One thing with covid, is that developments occur rapidly.
There is very little time between interventions being applied and results becoming apparent.
I think just letting it rip and take it's course has been universally ruled out as acceptable.
At the other end completly hermetically sealing off populations and locking down until elimination occurred has not been attempted because it is totally impractical even in the short term.
So between, are the levels of intervention. Some are just centuries old classic public health measures, but now also incredibly rapidly evolving medical science has already made a massive difference to the interventions available, and advances can be reasonably be expected to continue.
I think too many commentators see current strategies as forever strategies.
They are not, they all just "only for now strategies" to limit current damage until something better becomes apparent.
With the current speed of developments this is happening in a remarkably short time frame.
There is also diverging views on what freedoms are important.
Some very highly value the freedom to travel the world with minimal impediment, and for others they highly value freedom from the threat of a catching a very very serious illness. Public health measures largely reduce the chances of this, the medical interventions largly reduce the consequences.
For some an obligation to wear a mask in places is horrific curtailment of freedom, for others it is just a low impact common sense thing to reduce risk.
There is also a very strong divergence of views very dependant on the current situation "at home"
People living in areas that have suffered and are suffering from the effects of high covid transmission have little tolerance for those of us that have suffered little from covid transmission and want to largely retain that position. Especially when there is for us, a good chance that this is quite sustainable, in the foreseeable future only at the cost of retaining some, but more relaxed border controls. Controls which affects only those outside wanting to get in, rather then the vast bulk of people just staying in, for the moment.

Francoflier wrote:

c933103 wrote:

As for "no way to defeat it", it depends on whether you can get the infectivity down to less than 1. If you can sustain it at less than 1 then ultimately the virus will gone. It can be achieved even in Western countries. But often those pandemic control measures as when as people's willingness to compile with restrictions comes and goes, and thus the infectivity rate end up rebouncing and creating bigger and bigger waves one after another.
Without making other sacrifice the situation of still bigger and bigger waves will still continues.
As for "why the goal would be to prevent people from getting sick", I would say it is because of the negative impact the virus can inflict on infected human, as well as the impact on society when too many members became infected at the same time. Even with the vaccine cutting hospitalization by 90%, with how prevalent the virus is, and the easiness of one ending up with severe symptoms requiring hospitalization or getting undesirable effects after being infected, 10% the original risk is still a high risk, even when you compare that with like seasonal flu, especially to those who could have live without such risk.

I think that's where our opinions differ.

I do not believe that it is possible to sustain an R0 <1 for long enough to ensure elimination save for limited cases such as well isolated groups.
In fact, I don't even believe that the successive sub-1 R0 periods we've seen were due to human intervention in most countries, but rather due to the natural tendency of a contagious virus to spread in successive waves. The rebounds are IMO not due to any change in compliance with restrictions, but rather the natural resurgence of the virus, thanks to mutations or other natural factors. The point being that there is only so much we can do to control it in a large enough nation and past a certain degree of infection.
Sure, the effects and overall numbers could be lower with different population behavior, but each population values their freedom to live their lives as they please differently.
I disagree that waves would get 'bigger and bigger'. That has not been demonstrated in nations with large previous exposure in which the latest wave(s) seemed to not only not be larger, but also to engender a lower number of severe cases and deaths. Immunity from vaccination or exposure does wane over time (in terms of antibodies at least) but it does not disappear altogether. Gradually, global immunity builds up.

I am of the firm belief that elimination is not possible. There is absolutely no way you'd get 8 billion people to follow the absurdly strict restrictive measures that would be required to achieve this, starting with the fact that a few billion of these rely on a daily wage for their very survival... Lockdowns are a rich nation's privilege.

There is also the fact that attenuating measures such as social distancing, masks etc. would naturally tend to force the virus to evolve towards a more contagious genotype by virtue of natural selection.

Either way, Covid will be around, and the dilemma stands for those nations still seeking to shield themselves from it altogether: What to do after the vaccination campaign?
Some seem to have understood that facing the threat is an inevitability and are seeking ways of softening the blow somehow, others seem to be doubling down on strict isolation from the rest of the World and having their citizens living under the permanent threats of lockdowns or being summarily thrown into to quarantine camps along with their families. I don't believe the latter is a sustainable approach.

In most period of time Hong Kong have gone through a number of outbreaks, and have successfully keep the R below 1 most of the time, without lockdown. At most only widespread testing and contact-tracing, as well as isolating a neighborhood for mandatory testing. And peak of these waves are still just in the number of hundred cases or so it case so no way that would mean natural immunity kicking in doing the job. R usually only ever exceed 1 at the beginning of new wave when previous waves essentially ended causing people to relax.
As for "large enough nation", I don't think that really matter that much as virus spread based on pattern of where people commute and travel. Whivh is usually within a metropolitan area. But only when those got out of control then it leak across the nation and thus containment have lost its meaning.
Yes lockdown is rich country privilege and hard to implement in poor countries, but many of those poor countries are actually in better situation case wise than like the US, iirc. And US's high case rate have negative impact on international trade affecting business and travel of those underdeveloped countries.

The problem with "facing threat after vaccinated" is the threat isn't constant either, you can't even predict with certainty which mutation with which effects will be developed.

https://www.mbs.jp/4chantv/news/kodawar ... 5716.shtml
Japan, Kobe near Osaka
In Spring, as the Alpha variant hit, a treatment center for corona in the city of Kobe faced filled capacity for two period of two months long, and medicals need to make the choice of who cannot be saved. When the situation finally receded around June, helpers from other hospital around the nation commented hope this is the last time they need to be dispatched to hospitals at large cities which are hotspots of coronavirus outbreak. But the wish realized in unexpected form. Soon after, Delta variant started spreading wildly across Japan, and with vaccination making process, most hospitalized severe case patient age range moved down to the 40s-50s range. And such situation caused nationwide surge in cases and it is no longer possible to say draw medicals from less affected area for help as those area are also reaching limit. As a consequence, at the hospital, even medicals who have been suffering cancer have volunteered joining to help take care of coronavirus patients despite previously being exempted from such dity due to the condition.

StarAC17 wrote:

melpax wrote:

Protests happening again in Melbourne today, they moved from the CBD to the Shrine of Rememberance, where police have moved them on using gas, pepper spray & rubber bullets. They're now apparently blocking one of the Citylink road tunnels.

As I posted in the Aus aviation thread, the TV choppers have been effectively grounded as CASA has imposed a no-fly zone over central Melbourne until Sunday, this was done at the request of police. The TV networks aren't happy as expected, and are looking at legal options to have this overturned.

TV reporters have been harassed on air again today, and the networks are now starting to use live blogger vision in their coverage, given that the bloggers are in the main protest group.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/vict ... 58tou.html

This is suspect that this was granted in favour of the police.

If there is excessive police force then not having it on camera is beneficial to keeping the lockdowns in place and I personally think Australia has gone too far with their restrictions. For the case loads you have down there you could have enacted capacity limits, masking and distancing to keep the areas locked down open. If I had a drone and lived in Carlton, Richmond, the Dockland etc I would try flying one over which I think some news networks might try.

It seemed it was lockdown to 0, full capacity, lockdown, full capacity in Victoria NSW. Now that covid zero has been abandoned in Australia (at least from the feds) come up with sustainable restrictions.

The networks have got a temporary court injunction to allow live pictures to be shown from their choppers again, while the matter proceeds to trial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aBBfAIGM-U

Although it now seems to be a moot point, the protests have now moved to the suburbs as police have made it difficult for the protesters to gather in the CBD/downtown. It now seems to be very much the fringe anti-vax/sovereign citizen crowd who are still protesting, and in vastly reduced numbers from early in the week.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/vict ... 58up5.html

StarAC17 wrote:

Getting infected isn't an one-and-done deal either. Immunity from infection like immunity from vaccine, isn't perfect and decrease in efficiency as times goes on and as newer strains emerge.

We have 4 endemic coronaviruses that infect us all regularly causing the common cold. There is growing evidence that at least one of them emerged in a very similar pandemic to what we are in now.

They cause the common cold not because these viruses don't mutate but because we have a degree of immunity to the infection and a mutation can't change the whole virus at once, it can change parts and the immunity from natural exposure is likely stronger because your body remembers the whole virus and with the vaccine is only recognizes the spike protein. Enough mutation poses more risk in theory to those who just received the vaccines (and no exposure) and perhaps this makes a case for boosters if they are variant targeted but not the same ones.

Furthermore regarding immunity, you lose antibodies over time but retain memory cells to recognize a pathogen which is why subsequent infections are likely not dangerous to those immune. Antibody production and action by T and B cells get revved up much faster than when you encounter a novel pathogen so you don't get very sick.

AirWorthy99 wrote:

Reading the responses from our friends in NZ and Australia.

The question is, when would the NZ and Australian authorities blink and come to the realization that COVID will be out there for ever. And when they managed to get 100% of their population, if they do, vaccinated, by the time they do, another variant of COVID will be out, making that vacinne basically useless. So they will again lock down for COVID zero for this new variant, and back again to the never ending cycle.

While the clock ticks, and we as humans have a certain amount of time on this earth, many of those who won't have a normal life till zero covid, are losing and wasting time of their lives that won't ever go back and get, because there isn't a COVID time machine once they get fully vaccinated. At the end of the day losing 2-5 years of your life stuck inside your house or city or country, no goverment can't ever give back to you.

This is what I said back then when COVID started. There is a risk for everything we do, there is more risk driving a car than dying from COVID, and we still do it, but we haven't decided to stay home for ever because driving is dangerous. Its a basic premise. All of this COVID lockdown nonsense is big government telling you they can prevent you from dying, when clearly they can't. Just makes a few insecure people feel secure, without any possible real security, that no one can ever guarantee.

Continue to enjoy waiting for zero covid.

I think Australia has largely abandoned covid zero and now have lockdowns in place until they reach a certain vaccination threshold. Things are getting testy there and in any democracy that is still using lockdowns now is going to face a very large backlash perhaps violent from their citizens.

Us polite Canadians have accepted a vaccine passport in essentially every province (not nationally put in place, but Trudeau probably pulled strings behind the scenes). If we have to lock down again to the extent we have already 3 times since March 2020, we will lose our collective s*it.

Also to make your point around risk. I bet if you put a doctor in charge of the government with unilateral control they would outlaw booze, all drugs, no cycling or skateboarding without being basically padded in foam, Cars can't drive past 30 km/h an hour etc. This is an exaggeration but medicine is a profession where saving a life in number one. The quality of that person's life especially in-between their ears is a different matter and part of a healthy lifestyle and a society is to manage that risk to an acceptable level.

It makes me wonder when I see Facebook comments that one life lost to covid is too many. We accept death all of the time and while it sucks for the family and friends of the deceased its life. That same person probably has absolutely no compassion for someone who dedicated their life to a business that closed through no fault of their own and turned to drugs and happen to OD in despair.

I make this case to my very risk averse parents all of the time. You risk death when you get in the car and why is the person who lost their life to Covid a more impactful death than the 25 year old who was in the wrong place at the wrong time on a highway and got hit by a drunk driver.

In fact their risk of being in a car accident is higher because under Covid they might not drive enough and to keep a skill like driving up in your later years you need to work extra hard to keep your reflexes up.

I think your discussion of risk represents an important element to all of this discussion, including aviation safety. Boeing's troubles arose not simply because of a risk, but more importantly it was a risk which could have been avoided. The red hot anger that arises about Covid is that we know what mostly works - mass vaccinations along with some social distancing and masks when indoors in crowded spaces.

c933103 wrote:

In most period of time Hong Kong have gone through a number of outbreaks, and have successfully keep the R below 1 most of the time, without lockdown. At most only widespread testing and contact-tracing, as well as isolating a neighborhood for mandatory testing. And peak of these waves are still just in the number of hundred cases or so it case so no way that would mean natural immunity kicking in doing the job. R usually only ever exceed 1 at the beginning of new wave when previous waves essentially ended causing people to relax.

Hong Kong is a small city which has adopted the same isolationist policy as the other nations which follow Zero-Covid. It boasts some of the longest mandatory quarantines in the World and only seems to be worsening them if anything.
It does have a very obedient and diligent population which adheres to rules religiously and unquestioningly. The contact-tracing and isolating of communities involves hospitalizing every single Covid-positive person, regardless of symptoms, and mandatory 3 weeks isolation in a government camps for all the close and not-so-close contacts regardless of the fact that they test negative.
HK has been known to throw entire residential towers - hundreds of families - into that camp, separating them in the process, because 1 (one) resident was found positive.
Sure, they've managed to contain outbreaks, and that's great, but the aggressiveness and the complete disregard for people's basic rights they have displayed in achieving so would be very unpalatable and quite unachievable outside of the kind of state HK is.

And while HK has managed to kill the outbreaks in the egg, it wouldn't take much cases for the whole containment system to fall apart. Throwing everyone within a mile of a case into hospitals and quarantine camps only works when you are handling a handful of cases...
This means that the 'normal life' that residents are able to live there is more of an illusion in which they are constantly under the threat of being forcefully taken away to the hospital or quarantine camp - and be separated from their families who will suffer the same fate - if they've had the misfortune of entering the wrong building one day. Even then, when a large scale wave does happen, the lockdowns will happen anyway because as I said, the extreme micro-management tactic they employ will not work on a large scale outbreak.

All of this does not change the fact that this policy has de-facto isolated HK from the World for the foreseeable future. There is simply no way this fragile equilibrium they maintain would work with open borders in a World where Covid is here to stay.

Singapore, HK's closest comparison, is now fully experiencing this seemingly unsolvable conundrum.
Being a city that relies on international openness to the World (even more so than HK), they eventually realized that a 'Covid-resilient' strategy was going to be the only way forward and had drawn up plans to slowly re-open quarantine-free international travel...
Until the latest Delta wave hit, which they can't seem to be able to control, and which has seen all these plans being shelved and harsher measures re-introduced in the community such as stricter social-distancing and school closures.
All the communities which have so far avoided large Covid outbreaks will have to face them someday or be doomed to perpetual strict isolation. There is simply no other choice.
At least almost everyone in Singapore is vaccinated and the human toll should be much lower than what it could have been, which is the one great thing about their ability to keep the virus at bay until the end of a well-managed and timely vaccination campaign.

As for "large enough nation", I don't think that really matter that much as virus spread based on pattern of where people commute and travel. Whivh is usually within a metropolitan area. But only when those got out of control then it leak across the nation and thus containment have lost its meaning.
Yes lockdown is rich country privilege and hard to implement in poor countries, but many of those poor countries are actually in better situation case wise than like the US, iirc. And US's high case rate have negative impact on international trade affecting business and travel of those underdeveloped countries.

Poor countries are not in a better situation than the US. The virus is as prevalent in these countries as anywhere else. The difference is that poor countries do not have the means to test and contact trace anywhere near as much as rich nations. If you honestly believe that countries like the Congo or Sudan, with populations of dozens of millions, have only had less than 100,000 cases, I have a bridge to sell you.

This is exactly why Covid is a rich nation's problem. Such places have been dealing with diseases, famines, poverty and war for decades which have killed order of magnitude more of their citizens than Covid ever could... Covid may be an added complication to their already difficult lives, but it's often not anywhere near their biggest problem.
Malaria alone has killed dozens of millions over the last few decades, but have we cared about it from the comfort of our developed societies? Not really. Yet now that a plague is affecting us, we're acting like the World is ending.
Poor nations do not talk much about Covid because they have bigger worries, which greatly explains why Covid is a matter of perspective.

The problem with "facing threat after vaccinated" is the threat isn't constant either, you can't even predict with certainty which mutation with which effects will be developed.

Vaccines work on all variants. All this talk about the virus evading vaccines somehow is mostly sci-fi. Natures has laws that even this virus can't evade. There's only so much it can evolve without losing its infectiousness or ability to reproduce, and it is very likely that vaccines, while they may not be as effective against all existing and upcoming variants, still give you an immunity base on which your body can rely to fight a virus that may be slightly different than the one they were developed for.

In any case, there is nothing on horizon that works better than vaccines. So it all comes down to your (or anyone's) expectation for the outcome of this crisis.
If you favor hiding from Covid altogether, then you have to accept the consequences it entails. If you're waiting for a miracle cure that will rid us of Covid overnight, I have bad news...

Francoflier wrote:

Hong Kong is a small city which has adopted the same isolationist policy as the other nations which follow Zero-Covid. It boasts some of the longest mandatory quarantines in the World and only seems to be worsening them if anything.
It does have a very obedient and diligent population which adheres to rules religiously and unquestioningly. The contact-tracing and isolating of communities involves hospitalizing every single Covid-positive person, regardless of symptoms, and mandatory 3 weeks isolation in a government camps for all the close and not-so-close contacts regardless of the fact that they test negative.

Those are useless pat of HK government strategy since they rarely discover any actual cases.

HK has been known to throw entire residential towers - hundreds of families - into that camp, separating them in the process, because 1 (one) resident was found positive.
Sure, they've managed to contain outbreaks, and that's great, but the aggressiveness and the complete disregard for people's basic rights they have displayed in achieving so would be very unpalatable and quite unachievable outside of the kind of state HK is.

Think that only happened once, and that was due to the territory's first imported alpha case weren't being honest in numner of places and people they have visited, resulted in experts misjudging the strain's infectivity in the city

All of this does not change the fact that this policy has de-facto isolated HK from the World for the foreseeable future. There is simply no way this fragile equilibrium they maintain would work with open borders in a World where Covid is here to stay.

It's a matter of political priority, the Hong Kong government want to open its border with Mainland China much more than rest of the world and thus they're trying to match China's expectation on number of cases, aka zero.

Poor countries are not in a better situation than the US. The virus is as prevalent in these countries as anywhere else. The difference is that poor countries do not have the means to test and contact trace anywhere near as much as rich nations. If you honestly believe that countries like the Congo or Sudan, with populations of dozens of millions, have only had less than 100,000 cases, I have a bridge to sell you.

Those countries at least aren't gettimg as much medical system break down all the times?

This is exactly why Covid is a rich nation's problem. Such places have been dealing with diseases, famines, poverty and war for decades which have killed order of magnitude more of their citizens than Covid ever could... Covid may be an added complication to their already difficult lives, but it's often not anywhere near their biggest problem.
Malaria alone has killed dozens of millions over the last few decades, but have we cared about it from the comfort of our developed societies? Not really. Yet now that a plague is affecting us, we're acting like the World is ending.
Poor nations do not talk much about Covid because they have bigger worries, which greatly explains why Covid is a matter of perspective.

Have you talked with people from poorer countries in the past year?

Vaccines work on all variants. All this talk about the virus evading vaccines somehow is mostly sci-fi.

Flu vaccines have to be taken once every year. You know the reason for that right?

In any case, there is nothing on horizon that works better than vaccines.

This is not an either this or that scenario. Recall Swiss Cheese Model.

This is exactly why Covid is a rich nation's problem. Such places have been dealing with diseases, famines, poverty and war for decades which have killed order of magnitude more of their citizens than Covid ever could... Covid may be an added complication to their already difficult lives, but it's often not anywhere near their biggest problem.
Malaria alone has killed dozens of millions over the last few decades, but have we cared about it from the comfort of our developed societies? Not really. Yet now that a plague is affecting us, we're acting like the World is ending.
Poor nations do not talk much about Covid because they have bigger worries, which greatly explains why Covid is a matter of perspective.

Very true poor nations have many other issues and I think many in wealthy countries really thought (to their detriment) we were past this.

One thing I will say when it comes to developing nations is that they have the advantage to survive Covid with much less death than the wealthy countries do.
In poor countries they tend to be tropical so you have usually a good amount of vitamin D in your system from sunlight which has been shown to be an issue for those who have gotten severe covid. This could be coincidental because those who have good vitamin D levels probably are outside more and more active. This is definitely the case in a lot of Africa.

Other advantages in developing countries. They are younger while the wealthy countries are older, very few are overweight and these are among the two biggest co-morbidities that lead to severe covid.

Please continue your discussion and to post your news in the thread below:

COVID-19 Non Aviation Thread - Q4 2021

Thread will be locked.