International COVID-19 Megathread

[parochial boy]

Despite falling numbers, Switzerland is going back to the rules in place during the first lockdown back in spring. The hope is that this will be enough to pre-emptively stave of a surge of the British variant.

There is, however, one exception to the rules: Ski resorts are staying open.

At this point, you really just have to admire the sheer stubborness about this issue.

[parochial boy]

Because polling is always fun - from Sotomo/SSR, 41% of Swiss people want to be vaccinated "as soon as possible" (up from 16% in October); and 24% don't want to be vaccinated at all (down from 28%).

But when you look at the crosstabs, well, guess which party isn't like the others?

[parochial boy]

Oh well. UDC being so divergent and so rabidly against the vaccine is completely unsurprising. But to be fair I also find unsurprising that the Greens are the most skeptical of the vaccine among the other parties (albeit much, much more mildly).
Italians being the most pro-vaccine linguistic group I suppose has mostly to do with the UDC's weakness in Ticino?

Still below the national average, but yeah, the Greens are still the party of the kooky natural living types, so it isn't surprising that they'd be a bit higher than the other parties.

I suspect the low rejection among italophones is largely down to Ticino having been the worse hit canton, basically as badly hit as Lombardy, back in the spring. So the Lega, who have never been reflexively anti-government intervention like the UDC have at least had the sense not to go around screaming about how the economy needs to be reopened now! and the like. Plus the most prominent Ticinese UDC figure is Marco Chiesa, who used to run an nursing home, so naturally has quite a different perspective to that of the more conspiracy inclined party supprters in German Switzerland.

[parochial boy]

Considering the context, you can't help but notice the timing of this story though

[parochial boy]

Ireland should leave the EU. They have far more in common with northern Ireland and the rest of the UK than the EU.

Yeah, I mean they should really just give up on being an independent country and rejoin the UK

[parochial boy]

And going back to countries having meltdowns about the vaccine. Switzerland has completely dropped the AstraZeneca one from its vaccine strategy, having placed larger orders with Curevac and Novavax and because swissmedic are still refusing to approve the AZ one. The authorities are apparently now trying to work on cancelling the contract, or selling on the purchased doses. But well, otherwise it’s the same here as what has been mentioned elsewhere, the AZ vaccine’s reputation is in the gutter. Even though we aren’t in the EU, aren’t involved in their vaccine purchase programme, and haven’t had a public fight with AstraZeneca.

[parochial boy]

Re-the whole EU vaccinating too slowly saga. Interesting thread that would seem to indicate a rather different story to what the narrative has been. Ie, the EU naïvely thought that the US would behave honourably, the Brits were a bit more canny. Trump then put an export ban in place and the EU paid the price

https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1372897635577761803

[parochial boy]

And 29 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine casually turn up in an Italian warehouse where they were destined for Great Britain, Belgium, Covax participants, the EU, nobody really seems to be able to agree. All the more curious given the doses were apparently produced in a Dutch factory that has not yet been approved to produce vaccines for the European market. According the EU because AZ haven't applied for it.

This would be comical if it weren't for the fact that, you know, people are dying.

[parochial boy]

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1379621738850422787
Read this thread just out what the Trump team did.

I mean, that was bad for the rest of the world, but given how fast the US are vaccinating compared to other places, it was good for the country.

It is basically a "Prisoner's dilemma" type scenario where in the end the US ended up with the big payoff.

There is a bit of a double standard about this I think. If the EU had stuck in export bans and priority or exclusion clauses (especially forcing Biontech to partner with, say Bayer rather than Pfizer) at the tme like the UK and US did, the current situation with vaccination in the EU would be rather different. As in, the 100m odd doses exported from the EU wouldn't have been exported, and a huge chunk of those went precisely to the UK and US - who both have have engaged in vaccine nationalism to the extent of priority clauses and refusing to allow exports (Biden has banned US exports as well fwiw, so it's not like he is any different to Trump in that respect).

Which makes it kind of questionable as to why EU vaccine nationalism or export blocks now is outrageous whereas other countries doing what amounts to the same thing, but earlier, was apparently fine. I mean, either the US and UK have behaved despicably, or the EU reciprocating is acceptable, but you can't honestly argue that neither is true.

[parochial boy]

Busting certain myths about the alleged responsibility and reasonableness of the German speaking world versus the allegedly unserious and frivolous Southern Europeans:

https://mobile.twitter.com/OurWorldInData/status/1453330363254706177

Even in Switzerland the non-German speaking cantons are all a few points ahead of the German ones

[parochial boy]

Guys, it has an R0 of 7 billion and a Case Fatality Rate of 110%. We should seal ourselves in our homes and bring in the death penalty for going outside now

[parochial boy]

And Switzerland has banned entry from half the world, which is great, doesn't disrupt plans that I had been making for months and months or anything

we're never going back to normal are we? Every year we're going to have a new scary variant, and lockdowns and travel bans and panics about the vaccine no matter how mild or how many people vaccinated there might be. I'm completely fucking sick of this.

[parochial boy]

Switzerland confirms its first two cases of Omicron. As a matter of consistency, it will now be banning travel to itself 🙃

[parochial boy]

And Switzerland has banned entry from half the world, which is great, doesn't disrupt plans that I had been making for months and months or anything

we're never going back to normal are we? Every year we're going to have a new scary variant, and lockdowns and travel bans and panics about the vaccine no matter how mild or how many people vaccinated there might be. I'm completely ing sick of this.

*privileged folks complaining they only can travel to half the world*

There is a climate crisis, mind you, sir!? Just don't tell me, you've planned to travel by train.

We don't know, how mild it is. Even if it's relatively mild, it might be so transmittable that it will wreak havoc on poor countries's healthcare system. But disrupting plans of white libs is much more important! No safari for poor guys!

I wasn't going to travel abroad, in fact, I already missed the death and funeral of a family member this year because of travel restrictions. This was going to be my first opportunity to meet my nephew who was born earlier this year and who I haven't been able to meet so far due to those very same travel restrictions.

So I'd maybe think a little bit in future, before throwing around accusations about people who you don't know anything about.

As for South Africa - well the reaction to the travel bans there has been extremely angry. Because their perception is that the damage caused by lost tourist income is far more painful than the Omicron wave. Especially for people whose often meagre income depends on it and who don't really have access to the kind of welfare state that we Europeans (well maybe not you) have.

[parochial boy]

Well those were my plans, which were completely destroyed by a last minute panic reaction that was beyond what almost any other country has done, and was reversed today (too late obviously) when it became apparent they were serving no purpose.

As for climate change, it's not really relevant to the subject at hand, but my opinion is that it is going to take political action, and that pushing for individual changes in consumer behaviour is really just the political authorities and economic powers palming off the responsibility on to everyone else, knowing fully well that it won't work. I'm not dogmatic about what measures we use, god knows its complicated and affects different people in different ways, but if you think that the left-wing position on climate change comes down to shouting at people to get the train and not eat meat, you might have misunderstood what exactly it is that the left it about.

And it's not "perceptions" and "feelings" for South Africa, that lack of a tourist season for them will have economic consequences, and consequentially human consequences that are especially hard for the often precarious and vulnerable to poverty South Africans whose income depends on it.

[parochial boy]

Well those were my plans, which were completely destroyed by a last minute panic reaction that was beyond what almost any other country has done, and was reversed today (too late obviously) when it became apparent they were serving no purpose.

As for climate change, it's not really relevant to the subject at hand, but my opinion is that it is going to take political action, and that pushing for individual changes in consumer behaviour is really just the political authorities and economic powers palming off the responsibility on to everyone else, knowing fully well that it won't work. I'm not dogmatic about what measures we use, god knows its complicated and affects different people in different ways, but if you think that the left-wing position on climate change comes down to shouting at people to get the train and not eat meat, you might have misunderstood what exactly it is that the left it about.

And it's not "perceptions" and "feelings" for South Africa, that lack of a tourist season for them will have economic consequences, and consequentially human consequences that are especially hard for the often precarious and vulnerable to poverty South Africans whose income depends on it.

It's perception and feelings, because given the outbreak nobody (much fewer) would fly there anyway. Do you have any doubt about it?

My point re:climate: that a "political push" about "consumer behaviour" (like you know - to fly less for instance) would eventually have "economic consequences, and consequentially human consequences" for poor countries. That is exactly the same as with travel bans - good for climate, bad for those poor countries whose economy is dependent on airplane tourism.

You probably doubt that West's "unhealthy" consumption was extremely good for poor countries? Well, in that case, yawn whatever.

I'm not sure what you are on about, are you arguing with me or with yourself?

I said it was complicated, I know it's complicated -  I don't really see what arguing with points I haven't made is supposed to be achieving?

[parochial boy]

Somewhat on an optimistic note here, Zürich's health minister Natalie Rickli said in an interview yesterday that once the Omicron wave has peaked it would be a signal of the pandemic moving into endemic phase, with all that entails in terms of returning to normal life. The first time that any senior politician has gone as far as postulating this as the eventual outcome.

She is SVP, but has been a big hardliner on restrictions and vaccines over the last year or so, to the point of alienating much of her own party, as being health minister put her into direct contact with what the situation in hospitals has been.

Which raises a question in its own right - once the world accepts that the virus is endemic, how to the zero covid countries like China react? Either they accept that they will have to allow the virus in, or they keep their borders and big movement restriction on their populations... forever? I think even the Chinese will cotton on to the consequences this would have on their own plans for world supremacy eventually.

[parochial boy]

The situation in China sounds absolutely nuts right now. People in Shanghai being forcibly removed to quarantine areas when they test positive, not allowed to go out to walk your dog or even buy groceries, basically impossible to get food delivered and people with chronic conditions dying because the entire hospital system has been re-oriented towards Covid. And apparently.... "zero deaths"

What as incredible demonstration of the eventual failure of "zero covid".