Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

Never been on a cruise. Never really had much desire to go. But the Outlaw Country cruise sounds awesome (you know, once we are past the whole “downslope of a worldwide plague” bit.)

 

When my parents were around my age years ago, they'd go on a cruise after Christmas. Did it 2-3 years. Came home sick each time. This is 30 years before coronavirus. I'm never getting on one.

 

Three days after my aunt's funeral, 500 unmasked people, I've got a runny nose and a slight scratchy cough. I'm fully vaxxed and I presume 98% of everybody at the funeral was fully vaxxed, but still I'm a little nervous.
No fever and no loss of taste/smell, so who knows. Probably just a cold.

 

We went on a cruise in February 2020, about three weeks before the world shut down. Even with heightened cleaning measures -- there were signs every five feet reminding you to wash your hands, it seemed -- I still came home with strep throat. Knowing what we know now about the coronavirus, I'm going to guess it was prevalent on that ship, too, but somehow none of us had symptoms.

 

We were frequent cruisers when my kid was young, and somehow we managed to never get sick.

 

We're tired of Covid! We're done with it!

It's not done with us. If it affects nothing else, this will continue the supply chain difficulties - but it won't affect nothing else.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/14/china-covid-coronavirus-lockdown-jilin-shenzen/


As China’s covid outbreak expands, whole cities and provinces are sealed off and key industries closed


"China has put several of its industrial hubs under lockdown to confront its worst coronavirus outbreak in two years, restricting the movement of tens of millions of residents in measures that threaten to disrupt global supply chains.


China, one of the few countries in the world to maintain a “zero-covid” strategy, is battling a surge of cases in at least 19 provinces that is testing the government’s commitment to minimizing infections as much as possible.

The surge — and accompanying lockdowns that could severely harm the recovering economy — may force the country to rethink its approach to the virus as much of the world begins to ease pandemic restrictions. Hong Kong’s key Hang Seng index plummeted by 5 percent on Monday over covid worries."

 

The supply chain problems caused by Covid are going to take 10 years to fix.

 

I'm not even sure if we'll know we have another surge, short of hospitalizations. Americans are not testing anymore and if they're mildly sick they are not going to test.

 

Hospitalizations should really be the metric used anyhow.

 

I'd like to say the outbreak in China will be the end of "zero Covid", but I know better. The mainland is already doubling down on a failed strategy and its mouthpieces are going back to the well-worn line about how much worse things would be if China chose to "live with the virus" like the rest of the world. If the mainland government -- whose ability to surveil and control the populace is unrivaled -- can't keep flare-ups and outbreaks from happening, it suggests these kind of episodes will be with us for quite some time. Beijing needs to keep up appearances (at least through October's Party Congress), so I expect more of the same until unnamed official sources start floating potential checklists for moving away from "zero Covid" in friendly media.

Meanwhile, we in Hong Kong have been reminded of our place. The mainland sent Liang Wannian -- its pandemic whisperer -- and a few other experts here on February 28 to help get Hong Kong's outbreak under control. Even though things continue to be terrible and our local government bailed on plans to lock down and test all 7.5 million residents, Liang was summoned back to the mainland last week. Omicron continues to rip through nursing homes here, and a 100 percent pay increase doesn't seem to be enough to tempt mainland nurses to come to Hong Kong and fill in for the local staff who are unable to work. It seems the flailing will continue until either the situation resolves itself or the mainland government fully takes charge of Hong Kong's pandemic response and lets our officials get back to their usual routine of doing nothing to address the housing shortage and rising cost of living.