Talk About Tennis 2.0

I think that is setting up for a rude awakening.
New variants which evade current vaccine protection could pop up at any time.

Particularly in parts of the world that have a cold winter, where people congregate inside much more, it would be much wiser to be safe than to be sorry. That goes for government restrictions as well as individual precautions.

Deuce wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 7:59 pm I think that is setting up for a rude awakening.
New variants which evade current vaccine protection could pop up at any time.

Particularly in parts of the world that have a cold winter, where people congregate inside much more, it would be much wiser to be safe than to be sorry. That goes for government restrictions as well as individual precautions.

And your advice would be? These restrictions are not sustainable forever. Even Swiss government will eventually run out of money supporting people who can't work.

My advice would be to be much more cautious than the U.S. is being right now.
Wearing masks, avoiding close contact with others, working from home whenever possible, etc.

If it's a choice between the protecting the economy and protecting people from severe illness and death due to the virus, I'll choose saving lives.

The human tendency is to be arrogant with these things. As in 'Oh, we've got this virus under control'. Such arrogance has a price.s
People are pretending that the virus is under control so that they can do unimportant, trivial things like go to movies and hockey games and have parties. People are very spoiled today. This virus should be a wake-up call to all of us, and remind us of what is truly important in life.

The Delta variant is worrying. I wear my mask outdoors and if not at home indoors as well.

For me and you it's just a party, for lots of others it's a job which feeds their family...

Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 7:55 pm One could believe or not, but soon time to relax most rules. I think in Switzerland there will be no more restrictions by August. Except probably masks in public transport.

That's mostly what's going on in many places here. Public transport, schools, and medical offices and hospitals are the main places that will likely continue to require masks. But we've had many states of varying vaccination levels loosen restrictions in the last two or so months and have seen consistent sharp decline in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths almost everywhere despite people socializing in person more and more often. There's plenty of reason for optimism of how much difference the vaccine makes even when we aren't at traditional herd immunity levels. In most respects, it's the best case scenario we were all hoping for.

Suliso wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 8:17 pm For me and you it's just a party, for lots of others it's a job which feeds their family...

... and ends up killing people.
Not justifiable in my eyes.

In the U.S., people are behaving like if they stand up to the virus and/or ignore it, the virus will back down and admit defeat. They are treating the virus as if it’s a bully, and can be defeated in the same manner.
Not so.

I should have my vaccine certificate valid by August 1st. Looking forward to a vacation somewhere, just need to think where exactly.

I said "a bit of optimism". We all are in agreement that this is not over.
We all agree that proper measures should still be in place.
But we also talked about this last year. What would happen if a vaccine would never be developed? Locked in forever?
One consequence from the vaccine, at least for me. Colombia's turmoil is directly related to the economy. So, the vaccine will be an indirect reason why Colombia will veer to the left in 2022.
We said it too. Staying locked in also carried consequences.

I had a Teams meeting with a few colleagues today at 3 p.m. The most important person needed in the meeting (she's leading the proposal) showed up 5 minutes late--and didn't quite seem like her usual self. Halfway through our discussion, she burst into tears.

It turned out she had just received word that her cousin (from the American Indian side of her family) had just died from COVID. She has lost several family members from that side of the family to COVID.

I told her this meeting could wait. But she wanted to continue because she felt like she "needed the distraction"...

So, yeah... It's not behind us yet.

This is what happens when you trust Chinese vaccines not approved anywhere in the West... Somehow this stupid BBC article fails to mention that!


Covid-19 pandemic: Chile capital locks down despite mass vaccination

Chile has announced a lockdown in the capital Santiago amid rising Covid cases, despite nearly 60% of the country being fully vaccinated.

More than eight million residents living in and around the capital now must stay at home from Saturday.

On Thursday, Chile reported 7,716 new daily cases, with the vast majority of infections being among those who had not been fully vaccinated.

Intensive care beds are nearing full capacity, health officials warn.

Jose Luis Espinoza, the president of Chile's National Federation of Nursing Association, says his members are "on the verge of collapse", Reuters reports.

About 58% of the country's 17.5 million people have been fully vaccinated, and as many as 75% have received at least one vaccine dose.

But critics have accused the government of getting caught up in triumphalism over the vaccine rollout and of having loosened coronavirus restrictions too fast.

Chile's borders had been closed from March to November 2020. But after a strict lockdown had driven infections down, the decision was taken to reopen them.

Chileans were also given special holiday permits to travel more freely around the country during the southern hemisphere summer holidays.

Restaurants, shops, and holiday resorts were opened up to kickstart the faltering economy.

Chile has had nearly 1.5 million infections since the pandemic began, with more than 30,000 Covid-related deaths, according to America's Johns Hopkins university.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57436861

Suliso wrote: ↑Fri Jun 11, 2021 10:25 am This is what happens when you trust Chinese vaccines not approved anywhere in the West... Somehow this stupid BBC article fails to mention that!


Covid-19 pandemic: Chile capital locks down despite mass vaccination

...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57436861

That is what scares me about Colombia. Although we are getting some Pfizer now, the bulk of the vaccination has been with Chinese vaccines. So, in reality the population is barely protected, and the group most at risk are the elderly that were vaccinated earlier with Sinovax and Sinopharm.
Then, yesterday my GF got a tweet about some Pfizer vaccines about to expire because the logistics could not get them into arms.
And people then wonder why I so totally dislike my countries. We are such a mess.

I'm afraid most of those people will need to be revaccinated with better working vaccines. Not sure if there is any real difference between the two Chinese vaccines.

Suliso wrote: ↑Fri Jun 11, 2021 10:25 am This is what happens when you trust Chinese vaccines not approved anywhere in the West... Somehow this stupid BBC article fails to mention that!

Insane not to mention the Chinese vaccines. At the end of the article there's a related story on Chile vaccination success and in mid-April at least, 93% of the vaccines given in Chile were Sinovac (also called CoronaVac apparently). So, I'm definitely questioning why there is no mention in the article you posted.

I'm curious if Argentina doing a little better (not by much) is related to using more of the Sputnik vaccine or some other factor.

Things are getting really bad in Russia again (and there is lots of anecdotal evidence from Russian doctors of the virus growing more resistant to treatment). But it's not because of the quality of the vaccines but because of very low rates of vaccination.