Corona-zona

This appears to be cave-in weekend for authoritarians around the world. First, Iran's attorney general announced it would abolish its "morality police." Then China announced it was going to back off its zero-COVID policy. It doesn't appear that all restrictions are being lifted everywhere. Instead the plan is to make the policy "more targeted and less onerous." Still the reversal seems significant, with restrictions—including the requirement to test negative before venturing anywhere in public—being lifted in most major cities. The authorities are spinning this as evidence of a "win" of sorts. The idea is that China weathered the Delta storm and can now relax because the Omicron variant is less deadly.  That is pretty much hogwash, a ccording to Linda Bauld , professor of public health at Edinburgh University: “With Omicron, certainly from the studies [so far], there may be some small reduction in disease severity but not a huge one.” It's g...

Yesterday's New York Times had a  story about people circumventing U.S. restrictions on testing for people traveling home from abroad. They are exploiting a loophole in the laws that requires tests for people entering the country by air but not by land.  So people who go abroad and test positive change their flights to arrive in Canada or Mexico then drive across the border. Because they have, y'know, shit to do ! One woman at least gave some consideration to her state of health and whether she might be infectious, but ultimately said she didn't follow the rules because she thought they were dumb: I had zero symptoms, no fever, nothing. I felt fine and when you’re stateside, the C.D.C. says you can end isolation five days after testing positive, so the same rules should apply when I’m traveling. It makes no sense that I can go to a wedding five days after a positive test in Miami, but if I catch the virus when I’m on vacation I can’t fly home. That should be illegal. She ...

  On one hand, Governor and Florida Man in Chief Ron DeSantis badly wants cruise ships to resume service in Florida. On the other hand, he has done the one thing that would allow that to happen.  He banned cruise lines from requiring passengers to be vaccinated.  As pointed out in a Washington Post article on the subject (paywall link), the second part is all for show.  A lawyer quoted in the article called it  Political grandstanding 100 percent.  This is not driven from a motivation of safety.  If the motivation were safety, you would say, "of course everyone has to be vaccinated." It's kowtowing to a small minority that are really a vocal base for him. Specifically it's the base whose members call the disease fake and are free-riding off the rest of us who have gotten our vaccinations. God forbid there should be any consequence that would threaten their God-given right to be stupid.  DeSantis likes poking the federal government, in this case t...

Today the CDC released new guidance for travel for fully vaccinated people. There are recommendations for both domestic and international travel. For domestic travel they say: Fully vaccinated people can travel within the United States and do not need COVID-19 testing or post-travel self-quarantine as long as they continue to take COVID-19 precautions while traveling – wearing a mask, avoiding crowds, socially distancing, and washing hands frequently.  For international travel, fully vaccinated people don't need testing before departing (unless required by the destination country) and do not need to quarantine after returning to the US. They do need to be tested 3-5 days before their return flight and 3-5 days after returning, and are required to take standard precautions while traveling. However, in a statement during a White House briefing today, CDC Director Rachel Walensky hedged, saying  "We haven't changed our guidance for nonessential travel at all. We are not reco...

With more demand for vaccine than supply, people are trying to go where the vaccine is to get their immunization. The hotspot was Florida, where they would apparently jab anyone who walked up.  Reports are that 37,000 non-residents traveled to Florida got shots before the state noticed the problem and established a residency requirement . I tried to find out if Arizona has a residency requirement for vaccinations by calling their help line at 844-542-8201. Suffice it to say that this system is not designed to allow you to actually ask a human a question (more about that in an upcoming post). So I don't know if Arizona is a possible vaccine tourism destination or not. Of course, if you're rich you have options. For $55K, an outfit called Knightsbridge Circle will fly you to Dubai in style, get you a shot, and put you up for 30 days while you wait for your booster.   I read about another swanky travel company promoting a similar package but with a vacation to an exot...