Like Tree230Likes

December 2021: Global Covid News

Closed Thread
Page 4 of 23 FirstFirst 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 12 ... LastLast
  1. #31

    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    Taiwan and HK
    Posts
    6,158

    Covid aboard a cruise ship? How could that happen?

    10 positive cases, 3000 passengers- yup, gonna test them all, see what they find.

    Turns out cruises may still be a bad idea in a pandemic, who would've thought it?!?

    https://www.reuters.com/business/hea...ns-2021-12-05/

    Last edited by MABinPengChau; 05-12-2021 at 11:13 PM.
    JAherbert likes this.

  2. #32

    Join Date
    Mar 2021
    Posts
    232
    Quote Originally Posted by ByeByeEngland:
    So here we are pretty much two years in. WHO calls it a variant of concern, then pretty much in the next breath says no need to panic and start restricting travel etc. Countries that decided they can live with Covid are pretty much falling like dominoes and saying ok maybe we can’t. Local restrictions are increasing, international travel restrictions are creeping in.

    How can we end this madness? Surely the Covid scientists of this world can come up with some international and neutral consensus? If the symptoms of the new variant are mild, as current reports seem to indicate, what’s the panic.

    Yours, frustrated in HK. 2027, this message succeeded in not being blocked without a VPN
    A bit dramatic. A new variant that seems to be more transmissible. Not much known about it. A slight tightening of restrictions as a result. The rest of the world is certainly more logical about it than HK. If it does prove to be mild, one would presume they'd loosen restrictions. It's how its going to be for a while to come. I hope this variant is mild and transmits well, time will tell. PS, i dont think anyone takes anything the WHO says seriously. We have been told before covid wasnt an issue by them.
    Last edited by Blowfish; 05-12-2021 at 11:55 PM.

  3. #33

    Join Date
    May 2011
    Location
    Sai Kung
    Posts
    5,003
    Quote Originally Posted by Blowfish:
    A bit dramatic. A new variant that seems to be more transmissible. Not much known about it. A slight tightening of restrictions as a result. The rest of the world is certainly more logical about it than HK. If it does prove to be mild, one would presume they'd loosen restrictions. It's how its going to be for a while to come. I hope this variant is mild and transmits well, time will tell. PS, i dont think anyone takes anything the WHO says seriously. We have been told before covid wasnt an issue by them.
    I totally get your point but HK has now dug itself into a corner and instead of looking for a rope or ladder out continues to dig. It has two policy statements on this.

    1) Confirmation that the new strain exists in a country = Cat A. They’ve followed through on this. What are they going to do when it is confirmed to exist in China? Continue miraculous exemptions?

    2) confirmation of community transmission in a country = 7 days PB plus 14 day hotel. It doesn’t have the capacity to cope with the inevitable. What next? The sensible thing would be to backtrack and revert to the already unnecessary 21 days. My suspicion is they’ll do something stupid and go for 28 days quarantine.

    What is dramatic is the effect this is continuing to have not just on the lives of the travellers. Airlines are now pulling out. Pilots are now ‘going sick’ for Christmas. Cargo flights are being cut. That’s not dramatic that’s fact.

  4. #34

    Join Date
    Oct 2021
    Posts
    638
    Quote Originally Posted by ByeByeEngland:
    1) Confirmation that the new strain exists in a country = Cat A. They’ve followed through on this. What are they going to do when it is confirmed to exist in China? Continue miraculous exemptions?
    It was certainly a good call against Australia. Omicron is now transmitting through the community in Sydney and has grown to dozens of cases within a week. Two schools have been confirmed as venues of transmission.

    As for China, as long as they continue with their zero-tolerance against Covid cases then even if Omicron gets in it will just get stamped out like Delta has been over the past six months. And if China abandons Zero-Covid then surely Hong Kong will follow.

  5. #35

    Join Date
    Mar 2021
    Posts
    232
    Quote Originally Posted by ByeByeEngland:
    I totally get your point but HK has now dug itself into a corner and instead of looking for a rope or ladder out continues to dig. It has two policy statements on this.

    1) Confirmation that the new strain exists in a country = Cat A. They’ve followed through on this. What are they going to do when it is confirmed to exist in China? Continue miraculous exemptions?

    2) confirmation of community transmission in a country = 7 days PB plus 14 day hotel. It doesn’t have the capacity to cope with the inevitable. What next? The sensible thing would be to backtrack and revert to the already unnecessary 21 days. My suspicion is they’ll do something stupid and go for 28 days quarantine.

    What is dramatic is the effect this is continuing to have not just on the lives of the travellers. Airlines are now pulling out. Pilots are now ‘going sick’ for Christmas. Cargo flights are being cut. That’s not dramatic that’s fact.
    I 100% agree that the HK response is out of step, 21 qt is crazy. If i was an airline, i would have stopped flying into hk a long long time ago. It has been clear HK has wanted to increase qt as well, this is the perfect cover for it.

    My comment was more aimed at the reference to other countries reintroducing minor restrictions. Imo they are justified and reasonable.

    Btw im far from convinced that the border with china will open any time soon in a meaningful way, so the govt wont have the dilemma of dealing with cases from up north!

  6. #36

    Join Date
    Aug 2020
    Posts
    535
    Quote Originally Posted by Blowfish:
    Btw im far from convinced that the border with china will open any time soon in a meaningful way, so the govt wont have the dilemma of dealing with cases from up north!
    And if they do, they'll blame in on pesky westerners instead

  7. #37

    Join Date
    Oct 2021
    Posts
    638
    Quote Originally Posted by Blowfish:
    Btw im far from convinced that the border with china will open any time soon in a meaningful way, so the govt wont have the dilemma of dealing with cases from up north!
    I can't believe there are still people here who don't know that the border has been open *to* China since April. Only the border from HK to China is closed, not the other way around.

  8. #38

    Join Date
    May 2013
    Location
    West of the sun
    Posts
    2,549

    Meanwhile here's the latest spike in South Africa.

    MABinPengChau likes this.

  9. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by qhank:
    I can't believe there are still people here who don't know that the border has been open *to* China since April. Only the border from HK to China is closed, not the other way around.
    Yeah right and that's why you can see hordes of mainlanders in TST every week-end with their suitcases like in the pre-covid days

    Yes we know technically mainlanders can come to HK with the come2hk scheme but that's only a very small quota of people everyday and has zero impact on the economy. So the reality is yes the borders are still closed for 99.9 % of mainlanders it's not possible to come to HK
    Blowfish likes this.

  10. #40

    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    Taiwan and HK
    Posts
    6,158

    Racial profiling by Japanese police? Say it isn't so!

    Japanese police checking the papers of gaijin...because we know where covid comes from...

    https://us.yahoo.com/news/us-embassy...040719375.html

    Tadashi and shri like this.

Closed Thread
Page 4 of 23 FirstFirst 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 12 ... LastLast