Originally Posted by
Owenc
I wouldn’t be surprised if governments are working together to limit travel globally.
I may be in a minority here but I now think travel may not reopen until well into 2030s, perhaps 2040s, particularly to places like Japan or Australia.
This is because of delusional expectations of zero cases, zero variants before borders reopen. Following this logic, the world will never reopen, as Coronavirus becomes endemic like the flu, until hell freezes over. Just look at places like Australia, locking up entire provinces for a a few cases.
Last month I read 2 articles in the Guardian
- 100,000 people prematurely die in the UK each year due to inactivity (that is more in 2 years than died from Covid, yet we do not have anyone visiting me with a whip to make me move more,
- one million hospital admissions in the UK in a year due do obesity related diseases (my point same as above).
I do not mention even bigger causes of premature death like alcohol. It if was truly about avoiding premature deaths and protecting the NHS, it would have been long banned.
It is like protesting against aviation due to global warming effect while ignoring the fact that meat consumption (and related support industries) account for over half emotions.
The goal was to protect the NHS , save lives, so we were told, and I am sure we all supported that. Now, with many developed countries having most vulnerable vaccinated, the risk has been reduced to near 0 for the vaccinated vulnerable (at least of dying or needing hospitalization with 2 vaccines, not 0 but very close).
We cannot avoid risk in life, we all die, and I feel the threshold has been crossed in many countries to lift all restrictions. There will always be variants, not all countries will be fully vaccinated (due to vaccine hesitancy eventually rather than accessibility). We need to start treating Covid like other respiratory illness, at least in places with high vaccination rates. Otherwise this will never end.