Yeah that goes to the other thing I said, namely a society not set up well to deal with this kind of crisis. Osterholm said in one of his calls, essentially, that he talked with Whitmer and she wanted to do more (think this was during the Spring wave in Michigan), but told him she wasnt willing to die for it so nah.
Also should be a lesson to the “democracy is fine what are you worried about social media brain” crowd. The wounds in democracy are already pretty deep just from the violence so far.
America, and the American attitudes they have exported, have cut the knees out from any solution that requires collective action. See health care, climate changes, etc. The only difference with COVID is that we haven’t been hearing about COVID for decades and gotten numb to it.
EU member states agree snap travel ban on seven African nations
Following talks, EU member states have agreed to bring in rapid travel restrictions on all travel into the EU from seven countries in southern Africa after the emergence of a new variant in the region.
In a tweet, the EU Commission President’s chief spokesman Eric Mamer says the countries subject to the travel ban are:
Botswana
Eswatini
Lesotho
Mozambique
Namibia
South Africa
Zimbabwe
He adds that Covid tests, quarantine and contact tracing for incoming passengers are important.
The World Health Organization says that preliminary evidence suggests that a new Covid variant carries a higher risk of reinfection than other variants.
The variant, currently known as B.1.1.529, has been identified in South Africa, Botswana, Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel.
It has designated it a variant of concern and given it the name: Omicron.
Not yet at least. BBC had South African Health Minister on the chair of the South African Medical Association on and she said that what they were seeing at this moment were “only mild cases”. Likened the current international moves as “a storm in a teacup.” Said that we didn’t know enough right now to determine any correct course of action other than vigilance and testing. Not entirely sure how much her opinion was swayed by the science (or lack thereof) and how much by not wanting to see southern Africa isolated.
Yeah, the only way around this is to lie in ways that are really transparent to competent people in the hopes of tricking the stupid people. That’s not a really fertile system for great outcomes.
His thread is good. It is really frustrating to watch news media take “we don’t know yet” into “may be more transmissible” and “may escape vaccines” which, while technically true, they don’t give any lip service to the alternatives, so everyone perceives panic.
Because prior recent infection by delta not conferring any immunity whatsoever against Omicron is really really really really really really really unlikely.