How Is Covid-19 Impacting Life in Your City?

[Camelback]

Gate agents don't care either. You show your results (from the hotel) and they're like whatever, you're good.

[Steely Dan]

thanks for the info guys.

checking with our resort, they offer free on-site covid tests for anyone needing them for returning to their home country.

so i guess we'll just go ahead and book it, and be sure to buy travel insurance in case shit gets all stupid again in 5 months.

[Crawford]

Ugh, that reminds me I'll be in "real" Mexico, not tourist/resort Mexico, and we generally won't be staying at tourist hotels, but rural haciendas, and an apartment building in Mexico City, meaning I might have to scramble to find a Mexican clinic to get a negative test for my family.

My in-laws nextdoor neighbor is a physician. Maybe I can get him to scribble something down.

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

my wife and i are thinking about taking a (no kids!!!) trip down to our time-share in Cabo in nov./dec.

we're both fully pfizer vaxxed.

does anyone know what exact protocols/restrictions are in place for non-essential travel to mexico from the US right now?

No, but I know three people that are in Mexico right now

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Ugh, that reminds me I'll be in "real" Mexico, not tourist/resort Mexico, and we generally won't be staying at tourist hotels, but rural haciendas, and an apartment building in Mexico City, meaning I might have to scramble to find a Mexican clinic to get a negative test for my family.

It's potentially pretty annoying. For Canadians returning there's a window for the negative result so you need a certain turnaround time.

My main issues with these policies (for Canada; maybe the US is the same, maybe not) are:

1) Canada has giant exemptions for all sorts of travelers. We have millions of trucks going back and forth annually (it's impossible for Canada to completely separate itself from US trade). They don't need to be tested or vaccinated. Our border is completely porous to variants, with the delta variant already being quite common here. The idea that Canada had "closed borders" during the pandemic is fiction.

2) Plenty of people aren't vaccinated. It's unlikely the median fully-vaccinated traveler will be any more of a public health hazard than an unvaccinated Canadian. Unclear why travel to say Washington state is riskier than visiting Manitoba.

3) We have low rates of death, hospitalizations, and cases. The justification seems to be based on predicting the future although like I said if there are bad variants they will come here regardless.

Hopefully we'll soon move to a regime without testing requirements for vaccinated travelers, at least with some countries.

[Yuri]

Things are doing quite better down here. In São Paulo state 52% of population got at least one dose and nationwide polls show a record high of people intending to get vaccinated: 94%.

By September, I guess 80% of the adult population will be covered by at least one dose.

And masks, well, they are still used by virtually everybody.

P.S. I got my shot last week. Pfizer.

[Pedestrian]

California's delta surge pushes COVID hospitalizations to their highest since April
Kellie Hwang
July 20, 2021
Updated: July 20, 2021 2:53 p.m.

With the now-dominant delta variant still on the rise in California, COVID-19 hospitalizations are also increasing, passing thresholds in the Bay Area and state not seen since the spring.

On Monday, confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations in California crossed the 2,000 mark — with more than 500 of those patients in intensive care units — for the first time since early April, according to state data. Meanwhile, the Bay Area surpassed 300 hospitalizations for the first time since early April, and on Tuesday exceeded 100 ICU admissions for the first time since late March.

As of Tuesday, 61% of California residents were fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and evidence so far shows the vaccines offer strong protection against the delta variant. In the U.S., unvaccinated people account for 97% of COVID hospitalizations, and 99% of deaths, according to the CDC. Bay Area hospitals are similarly reporting that most COVID-19 admissions are patients who are not fully vaccinated.

But cases have been quickly rising. On Monday, the state reported more than 7,600 new cases, the first time that number has exceeded 7,000 since early February.

. . . But Monday’s number was still just one-fourth of the state’s early January pandemic peak of more than 28,000.

At that time, during the worst of the winter surge, hospitalizations reached nearly 22,000, overwhelming the state’s health facilities. Available ICU capacity plummeted to 0.7% in the Bay Area, and 0% in San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

Currently, the state’s positive test rate — reflecting the 7-day average percentage of tests that come back positive — is 4.2%, the highest since mid-February. Just two weeks ago that number was 1.7%, and the rate is currently six times higher than the pandemic low of 0.7% on June 7.

The rate is also rapidly moving toward the 5% level — one of two CDC benchmarks that would shift California from the “low” level of community transmission to “moderate” level. The CDC’s other indicator for moderate transmission is a rate of 10 or more total new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people in the past 7 days. California’s case rate was 7.7 per 100,000 as of Sunday, up from just 2 per 100,000 on June 1.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/a...D-16327404.php

Currently 75% of San Franciscans of all ages (83% of those 12 and older) have received one dose of vaccine and 69% of all ages (76% of 12 and older) are fully vaccinated.

[destroycreate]

I know it's terrible, but maybe we just need to let this saturate so we can just get it done with as fast as possible, especially if we have all the anti-vaxxers refusing.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

I know it's terrible, but maybe we just need to let this saturate so we can just get it done with as fast as possible, especially if we have all the anti-vaxxers refusing.

While I can agree in spirit, the problem with letting it kill off the stupid is that while it kills off the stupid, it's still mutating. That's the danger here, that the delta variant will mutate into something that can completely break through the vaccine.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

That's the danger here, that the delta variant will mutate into something that can completely break through the vaccine.

May. And that's a very big may that doesn't really have any evidence or substantive research behind it at this point.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

May. And that's a very big may that doesn't really have any evidence or substantive research behind it at this point.

Exactly. We don't have any evidence that it will. Either we drag this out, or rip the band aid off.....

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by twister244

Not sure about Mexico, but international travel is so fluid right now in terms of what's needed, not needed. Because we never got on the vaccine passport train at the federal level, there's no one-stop shop to prove your vaccinated. The exception of course is flashing your card.

In the UK, you can prove your vaccination through the NHS app, but only UK citizens can do that. In the EU, they just rolled out a vaccine passport. Right now, only EU citizens can sign up, but there's been talk that non-EU citizens might be able to sign up.

I think the best thing you can do is just book your tickets, and if things become too difficult, you can always back out and cancel. It's changing constantly though.

The white CDC vaxx card is accepted in Italy and other European countries. Show it and you're in. Still need a negative test to return to the US which is ridiculous.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

The white CDC vaxx card is accepted in Italy and other European countries. Show it and you're in. Still need a negative test to return to the US which is ridiculous.

Yeah, I know people who entered Italy this summer by presenting the CDC card.

With the breakthrough cases popping up, don't expect the testing requirement to be lifted anytime soon for return flights to the U.S.

[twister244]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

The white CDC vaxx card is accepted in Italy and other European countries. Show it and you're in. Still need a negative test to return to the US which is ridiculous.

Has anyone used this for the UK to avoid their 10-day quarantine rule? Right now the only vaccine passport they accept is the NHS digitial passport, which you can't register for if you aren't a UK citizen.

[10023]

Originally Posted by twister244

Has anyone used this for the UK to avoid their 10-day quarantine rule? Right now the only vaccine passport they accept is the NHS digitial passport, which you can't register for if you aren't a UK citizen.

The whole UK health system and Covid response is a shitshow, so it doesn’t surprise me that this would be an issue.

When I went to Spain earlier this month, I also showed my paper CDC vaccination card and not my NHS digital pass, which Spain apparently doesn’t accept.

Countries just need to stop being particular and accept whatever is reasonable proof of vaccination.

[10023]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

While I can agree in spirit, the problem with letting it kill off the stupid is that while it kills off the stupid, it's still mutating. That's the danger here, that the delta variant will mutate into something that can completely break through the vaccine.

Tail risk.

[Camelback]

.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by 10023

Tail risk.

What the hell does that mean?

[JManc]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

What the hell does that mean?

Statistical probability; e.g. a black swan event. In other words, the risk of Covid variants will completely breakthrough the vaccines is minimal. Not sure if I agree with that considering the amount of people not getting vaccinated and enabling variants to mutate.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by JManc

Statistical probability; e.g. a black swan event. In other words, the risk of Covid variants will completely breakthrough the vaccines is minimal. Not sure if I agree with that considering the amount of people not getting vaccinated and enabling variants to mutate.

First of all, each replication of the virus is an opportunity for a critical mutation. Second, in the billions of people worldwide who have or will get infected, in each of whom there can be billions of replications, there will be 10 to the ? (12th, 15th?) power chances for a critical mutation. And we don't even know what a critical mutation might be--the real issue is how different the mutated spike protein would have to be, either chemically or stereotypically, from the original protein to be unaffected by antibodies toward the original.

But given the number of chances for a critical mutation, calculations like "tail risk" mean almost nothing. A better analogy is the one about an infinite number of monkeys pounding on an infinite number of typewriters producing Shakespeare's plays or the Bible. The number of replications = critical mutation opportunities may not be infinite, but it's unimaginably huge and that means it's likely that eventually a breakthrough mutation will happen. That isn't disastrous: It will probably be fairly easy to produce a new vaccine that's effective against it but the issue will be how much testing and red tape governments put in front of the ability to start using a new vaccine quickly.