Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

Click Silly Nonsense in his signature.

As nations decide to live with the virus, some disease experts warn of surrendering too soon

Two years later, the virus has killed more than 5.5 million people, and the pandemic is ongoing. The virus itself and the disease it causes are now so familiar, they have lost some of their early spookiness.

No national leader would ever say that it’s time to quit the struggle, but the tone of the contest has changed, with little talk of beating, crushing, defeating the virus. SARS-CoV-2 is part of the world now, a “pantropic” virus that can infect people, deer, minks, rats and all sorts of mammals.

Many nations continue to impose mask requirements, vaccination mandates and travel restrictions. But few leaders in democratic societies have the political capital to take harsh measures to suppress transmission. Even the arrival of the ultra-transmissible omicron variant did not throw the world back into winter 2021, when the paramount goal remained stopping viral spread at all costs — much less back to spring 2020, when people were told to stay home, wipe down their groceries and not touch their face.

In the ideal scenario, omicron’s alarming wave of infections will spike quickly, leaving behind a residue of immunity that will keep a broad swath of the population less vulnerable to future infections. This would be the last major, globally disruptive wave of the pandemic.

There are other scenarios less attractive. Scientists are quick to point out that they don’t know how long omicron-induced immunity lasts. The virus keeps mutating. Slippery variants packing a more powerful punch could yet emerge, and virologists say that, contrary to what has sometimes been conjectured, viruses do not inexorably evolve toward milder strains.

But humans change, too. Outside of locked-down China, most people are no longer immunologically naive to the coronavirus. Scientists believe that’s a factor in omicron’s relatively low severity for individual patients. In the long term, humans and viruses tend to reach something like a stalemate. Only one disease-causing virus, smallpox, has ever been eradicated.

“There’s no way to stop its spread — unless we do measures like China is doing, and you and I know very well that’s not possible in the United States,” Mokdad said.

We talked at the beginning of this about how policy decisions are made by politicians not subject matter experts. No less true now than it was then.

Even though most of us not working in healthcare are generally not at risk, the economic toll of this wave with far less death and without any significant restrictions is crazy. Delta lost $400 million in the end of the quarter, mostly from December, and the bleeding didn't stop in January. That tends to validate what economists were saying in early 2020, that if we didn't introduce restrictions on business, the loss would have been massive anyway.

But I generally believe that the free-dumb people are just dumb in the general sense. Since late April, I can't say that Covid has significantly impacted our ability to do anything. We've returned to the theater to see musicals, probably visited the theme parks more than in any previous year and even took a cruise. I don't know that I'd call it "normal," but our definition of that word isn't even clear after the last two years.

That's just it. I'd say COVID hasn't changed what we do at all. Our lives never really stopped like I see so many people's seemed to have. We never changed anything in that sense.

But how we do things? Yeah, even though I struggle like all the others when you guys challenge with, "What restrictions?", it still feels like things aren't 'normal' yet. And it's not going to until COVID becomes as ubiquitous a background noise as the cold and flu have. Because it's not necessarily what we're doing right now that doesn't feel normal, it's still all the conversation, the debate, the news, the reminders (masks, plexigalss, still distancing markers on floors in places, etc) that make it not 'normal' right now.

Well, at least for us, it's all the quarantine restrictions leading to shut downs that are impacting regular life. If a kid gets it, the classroom gets shut down for a day. If you're a close contact, you need a test before you come back (and good luck getting one of those). We've basically been on house arrest for the last week because two of my kids and wife have it. They're not feeling great at all, but it's still within the flu range of symptoms.

I honestly don't know what we "should" be doing, but I do know that "close contact = quarantine until you get a test; positive test = quarantine for at least 5 days" is massively disruptive to normal life.

Lord Gonchar said:

That's just it. I'd say COVID hasn't changed what we do at all. Our lives never really stopped like I see so many people's seemed to have. We never changed anything in that sense.

I find that hard to believe, but also you don't have a day job and had no kids in grade school. I wouldn't describe your situation as typical. But you had to stop going to concerts for awhile, grocery stores were one-way, restaurant dining rooms weren't open, movie theaters and bars were closed. Then we were in a weird hybrid mode until widespread vaccine availability.

Lord Gonchar said:

Yeah, even though I struggle like all the others when you guys challenge with, "What restrictions?", it still feels like things aren't 'normal' yet.

I get this. I returned to indoor dining in May of 2020 (#floridafreedom), went to ride roller coasters the day the parks reopened, and but for a six week closure, never stopped going to work. On paper, nothing about my life is any different than it was at the end of 2019. But anytime I watch an episode of an old sitcom, see some sort of Walt Disney World or Cedar Point YouTube video from before 'Rona, or all through December when I watched Christmas movies that didn't mention "so what precautions are you taking for your Christmas Dinner?", I am constantly reminded that the every day life things still don't feel normal, and it's noticeable.

And to play Devil's advocate, I also do my absolute best to not take for granted how g.d. lucky I am that the most inconvenient thing for me was trying to find different ways to stay busy when work closed in March of 2020 until we reopened on June 1st of that year. The fact that my friends, family, acquaintances, and co-workers have all stayed healthy through this and that I never lost a paycheck are not lost on me, and at the end of the day, I'll happily take "things feel weird" as a tradeoff for that knowing what countless others, including some here on this forum, have been and are going through.

Jeff said:

I find that hard to believe, but also you don't have a day job and had no kids in grade school. I wouldn't describe your situation as typical. But you had to stop going to concerts for awhile, grocery stores were one-way, restaurant dining rooms weren't open, movie theaters and bars were closed. .

No seriously, it never felt different and we did ALL of those things.

I had one kid traveling to and from school (college) in Miami and the other doing the same in Paris. So travel and school happened like it always did. I literally went to one of the biggest live comedy shows ever (in terms of talent, not crowd) in 2020. Our stores never went to "one-way" aisles - at least not the ones I go to. The wife never missed a single day of work - if anything she has to be "out in the field" more since this started. Restaurants here only distanced and added plexiglass on booths and stickers on the floor. I suppose movie theaters and bars did close for a while, but you've seen my social media for the past 15 years - how often do I go to the movies? Hell, we even went to Kings Island the last two seasons. (which is funny, because we normally don't)

It's not hyperbole. I've been telling you guys all along that nothing really changed in our lives. I'm not just trying to...whatever...when I repeatedly say I think I'm living in a different pandemic than a lot of you. Whether or not it's "typical" is more than subject to debate.

But that doesn't change my point - for us, it's not the 'what' but rather the 'how' that has made the last two years feel weird.

With that said, Austrailia is throwing in the towel. (not worth a double post, so I'll tack it on here)

There's still a lot of stupid inconveniences and idiotic rules and processes going on. There is still not a single store open in this city after midnight, including the ones with giant "OPEN 24 HOURS" signs on them. Certain restaurants are still effectively closed. And businesses that are open are now open with shortened and seemingly random hours of operation. Just when you're doing something that feels kind of normal, something comes out of left field and reminds you that things are still not normal.

It's too early to tell especially because the State is having problems processing case data at the moment, but it is looking like Ohio's new cases might have peaked in this wave on 1/3.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Some businesses have restricted hours around me because they have staffing issues. Some of it related to quarantine/isolation rules but some just because they cannot find enough employees to be open their normal hours. The latter was an issue pre-omicron.

Australia has thrown in the towel? Djokovic coming back? :)

Yeah, at this point I don't think any reduced hours are for COVID mitigation or not so useful deep cleans. My guess is it is almost entirely due to staffing issues.

This is a really good feature on the history behind mRNA as an eventual core to the vaccines. It's interesting I think for two reasons. One is that it was a series of accidents and coincidences that eventually led to the approach. Much of it was rooted in the desire to beat HIV. The other thing is that this was a solution looking for a problem, which is why the vaccines came about so quickly. The research for the approach was already well demonstrated.

I don't think most people really appreciate the human achievement that the vaccines represent.

Shorter hours are mostly staffing, but also a bit of fear about meddling politicians. My 24-hour grocery actually extended hours from 10pm to 11pm last summer, then a week later the Governor enacted the so-called 10pm curfew…so the store started closing at 10 again, and never re-extended hours when the restrictions were lifted. There’s a certain amount of “we don’t want to go back to normal because we don’t know what restrictions are coming” still going on, because the “emergency” hasn’t ended.

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

Stores closing by 10pm or midnight has to be as much financial as it is staffing. If there was money to be made in staying open all night, fear of restrictions wouldn’t stop them. Wal Mart stores in Texas are reducing the interior public space for dedicated storage and prep areas for curb side pickup. That is more than sufficiently making up for continuous operation and they can reduce their hours by a shift.

Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at, that business in general, but service industries especially, have changed in sometimes fundamental ways, and they won't change back. The change in software/tech has been crazy, because it's so remote focused. Employers can't even make regional salary adjustments, because they have to compete nationally and it's driving up pay (sucks for people who live in expensive places, but it's great for the rest of us). Amusement park wages aren't going to go back down. People are learning that home delivery isn't just more convenient, it's actually more efficient and has a lower carbon footprint (10 people individually driving to a store is not as efficient as 1 person driving to 10 homes).

There are a ton of things we haven't figured out, but there are lights shining on a those issues. The fact that healthcare is tied to employment is a problem. More automation means there will be a day when there simply can't be enough jobs for everyone. Education seems to still work better in-person.

Scientists Identify Specific Gene Variant That Protects Against Severe COVID-19

Thank the Neanderthals.

Lord Gonchar said:

That's just it. I'd say COVID hasn't changed what we do at all. Our lives never really stopped like I see so many people's seemed to have. We never changed anything in that sense.

Gonch- Didn’t you just finish up a ridiculously long hotel stay right before the pandemic hit? So maybe your view of “normal” is a bit skewed? Or is my timeline all screwed up?

Jeff said:

There are a ton of things we haven't figured out, but there are lights shining on a those issues. The fact that healthcare is tied to employment is a problem. More automation means there will be a day when there simply can't be enough jobs for everyone. Education seems to still work better in-person.

Much wisdom.

We haven't jumped on the grocery delivery wagon yet, mostly because the three grocery stores I shop at are on my way home.