know working the coronavirus wards is burnt out. Actually, I know a few who were in the wards, they were released from their contracts, and they refuse to go back.

I do not like the shape of our deaths chart. This wave is starting to hit a bad stride.

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co ... RA~DEU~ISR

Lightsaber

lightsaber wrote:

A fascinating link on why Delta is so transmittable:
https://www.financialexpress.com/lifest ... 6871/lite/
A study in China’s Guangzhou found that high infectiousness even in pre-symptomatic phases was a reason behind the delta’s rapid spread. This means people are likely to spread the virus even before suspicion of themselves being infected arises.

A recent study led by University of Hong Kong Epidemiologist Benjamin Cowling found that symptoms were manifesting 5.8 days after Delta infections — 1.8 days after first testing positive for viral RNA. This leaves a dangerous window for transmission.

The study found that 74 per cent of delta infections occurred during the pre-symptomatic period. The Delta’s R-naught, representing the number of individuals a single infected person can transmit the disease to on an average, is 6.4. The Wuhan strain’s R-naught of the Wuhan strain, according to earlier studies done earlier, was between 2 and 4.

Ummm... roughly three quarters of infections are occuring when people feel well?!? If a test detects the virus, than the person is infectious... 1.8 days is basically two workdays, schooldays, or a weekend of feeling fine while being the next Typhoid Mary/Mack.

Rhoo Rhoo.

Lightsaber

But wasn't presymptomatic transmission a characteristic for other, including the original, novel coronavirus variants?
Also, it shows the uselessness of requiring negative PCR result "within 72 hours of departure"

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0057100
A study claim the effectiveness of masks like R95 (R95 are like N95 but also filter oily particles) or KN95 are less effective when acting as source control for aerosolized olive oil with 1 micron diameter than one would hope for from mask material, only at 60% and 46% respectively, but are still better than surgical masks or cloth masks at 12% and 10% respectively, due to fitness and leakage.
It also seems to suggest ventilation are more effective than masking at preventing the spread of novel coronavirus via aerosol

c933103 wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

A fascinating link on why Delta is so transmittable:
https://www.financialexpress.com/lifest ... 6871/lite/
A study in China’s Guangzhou found that high infectiousness even in pre-symptomatic phases was a reason behind the delta’s rapid spread. This means people are likely to spread the virus even before suspicion of themselves being infected arises.

A recent study led by University of Hong Kong Epidemiologist Benjamin Cowling found that symptoms were manifesting 5.8 days after Delta infections — 1.8 days after first testing positive for viral RNA. This leaves a dangerous window for transmission.

The study found that 74 per cent of delta infections occurred during the pre-symptomatic period. The Delta’s R-naught, representing the number of individuals a single infected person can transmit the disease to on an average, is 6.4. The Wuhan strain’s R-naught of the Wuhan strain, according to earlier studies done earlier, was between 2 and 4.

Ummm... roughly three quarters of infections are occuring when people feel well?!? If a test detects the virus, than the person is infectious... 1.8 days is basically two workdays, schooldays, or a weekend of feeling fine while being the next Typhoid Mary/Mack.

Rhoo Rhoo.

Lightsaber

But wasn't presymptomatic transmission a characteristic for other, including the original, novel coronavirus variants?
Also, it shows the uselessness of requiring negative PCR result "within 72 hours of departure"

Delta is far worse. Prior variants didn't have 74% of transmission before symptoms.

The PCR test still has merits. It will slow the spread.

It is just that much more difficult.

Lightsaber