Pretty awesome by these ppl. We pulled masks off weeks before delta surged everywhere and were late to put them back on. Now with a new variant breaking the dumbass media is stirring the pot
Embarrassed to say, it’s going to take a minute for me to see “omicron” and not think “omarion” the guy from B2K
Denver reimplemented a mask mandate but I’m pretty sure if a business verifies vax status then they aren’t required. Have a feeling it won’t be enforced too tightly at a majority of the busy bars
wow that’s embarrassing to admit you don’t understand these tweets. I’m a little busy at the moment, but could one of the other posters explain this very simple information to shaolin5?
The US effectively banned travel for 20 months from March 2020 to their biggest trading partners. It took months to remove the bans despite those partners being highly vaccinated and safe. Travel bans are a big deal, including to the third world. There’s actually a reason why the WHO were always reluctant on travel bans always- they tend to victimise developing countries. With Covid we are going to see variants for years and third world countries could find themselves cut off as they are more susceptible to them. The worst case scenario on this variant is that it reduces the impact of reducing symptomatic infection at this point. The virus was endemic from February 2020, travel bans beyond then were destructive for most countries and will continue to be so.
Love pushing anti-masker pseudointellectuals. O’Riner never disappoints. Stop ruining the goodish name of the Irish people.
Peoples lack of nuance never ceases to amaze Jay Jay a Riner is not still often a moron, but there’s no reason to shut this down with no debate
The issue is that they are weeks behind the curve. The earliest indications on this variant is that it emerged in early October and check out the suggested Ro figure- we think that near December is good enough? Travel bans/restrictions will likely become the order of the day with novel viruses in future but given what we know about this Coronovirus they were largely irrelevant except for a small subsect of countries beyond February 2020. I am all about relative pain here, we can all agree that a few weeks or a couple of months of shutdowns would be nice if they actually worked. It’s easy to sit at home on the couch and say yes to a travel ban but the repercussions of that go well beyond that. If you are actually liberally minded you should stop and pause about the implications of these things. Lots of noise was made on Delta in the U.K. and stopping Indians travelling but it was entirely irrelevant once the problem had become clear. The best thing we can all do is lobby for more vaccines for poor countries so it is less likely that immune escape variants emerge and crucially that actually at risk lives are saved.
The vaccines work! This is time to get the message out, not get scared. Vaccines this effective and this early for Covid is one of man’s great achievements of the last century.
Hopefully Pfizer and Moderna are doing lots of lab work on how much the boosters provide protection from blood samples they've collected. I'm going to guess a variant with this many mutations will likely break through just as much as Delta has on two-dose vaccinated people 6+ months out.
Yet more reason we need everyone to get their shots before we get one of these that evades the vaccines
You're not inherently wrong with anything you're saying here. Actual travel bans earlier in the game could have worked to minimize the pain. Cat's certainly out of the bag now. Anything travel-related that doesn't include strict quarantine + repeated testing + legitimate contact tracing is pissing into the wind at this point.
^ Last sentence is why the US will never control any of these variants. We have the technology, but not the will.
Yeah, once it was in the States, it was game over. And essentially renders our giant military dick worthless.
We had hotel quarantine + repeated testing and it was pissing into the wind. I refer again to a paper drawn up by U.K. SAGE which stated without the absolute closure of U.K. borders to include international trade- travel restrictions would be irrelevant. The issue here is our failure as rich countries to allow proper access to vaccines. That isn’t an issue with Pfizer or Big Pharma, that’s down to us as voters and our Governments who have collectively horded vaccines.
The US is blessed somewhat by geography but this is a nonsense. There is no genuine western trading country that is keeping Covid variants out without being tiny and isolated or being China. This race was done in February 2020.
It's just insane to see all the vaccines we've wasted here and stats that South Africa has only vaccinated 25% or so. They're being as open as any govenment in the world about the variant with great research, the anti-vax sentiment here is just straight insanity.
Western governments are largely incompetent. They horded vaccines for months but booster rates are still largely mediocre, despite all of them knowing that winter was coming.
That was after you had community spread. If it's already there, sure, it doesn't matter much, but if you're in the valley, that's precisely the time to clamp down on outside pressures. But myopic idiots like you don't get that this isn't a Laffer curve we're dealing with.
Jay Jay still bitching about travel bans is as guaranteed as the USA not taking any of this as serious as we should.
Beyond Feb 2020 it was irrelevant, I stick to this point. The countries that practised hard core travel restrictions and were Western were NZ and Australia. Two countries with 25m crammed in an area significant larger than Europe or the United States and had no external borders shared with other countries. Both still dozens of outbreaks. Travel restrictions are irrelevant. Again use the head. This variant was there in early October. It was detected in Hong Kong and Belgium within hours of first being disclosed. And you think contact tracing will stop it? This is focusing on issues that are irrelevant. Vaccines vaccines vaccines.
I’m an actual liberal so forgive me for sticking to principles. Again, if banning travel from South Africa and surrounding countries showed any evidence of stopping variants before then I might be of another opinion. Instead all these easy solution western bans will do is damage the poorest in those countries whilst the rest of us sit on unused vaccine doses.
You've been focused on issues that are irrelevant since you first graced us with your presence itt. We're not just going to give you a pat on the head for promoting vaccination now that it most aligns with your own personal interests. And yes, mass testing + contact tracing + active response to positives works quite well in minimizing spread when these things are in place from the jump/before community spread overwhelms. This isn't either/or calculus with vaccination and mitigation. It's yes and yes, but the latter hurts your pocketbook, so you won't have it.
This thread is about COVID-19. In recent days a new variant has emerged and several large western countries have imposed travel bans. I put forward my view that these are largely irrelevant based on what has happened with all other travel bans and that the solution is to give the developing world vaccines. Do you have anything substantive to add or are you just going to say something is tiresome when you yourself choose to read the topics of the day in this thread? Do you have anything of value to add?
Nyt reporter. I dont know, it seems a little premature to let her fly to toronto so soon after one neg test and having had that much purported exposure.
No evidence for that except for Australia and New Zealand. Two places that are basically islands on the middle of nowhere. We tried to ban travel from the U.K because of alpha. We tried Hotel Quarantine to stop P1, Delta etc. We were weeks behind because genomic sequencing will never been quick enough. What “irrelevant” issues would you like to identify me with? I was a big believer in HEPA filters and ventilation, however I don’t see them nearly as important in the age of vaccines and living with the virus. I see how effective vaccines are and I am a big believer in them. I actually made post on this thread several months ago saying how we could dose every adult in the world if we wanted to and now this would save lives and help stop variants. How did that go?
Let he who has not posted Berenson tweets complain about substance and value brought to the conversation.
NZ is a few islands in the middle of nowhere. It primarily trades via container ships and does not have land borders or RORO trade. Trying to compare to countries with external borders and masses of oceans is dumb. Fun fact, in Australia the city Perth (Western Australia with similar deaths to NZ) is further away from Sydney than London is to Moscow. We are talking about some of the most isolated countries in the world here. https://www.virtualoceania.net/australia/maps/how-big-is-australia.shtml
You're incorrect, though your use of "that" could be more imprecise than what I am assuming it to mean (effectiveness of mitigation actions like mass testing + contact tracing + active response/quarantine).
What is disingenuous? I am pro vaccine and think we should flood the third world with them instead of cutting them off. What is your opinion here?
They are two of the most isolated countries in the world. The only reason that we give attention to them is because they are in the Anglosphere. Take a look at Melbourne. They were locked down longer than any city on earth. They tried and tried for Zero Covid. They had closed borders and every advantage that US and European cities did not have. But still were locked down longer. The fools gold was set by those countries, with idiots ignorant of geography and basic trade trying to cite them as achievable since. There is a reason why islands like Iceland and Malta in Europe called it unachievable.