Welcome to the COVID-19 Non Aviation Thread - Q2 2022. Please continue your discussion and to post your news below.

Link to last thread:

COVID-19 Non Aviation Thread - Q1 2022

As we start Q2 of 2022,
An interesting note from the US. The decline in cases may be nearing a stop. The cases for this 7 week period vs last 7 week perid were only down .8 % or ~1500 cases from the previous 7 days.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... ekly_table

Spring Break for kids gets rolling in another 7 days, with college spring breaks already winding up. Will be interesting to see what follows.

casinterest wrote:

As we start Q2 of 2022,
An interesting note from the US. The decline in cases may be nearing a stop. The cases for this 7 week period vs last 7 week perid were only down .8 % or ~1500 cases from the previous 7 days.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... ekly_table

Spring Break for kids gets rolling in another 7 days, with college spring breaks already winding up. Will be interesting to see what follows.

People having fun and enjoying life would be my best bet

fallap wrote:

casinterest wrote:

As we start Q2 of 2022,
An interesting note from the US. The decline in cases may be nearing a stop. The cases for this 7 week period vs last 7 week perid were only down .8 % or ~1500 cases from the previous 7 days.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... ekly_table

Spring Break for kids gets rolling in another 7 days, with college spring breaks already winding up. Will be interesting to see what follows.

People having fun and enjoying life would be my best bet

The issue is the so called "natural immunity" fades so quickly, we will have a spreading event:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/03 ... vid/?amp=1

Unvaccinated people who recover from an omicron coronavirus variant infection are left with paltry levels of neutralizing antibodies against omicron. They also have almost no neutralizing antibodies against any of five other coronavirus variants, including delta. People who were vaccinated before getting an omicron infection, however, have strong protection against all five variants, and they have some of the highest levels of neutralizing antibodies against omicron.


I have friends and relatives who are doctors in coronavirus wards. Vaccinated patients are rare and always imniocompromised.

For most of the kids, they'll do fine. Spring break will bring in BA.2, transmit it, and spread. I posted a link upthread on how European cases and hospitalizations are growing. I fully understand no one will lock down anymore.

This will be interesting. Almost certainly, spring break will halt the drop in cases and hospitalizations.

It took me over a year to recover from the nerve damage coronavirus causes. Doctors tell me about 5% of unvaccinated people who get coronavirus have nerve damage. I hope these kids realize fully what they are signing up for.

Please read the book "Psychology of Pandemics."

BA.1 does provide protection from BA.2 for a limited time. The question is, for how long?

All I care about is not overloading the hospitals.

Lightsaber

Very clever. A German man received 90 COVID shots and sold forged passes.
https://apnews.com/article/covid-health ... 6a9829910b

For convenience, I added the link of hospitalizations:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/curr ... SP~BEL~NLD

Its a big deal having a patient with coronavirus as they must be isolated from other patients to protect the vulnerable.
The USA is in a lull, but not zero.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/curr ... s-hospital

There is no doubt the excess deaths during the pandemic were high (see the chart, it is telling). https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covi ... deaths.htm

In parts of New York and New England, they have been seeing increasing Coronavirus in the waste water for 2 weeks and are now starting to see the hospitalizations.
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/sewage ... -outbreaks

This virus just mutates far too much.
Lightsaber

What happened to US and Germany last week?

Also, Chinese lockdown isn't stopping the Omicron. Although doubling time is longer than most other countries.

c933103 wrote:

What happened to US and Germany last week?

Also, Chinese lockdown isn't stopping the Omicron. Although doubling time is longer than most other countries.

US looks fine this morning. It must have been a data glitch.

Europe has a growing wave, but it looks like France and the UK might already be peaking; it will take a few days to know for certain. With BA.2 having a high Ro, these waves will be fast.

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases

Germany doesn't publish hospital data. In France and the UK hospitalizations are high and growing:
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-hospitalizations

lightsaber wrote:

c933103 wrote:

What happened to US and Germany last week?

Also, Chinese lockdown isn't stopping the Omicron. Although doubling time is longer than most other countries.

US looks fine this morning. It must have been a data glitch.

Europe has a growing wave, but it looks like France and the UK might already be peaking; it will take a few days to know for certain. With BA.2 having a high Ro, these waves will be fast.

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases

Germany doesn't publish hospital data. In France and the UK hospitalizations are high and growing:
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-hospitalizations

The German data also appears peaked last month, as I commented in the last thread, but then there is this sudden spike.

Also note that the EU/US chart is 7-days average.

Here are my intuitions based on the minimal data for a second booster shot:
Not before 4 or 5 months after the first booster, so I have decided to wait for the 6 month mark
What I have not read is whether or not to switch vaccines. I have had all Pfizer, and wife Moderna. Anyone have a suggestion on this?

1 - I've read that there are indications that by switching vaccines (mRNA), you broaden the protections a bit.
2 - Do we have any data on the longer term durability of the booster in a 3-shot mRNA sequence? That would be good information to inform whether, and when, to get a second booster.

There has been limited advice that spacing vaccinations closer together may cause some lessening of effectiveness, but the data is pretty sketchy. Even the recommendation for the second booster is a little sketchy, but we plan on getting it.

https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking ... er-holiday

Omicron death rate in Hong Kong now reached 0.71% as new infection fall and more cases get closed.

https://m.weibo.cn/status/LndUsnIBQ?jum ... om#comment
China
Shanghai
Lockdown caused food supply unable to deliver
TV stations are airing program teaching people how to perform diet to reduce food consumption.

https://3g.163.com/dy/article/H4BNF94B0 ... ss=adap_dy
Again in Shanghai
A woman who cannot find food for her disabled father, so she contacted a food delivery person from before ask for help
The deliveryperson worried about the father, so he rushed to her father's home over 27km and delivered food to him.
However, people on the public posted about the woman only paid US$30 tips to the delivery person, and start bullying her over the internet, causing her to jump off the building
People commented, "For such accusation of she paid too few tips, her father lost his dear daughter forever, and his son have his mother no more."
A media managed to contact the delivery person, who mentioned he intended to help the woman's father just to help them out as it is so difficult for elderly to get any things to eat in the current situation, with no intention of getting financial compensation, yet there's all the post over the internet making accusation against the woman that make me couldn't sleep over the night.

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/679166.html
Shanghai
A positively-tested patient was taken away to quarantine
The patient's pet dig followed
But the staff simply snapped the dog death using the shovel on their hand.
People commented such determination in killing and the way they do it, is almost a copy of when those Japanese soliders was in Nanjing

https://m.sohu.com/a/535735443_639898/?pvid=000115_3w_a
Also Shanghai
A mom and her daughter from Shanghai is found to sneaked onto an intercity train at 4am in the mid night for the next city, and what they did once they reached the other city was nothing but supermarkets and KFC.
------

I have also received quite a number of messages from people in Shanghai who mentioned they aren't able to get any new foods over the past 5 days, and can only rely on what they already had before the lockdown started, or borrowing from neighbors, or ask for help from residents who work in delivery service thus have special permit to be able to help buy new supply for the community they live in. Although there are also significant difference in situation between different individual communes, depending on the capability of individual commune leaders.

It looks like the Europe surge is already on the way down. At least Germany, UK, and France have cases dropping with the German and UK drop very marked (and it looks like France is just a few days behind in their trend).

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases

I know an amazing number of people reporting "food poisoning." Since I have never known more than 1 group of friends to get actual food poisoning, I suspect it is undiagnosed Omicron.
https://vnexplorer.net/the-little-know- ... 66738.html

My boss just recovered from a week long miserable (but still medically mild) case of Covid19 (104F fever, chills, night sweats, tons of coughing, sleeping 12+ hours a day, no appetite). However that was certainly due to exposure in public places (viral load).

I feel for the people who cannot get enough food due to lockdowns. With a high Ro, the new versions of coronavirus are not going to be stopped. I notice mask wearing is (temporarily) coming back locally which will reduce viral load. The difference in exposure area mask/no mask is dramatic:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7883189/


The number of links proving mask effectiveness in that link is impressive. But mostly for the person transmitting. Oh well, the only people I know going to the hospital are the imniocompromized or the unvaccinated. Europe seems to have (mostly) gone through their wave, we'll start ours soon (USA) per my chart reading. Cest la vie.

Lightsaber

c933103 wrote:

https://m.weibo.cn/status/LndUsnIBQ?jumpfrom=weibocom#comment
China
Shanghai
Lockdown caused food supply unable to deliver
TV stations are airing program teaching people how to perform diet to reduce food consumption.

The Shanghai food problem seems to be getting worse.

https://www.vindy.com/news/latest-news/ ... -shutdown/

“The government told us at the beginning this would last four days,” she said. “Many people were not prepared.”

That article is well worth a read. It looks like in Shanghai the "last 100m" distribution has broken down.

At least parents may now stay with infected children.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ch ... uxbndlbing

What is the end game? With a highly infection variant with asymptomatic transmission and guaranteed (in my opinion) re-introduction from outside, lockdowns are a short term bandaid

. I could understand if hospitals were over flowing with medically necessary cases and there was a mass vaccination drive going on simultaneously. If nothing is changed, nothing will change.

I was all for precautions before vaccines were readily available. There is now a global surplus of vaccines.
More than 13 billion doses have been produced since the pandemic began, 11 billion of which have been administered
...
“Since mid-2021, global vaccine production has exceeded global vaccine demand and this gap has continuously risen,” Cueni told AFP.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/22924 ... eds-demand

China is wealthy, use some of that huge trade surplus to buy a billion doses of vaccine. Or give a 3rd dose of Sinovac. It is time to open up. The end game must be a normal life

As the ancient Romans said, we are never more than 3 meals from anarchy. Is it 9 from revolution?
https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/ne ... e%20system

Lightsaber

lightsaber wrote:

What is the end game? With a highly infection variant with asymptomatic transmission and guaranteed (in my opinion) re-introduction from outside, lockdowns are a short term bandaid

https://udn.com/news/story/122650/6225668
Chinese expert now concluded that the exponential growth of Omicron case in Shanghai was because they lock down too late, and have not enough understanding about Omicron's characteristics. They say considering characteristic of Omicron, especially its high asymptomatic transmission rate, lockdown must be conducted as early as possible.

China is wealthy, use some of that huge trade surplus to buy a billion doses of vaccine. Or give a 3rd dose of Sinovac. It is time to open up. The end game must be a normal life

From the link over vaccine thread, hundreds of million people in China have already received booster dose. And they also already have regulatory approval as well as commercial license to produce Pfizer vaccine within the country yet they simply don't do it.

Also, the Chinese expert above still say there're thousands time more people in the US died due to the pandemic compares to China, the low number of death in China "fully show China's priority in putting the life of people in the first place" and thus while the country will gradually open up while maintaining "dynamic zero", "full open up is not applicable to China as it will lead to significant rise in number of death.

And the exoert also cited SinoVac data in Brazil, claim three dose of vaccine of same type do not result in significant increase in protection, then cited SinoVac-mRNA crossover data to say cross vaccination offer higher protection and the expert claim he himself took China Zhifei's protein recombinant vaccine as booster shot.

Also, another thing is that, apparently a large part of the food problem is that, as delivery remain one of the few still functioning chain in a city undergoing Chinese style lockdown, and given the working environment of delivery warehouse, in addition to the nature of delivery service that need to take and give different things to different people, there are quite a number of Omicron infection clusters among delivery companies and "volunteer" who get benefits to help delivering things. Thus further crippling the already unstable delivery service.

As the ancient Romans said, we are never more than 3 meals from anarchy. Is it 9 from revolution?
https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/ne ... e%20system

Lightsaber

I posted in a previous thread. A border town in Yunnan of China relied on border trade see its border almost totally shut in the past two years. So is all the cross-border businesses. Then still there are some random outbreaks, and it locked down over 200 days in a year. People still needed to paid their rents and utilities and other expenses despite having no income due to lockdown and there aren't any sort of eviction ban or waivers that Western countries have. So many workers who still have money to afford traveling out, and have the money to afford paying for 14 days quarantine fee at destination city, fleed. And yet the government install barriers around the city to limit the amount of people moving out of it to reduce the chance of spread. And so more and more people cannot afford their day to day expense. Many killed themselves everyday. In a particularly remarkable case, a person who jumped off building did so while singing the national anthem. Most likely to defend his own dignity against the accusation being spread across the Chinese internet that "any people claiming Chinese people are not satisfied with Chinese government pandemic handling must be Japanese/Taiwanese/American spy/foreign forces trying to provoke conflict and upset our country's development"

c933103 wrote:

https://udn.com/news/story/122650/6225668
Chinese expert now concluded that the exponential growth of Omicron case in Shanghai was because they lock down too late, and have not enough understanding about Omicron's characteristics. They say considering characteristic of Omicron, especially its high asymptomatic transmission rate, lockdown must be conducted as early as possible.

Actually, that doesn't solve anything. Omicron's high transmission rate and asymptomatic transmission prevent lockdowns from being effective even short term. Seriously, within three weeks of lifting the lockdown Shanghai will be back where they were, so I'm confused at the end goal.

Lockdowns only serve two purposes when you cannot avoid the disease anymore:
1. Slow the disease to give hospitals time to treat patients
2. Give time for a vaccination campaign.

Notice the goal of eradicating the disease is gone? That isn't possible with Omicron even if BA.1, BA.2, XE or whatever flavor.

26 million people are scrambling to secure food for a lockdown I just cannot see any public health reason to pursue.
https://thesouthasiantimes.info/shangha ... cure-food/

Interesting. Without a massive booster (2nd booster?) campaign, the lockdowns are now tilting at windmills.

Lightsaber

The CCP will not allow any foreign vaccine to be used since they "know" that their own are the bestest in the world

lightsaber wrote:

c933103 wrote:

https://udn.com/news/story/122650/6225668
Chinese expert now concluded that the exponential growth of Omicron case in Shanghai was because they lock down too late, and have not enough understanding about Omicron's characteristics. They say considering characteristic of Omicron, especially its high asymptomatic transmission rate, lockdown must be conducted as early as possible.

Actually, that doesn't solve anything. Omicron's high transmission rate and asymptomatic transmission prevent lockdowns from being effective even short term. Seriously, within three weeks of lifting the lockdown Shanghai will be back where they were, so I'm confused at the end goal.

Lockdowns only serve two purposes when you cannot avoid the disease anymore:
1. Slow the disease to give hospitals time to treat patients
2. Give time for a vaccination campaign.

Notice the goal of eradicating the disease is gone? That isn't possible with Omicron even if BA.1, BA.2, XE or whatever flavor.

26 million people are scrambling to secure food for a lockdown I just cannot see any public health reason to pursue.
https://thesouthasiantimes.info/shangha ... cure-food/

Interesting. Without a massive booster (2nd booster?) campaign, the lockdowns are now tilting at windmills.

Lightsaber

They don't believe in this being impossible.


Shanghai government now announced a new "3-tiered" lockdown system, with the aim of achieving dynamic zero in society as soon as possible.

https://news.sina.cn/gn/2022-04-09/deta ... 752.d.html

They plan to conduct another round of PCR testing across the entire city, and then classify the city into 3 different zones according to result.

First is prevention zone. It mean commune/villages/venues that have 0 positive cases in past 14 days. People in this zone can conduct reasonable amount of activity within their administrative district, but gathering remain severely restricted.

Second is monitor zone. It mean commune/villages/venues that have 0 positive cases in past 7 days. People in this zone should monitor their health at home for 7 days, and they cannot leave their commune/venue, no gathering allowed, delivery pick up must be slotted to avoid peaks through contactless mean in specific place with emphasis on sanitation against the objects they retrieve, stay home in principle but allow walking outside individual home in case strict personal protection are being worn.

Third is lockdown zone, aka anywhere with cases in past 7 days. Venues ans zones are to be enclosed, no leaving of home allowed, and service is to reach home directly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTeifSW2Qm4

In Jiuting Township of Shanghai, mass gathered and protested over material shortage, after ~3 weeks of lockdowm, demanding materials be distributed to them.

Some claim warning gunshot have been fired im the process?

c933103 wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTeifSW2Qm4

In Jiuting Township of Shanghai, mass gathered and protested over material shortage, after ~3 weeks of lockdowm, demanding materials be distributed to them.

Some claim warning gunshot have been fired im the process?

Officials are now being fired due to the botch food distribution:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/shanghai- ... -1.6414303

Three local officials in Shanghai have been sacked over a slack response to the COVID-19 outbreak in China's largest city, where residents are complaining of harsh lockdown conditions leading to shortages of food and basic necessities.
...
Authorities say they will determine future steps based on testing results, but have given no specifics.
...
With no word on when the lockdown will be lifted, anxiety is rising, along with frustration over the city's apparent lack of preparation for an extended lockdown.


The current measures have been punitive to a degree I do not understand. Perhaps they will relax, perhaps not. They need a real exit plan. When you isolate people from food, you have to be perfect in the execution (which is, of course, impossible).

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory ... g-83978769
Under the new measures, areas in Shanghai will be classified as “precautionary,” “controlled” on “locked down,” depending on the results of the latest round of testing, Shanghai Vice Mayor Zong Ming told a news conference.


The poor people that will remain locked down. The uncertainty must be nerve wracking.

The worst part is with the asymptomatic cases, false negative tests, and high Ro, Shanghai will be back to where they were 3 weeks after the lockdown is lifted. I hope they can come up with a strategy to stop the cycle. People want to move on from this virus. With the vaccines, imperfect as they are, there is no reason not to.

Whatever is done, they had better figure out how to get food to people as there are just too many stories of people going hungry and it is simply impossible to forget being hungry.

Lightsaber

cskok8 wrote:

The CCP will not allow any foreign vaccine to be used since they "know" that their own are the bestest in the world

This will be interesting. I know the Western vaccines are not perfect, but they are good enough to offload the hospitals.

Best case scenario is the Sinovac vaccine fades in six months:
https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14404409

c933103 wrote:

They don't believe in this being impossible.

Then I hope I am proven wrong. So far with Omicron, the stealth infections combined with many false negative tests... lead us to disagree.

First, they need to put processes in place that not one person goes hungry. In my opinion, the easier problem to solve.


https://www.wcvb.com/article/covid-19-s ... /39600998#
Since then, different countries have used different vaccines and have had different successes with vaccination campaigns. There's also a different level of immunity among populations in different regions. All of that affects the trajectory of COVID-19 cases.

...

With the highly contagious omicron variant, lockdowns can't totally stop the growth in cases, but the strategy has helped, experts say.

Let's discuss in a month the relative merit of the approaches.

Lightsaber

US officially warns against travel to China:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-warns ... 00314.html

The United States has warned Americans thinking of travelling to China that they may be subject to "arbitrary" local law enforcement and Covid-19 restrictions.

"Do not travel to the PRC [People's Republic of China]'s Hong Kong special administrative region, Jilin province and Shanghai municipality due to Covid-19-related restrictions, including the risk of parents and children being separated," the travel alert released by the US Department of State on Friday said.


There is also a Level 1 health travel advisory for China. The arbitrary label on laws is interesting, a full read of the article is needed to understand this. In my opinion, shutting down consular services is the most concerning aspect.

The problem is, with state controlled media, we'll never know the true coronavirus situation. There is a reason for opposition press.

Lightsaber

Things seem to be getting really out of control in Shanghai. Video of the “white suits” beating someone who broke lockdown protocol.

https://twitter.com/chuangcn/status/151 ... AY4Hz4CfIA

I know some people living in Shanghai and they say the situation is awful. Food shortages are a real issue and there is just a lot of pent up anger over how this was all handled.

One friend living there suspected that they were going to lockdown the whole city, so she went to Wuhan to stay with her parents. Judging from her WeChat, she’s free to roam around as the situation isn’t bad there.

Taiwan is going away from Zero-Covid:
https://news.yahoo.com/taiwan-move-away ... 59727.html

578 new cases, unfortunately one death in the Island nation:
https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/272 ... -one-death

leader1 wrote:

Things seem to be getting really out of control in Shanghai. Video of the “white suits” beating someone who broke lockdown protocol.

https://twitter.com/chuangcn/status/151 ... AY4Hz4CfIA

I know some people living in Shanghai and they say the situation is awful. Food shortages are a real issue and there is just a lot of pent up anger over how this was all handled.

One friend living there suspected that they were going to lockdown the whole city, so she went to Wuhan to stay with her parents. Judging from her WeChat, she’s free to roam around as the situation isn’t bad there.

Protests are starting:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ch ... NewsSearch
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ch ... NewsSearch

Its late, but they are trying to improve food distribution:
https://news.yahoo.com/china-slams-us-v ... 30599.html

I cannot imagine. Every morning I wake up because I am starving. Right now I have the luxury of a selection of options to meet my needs. I couldn't imagine waking up and not being able to feed children due to bureaucratic blunder. It is impossible to forget real hunger, I'm not sure what is going on. This makes zero sense to me now that we have vaccines.

Lightsaber

lightsaber wrote:

Taiwan is going away from Zero-Covid:
https://news.yahoo.com/taiwan-move-away ... 59727.html

578 new cases, unfortunately one death in the Island nation:
https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/272 ... -one-death

https://m.commonhealth.com.tw/article/85966
Note that this is also pretty much planned, as weeks ago they mentioned the quarantine period will be gradually shorten if there are no significant changes to pandemic situation after each shortening. Of course it is not possible to open up without more and more cases, but then the question become to which extent will they follow through the plan or how large an outbreak can they accept while following through this opening up plan.

https://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/21992439/
New corona medicine in Japan, undergoing approval process, found to be teratogenic against infants in animal experiment, causing malformed babies, and thus will not be recommend to pregnant people.

Do not post more than two paragraphs from a link as that can be copywrite infringement.

“White coats” taking it to another level to get someone isolated.

https://twitter.com/fangshimin/status/1 ... QnOPZ56KdQ

https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202204130397.aspx
Chinese media published a total of six articles in the past week to argue covid-zero is *the* scientific choice in the fight against coronavirus.

Mask mandate on planes is extended until May 3rd

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna24231

c933103 wrote:

https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202204130397.aspx
Chinese media published a total of six articles in the past week to argue covid-zero is *the* scientific choice in the fight against coronavirus.

Covid Zero was undoubtedly the best strategy healthwise and economically for most of the last two years.
But it never was really viable for any length of time for most countries as the practicalities of closing the borders to people crossing were just too high.
It remained very viable though, for some, mainly Pacific Rim and Pacific Island countries until they had achieved high vaccination rates. These that massively reduced the consequences of infection, vastly changing the social and economic cost benifit equation. Also the increasing infectiousness of the latest varients, combined with pressures to open the borders became just too challenging, for zero covid to be viable any longer, let alone be actually achievable. What remains to be seen is what residual protection layers will remain, such as any compulsory notification and isolation of infected peoples.

China is a special case though. They do not place anywhere near the same importance on open borders prevalent most everywhere else.
Tightly controlled borders may well align with a desire to reduce any unwelcomed scrutiny.

Toenga wrote:

Covid Zero was undoubtedly the best strategy healthwise and economically for most of the last two years.
But it never was really viable for any length of time for most countries as the practicalities of closing the borders to people crossing were just too high.
It remained very viable though, for some, mainly Pacific Rim and Pacific Island countries until they had achieved high vaccination rates. These that massively reduced the consequences of infection, vastly changing the social and economic cost benifit equation. Also the increasing infectiousness of the latest varients, combined with pressures to open the borders became just too challenging, for zero covid to be viable any longer, let alone be actually achievable. What remains to be seen is what residual protection layers will remain, such as any compulsory notification and isolation of infected peoples.

Pre-vaccines, lockdowns (zero-covid) was an effective strategy. As you note, the vaccines change the cost/benefit balance dramatically. What was a costly, but lifesaving measure is now far too costly for the few benefits. I'd say masks help, but I think too many are fed up with them (however, I notice almost half the women going out dancing still wear them, it is the cost/benefit.).

With vaccine supply far greater than demand, there is no longer a need for lockdowns. Concerned? Boost. Require boosters if that concerned.
"Since mid-2021, global vaccine production has exceeded global vaccine demand and this gap has continuously risen," Cueni told AFP.

By next year, production could exceed demand by 1.3 to 3.1 billion doses, he added.

Many richer nations are now approaching oversupply. European Union (EU) and Group of Seven (G7) countries had a surplus of 497 million doses at the end of last month.

https://theaseanpost.com/geopolitics/20 ... ips-demand

It is time to travel again (this is an aviation blog). I'm not going to think twice about any destination with even a 1% chance of a lockdown or quarantine.

Lightsaber

https://twitter.com/Jerry00107966/statu ... 7040251907
https://twitter.com/LongShao1/status/15 ... 7432354822

Thwre are now report that claim, the government in Shanghai are evicting people from their homes for the purpose of quarantining infected people

Cases in Shanghai hit record:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/sh ... d=84052348

Cases in Shanghai surged on Wednesday to another record high of 26,330, of which just 1,190 were symptomatic. There is no end in sight to the lockdown, despite there being no official deaths reported.

That is an amazing ratio of asymptomatic to symptomatic, 22:1.

Business in China now has a known quantifiable risk (lockdown). Orders will adjust (alternative suppliers must be found). This will be a fascinating business case study.

Lightsaber

lightsaber wrote:

Business in China now has a known quantifiable risk (lockdown). Orders will adjust (alternative suppliers must be found). This will be a fascinating business case study.

Lightsaber

A case study usually requires real data and cooperation from the aforementioned.

santi319 wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

Business in China now has a known quantifiable risk (lockdown). Orders will adjust (alternative suppliers must be found). This will be a fascinating business case study.

Lightsaber

A case study usually requires real data and cooperation from the aforementioned.

Business case studies will have no trouble interviewing companies and there responses. The order history frim a dozen companies or even two or three major players in a few industries is sufficient.

This has added a cost to business in China that can easily be quantified when we look back at the data.

The lack of serious cases and poor food distribution continues. So it is obvious this is impacting business. I assume you have read "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman? It does an excellent job on describing the economics of outsourcing and trade.
A link on the lack of serious cases and continuing food issues (some violence as hungry people will):
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-61117528.amp


Lightsaber

lightsaber wrote:

Cases in Shanghai hit record:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/sh ... d=84052348

Cases in Shanghai surged on Wednesday to another record high of 26,330, of which just 1,190 were symptomatic. There is no end in sight to the lockdown, despite there being no official deaths reported.

That is an amazing ratio of asymptomatic to symptomatic, 22:1.

Business in China now has a known quantifiable risk (lockdown). Orders will adjust (alternative suppliers must be found). This will be a fascinating business case study.

Lightsaber

1. In fact the official case number have been at ~20k for quite sometimes (see figures in past posts). The number isn't decreasing but it is not like a rapid exponential growth either.

A few days ago read an opinion somewhere that mentioned in the context of Taiwan that, if strong preventive measure against the virus across the society is maintained throughout the outbreak across the ebtire society, in the course of converting to the live with virus path, the risk of medical facility capacity overflow could be minimized, yet as the virus spread slower, doubling time increase, that could also mean the entire society need longer time before the first infection peak can be overcome and to progress toward normal.

With Shanghai, I am wondering whether that opinion is actually in play in the city. 20K+ people infected is record high number there, but is still small count in the city of 20M+ population. It might take a long time before the trend reverse, longer than what people in other countries experienced.

Also, from another perspective, such count mean Shanghai government now officially missed their original 2-weeks situation clear prediction.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/sha ... 022-04-08/

Also this is what the private market in Shanghai now is looking like, when government delivery aren't reaching most people on time and individual citizens can't just go out and buy what they want

Good to hear food distribution is improving.

I now have tested positive for Covid19. Despite double boosted (mix of 3 Pfizer + 1 Moderna 17 days ago). Mild, with chills.

Perhaps going to a pub with 30 coworkers was a bad idea? Naaaa It wasn't that crowded, perhaps 150 people total.

Lightsaber

Maersk is stopping delivering refer containers to Shanghai due to the delays:
https://gcaptain.com/maersk-says-no-to- ... h-exports/


Well, that cannot be good.

lightsaber wrote:

Good to hear food distribution is improving.

My post from yesterday isn't a new development. In fact have been pretty widespread starting back from the first few days of the lockdown, and is also part of the dissatisfaction.
The situation also varies widely between different communes, locations, buildings, and individuals.
From what I gathered, now the logistic fee is much higher than regular times due to limited amount of people and vehicles being qualified for transporting goods, as only people and vehicles who have a "pass" can travel through lockdown barriers, so the transportation capacity become a very scarce resources and very expensive. Like I have heard figures of a truck with pass costing minimum 10000 USD a day to rent. So these "buying groups" formed among citizens to try to gather enough quantity of demand and to pay for the money that can allow the transportation of goods of such capacity into their building. But due to such expensive transportation cost, which includes both the transportation from outside sources to shops and from shops to individual buying groups, without mentioning possible extra profits earned between each of these layers, while the exact cost varies widely between individuals but the total price individual pay ultimately costing multiple fold or an order of magnitude more than usual price and still increasing day to day is nothing unusual. Quality of the delivery are also something hard to guarantee amid the situation.
And supply is still scarce even with such price tag so they aren't stable. It depends on individual leader of each "buying groups" to reach out to different suppliers, get the connection and arrange the transportation. This also directly dictate the amount of supply and cost of supply that each group can receive. Those who have excellent arrangement and connections can even get themselves some KFC fried chicken. Yet vast majority are not.
Then there is also the barrier of joining these groups. Some of the groups are relatively active and willing to help others and can help elderly who don't use smartphone to join, but others are not so fortunate. And then there are also some who simply live in a building with too few residents that they cannot gather enough amount of demand to ask for transportation, or that residents in a particular building do not have someone who are quite as capable in finding the proper private channels to source their supply. And amid the existence of private group buying channels, these people who aren't able to participate in such groups become further neglected and marginalized.

https://www.jiji.com/jc/article?k=2022041600103&g=soc
Rural Japan are now seeing their corona case count hitting record high and claim they are in a 7th infection wave, with possibility of medical capacity shortage, however major cities and past outbreak hotspots are relatively flat in infection count, thus the national number aren't reflecting rural area experience.

The Shanghai lockdown continues to create food shortages, particularly for the non-tech savy (elderly):
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/04/19/chin ... index.html

Considering I was a meeting last week with 70 people of which 34 or 35 caught Covid19 with proof of vaccination required to enter the building and no one had symptoms prior to the meeting... This will be a long haul.

I had 4 days of fever.

Lightsaber

https://www.nikkansports.com/general/ni ... l?mode=all
https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASQ4N6RSTQ4NUTFL018.html
Leader of Japan Medical Association said, in Japan, time to take off masks is when the pandemic end, and that he don't think there will be time when masks are to be taken off in Japan while the society is still living with the virus.

Philadelphia to end mask mandate a mere 4 days after reimplementing it earlier this week

https://twitter.com/electionwiz/status/ ... VHheZoxAig

https://hk.news.yahoo.com/%E9%9D%9E%E6% ... 20425.html


Hong Kong government say they will open up to foreign people.
Starting from May 1, non-citizens will be allowed to enter Hong Kong, and the quarantine they will face will be same as citizens.
Which mean 14 days for all, but vaccinated travellers can get the quarantine shortened to 7 days if tested negative, although they will still need to monitor their own health for 7 days after that.

Punishment against airlines also get relaxed
The 7-days flight ban will now be shortened to 5-days, in case violation have been found or too much passengers have been found to be infected
The triggering threshold for the punishment have also been relaxed, now the criteria is 5 person on a plane infected or 5% passengers, as opposed to the old 3 passengers criteria.

Here is an update on origins of the virus. What is interesting to me is that this is the first article which credibly suggests the outbreak may have begun as early as September. It also discusses at length the Chinese researcher who seems to have been the first to sequence the virus. She was effectively shushed for months.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... p_opinions

Texas sues to block Biden administration from lifting Title 42, a pandemic-era health rule used to expel migrants

Texas has led the legal fight against the Biden administration’s immigration policies, filing numerous lawsuits that have led to judges overturning or altering those policies.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/22 ... 2-lawsuit/

U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials have said they expect immigration authorities to have up to 18,000 encounters a day with immigrants at the border once Title 42 removals stop. The current average is about 6,000 encounters a day.