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Where To Travel? Covid-19 Pandemic Far From Over For Travelers

Next move?

Coronavirus travel map
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I’ve sometimes wondered what I would do if I couldn’t travel. What would I do for work? What would I do for fun? How would I add value to my life?

Now I know.

While we know beyond a doubt that Covid-19 isn’t the black death and is only mildly dangerous — if that — to a relatively small group of people, our world has still not come to its senses. Scientists have done the studies, the Bill Gates-funded fear mongering initial reports that estimated millions of deaths have been thoroughly debunked, municipalities who artificially boosted death counts have been called out, and even the CDC downgraded their Covid infection fatality rate from the WHO’s 3.4% to a paltry 0.26% — a number that’s looking as if it’s even going to drop lower as the rate of asymptomatic cases that they used was extremely conservative (India, for example, has the IFR at 0.08%, or less deadly than a bad strain of influenza). According to the CDC, the Covid-19 death rate for people under 50 who develop symptoms is a pathetic 1 in 5,000 — and somewhere between 30% and 80% of people are asymptomatic. We now also know that Covid-19 mortality never achieves exponential growth, regardless of preventative measures, so those prolonged lock downs that we’ve been living under … well, they didn’t really do much of anything. On top of that, scientists have found that 40-60% of people actually have preexisting resistance to Sars-Cov-2 — and upwards of 80% of the population may not even be susceptible to it in the first place.

Meanwhile, only 520,000 people worldwide have perished from the disease since it was identified in December, which is small fries when compared to the death tolls of an array of other diseases, such as sepsis, which had killed more than ten times that number over the same period.

We destroyed our country, decimated thousands of small businesses, put millions out of work, and sacrificed the futures of our children for a sham.

However, our governments still hold fast to their original positions, not wanting to relinquish their grips on the hard-ons of absolute power … and nobody knows how long this is going to last.

This leaves those who make their livings traveling in an extremely precarious position. If we can’t travel, we can’t work. What now? Do we just hang out and continue weathering the storm? Do we find a new profession? Do we join the mob and start tearing down statues? (It does seem to be good business calling other people racist these days … although I’m not sure how good “witch hunter” would look on a resume.)

I don’t want to do another job. The thought of starting something new from the ground up and building skills and knowledge used to feel exhilarating. Now it feels nauseating. I’ve come too far to turn back. I also can’t come up with anything else that I’d like doing. I look at other jobs and nothing seems as appealing as “traveling the world writing stories and making videos about whatever I find interesting.”

That said, our cities and countries are opening internally, but what’s the good of that if your meal ticket involves the crossing of borders. I can’t even go back to my home city of Buffalo and cross the border into Canada. Fuck, NY state is even trying to force people from a select list of states (coincidentally all run by the contending political party) to quarantine for two weeks. So what do I do?

I do what travelers have always done: you look at a map and find the open route. It’s the same game we’ve always played … albeit with a few less options.

So I pull up the IATA Covid-19 travel regulations map last night and dove in. They divide the world into four categories: totally restrictive, partially restrictive, not restrictive, and under review — basically politically remote countries that nobody knows anything about.

I’m not going to bother with any country that is in the first two categories — I’m not flying somewhere just to be quarantined for two weeks and I definitely don’t want to find myself Trevor’ed somewhere. The regulations of many countries are currently complicated and seem to be rapidly in flux, and few travelers place bets on immigration officials keeping up to date with their own rules. Even if the rules were known and followed, I’m not willing to deposit $3,000 into a foreign bank, undergo a forced Covid test, or wear a fucking tracking device like I’m a criminal just to go to another country.

Read this thread:

No way I’m doing that.

So what does that leave me with?

Mexico, Haiti, Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Ukraine, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Egypt just opened up as I was writing this.

So there are places to go, but the question is where to go next? Travelers rarely plot their journeys one move at a time, but rather envision a progression of stops spanning a region. So I can get into Haiti, but then what? I can’t go to the Dominican Republic; all of the other Caribbean islands are closed. Sure, I can go to Serbia, but my next moves from there are limited to Kosovo and Macedonia — which would be cool but where to after that?

On the other hand, desperate times require alternate strategies. Travel in 2020 is a seller’s market — us paupers need to take what we can get. Also, as time goes on more and more countries will, theoretically, open their doors.

So what am I going to do? Nearly all of the countries that I’ve been focused on are still closed, so I will need to start up a new project … what am I saying? There is only one clear choice: Mexico.

Mexico is a giant, diverse, engaging country that I have spent extended amounts of time in between 2010 and 2012. The problem is that I haven’t written about the place in years. I have no journalistic connections there. I would be starting from scratch.

But Serbia –> Kosovo –> Macedonia would work too. I’ve covered that region recently and could probably pick up where I left off. My apprehension is how much longer they can maintain their open positions. Politicians in Serbia are already feeling the heat for reopening, and going there now seems to be a precarious move. Trevor is there now and is enjoying his newfound freedom … but how long will it be before we have a new “trapped in …” series coming from him?

But anywhere is probably better than where I’m stuck now. It’s difficult to live for four months under authoritarian decrees and smile happily at a place. New York City is a luxury — it’s nothing that anyone really needs.

So what’s your take, dear readers, where should I go next?

Filed under: Epidemics, New York City

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3694 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

Support VBJ’s writing on this blog:

VBJ is currently in: New York City

39 comments… add one

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  • Sarah BB July 2, 2020, 2:32 pm

    I love that ‘to be Trevor’ed’ is now a verb!

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    • Trevor Warman July 2, 2020, 2:49 pm

      Was thinking the same..lol but i came out smiling, didnt i?…… timed it just right, cos the KLM evac went up in price from 1000$ to 1000€

      Could be probs going Serbia Kosovo. am looking/thinking Beograd Niş Skopje Pristina, Skopje then Bulg. Romania. Or Beograd to Timisoira Romania is EU and allows those from Serbia to enter… but i aint ready to move yet. and will lose my African tag if i stay here 14days.
      Not sure what INSURANCE for UKr entails buy a weeks worth? Just to get across the border?

      7$ in a dorm. 65cent beers in the supermarket next door, 90cent pizza slices 50 yards away, fast wifi…. life is ok and mentally am so much better than in Kenya… 34deg c and ice cold showers …

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      • Sarah Bb July 2, 2020, 4:54 pm

        You certainly did! And you have a decent amount of onward travel options open now and even more within a few weeks. Serbia won’t be shutting from what I’m told.

        Wade, my tuppence. Mexico if you are happy to stay put there potentially for a while and immerse yourself in a whole new scene – that sounds excellent and there is enough to explore. That’s probably where I’d go if I were stuck Stateside. Well, actually I’d probably go back to the Caribbean – much of it is open now, Antigua, St Lucia, Aruba, Jamaica, Trindad & Tobago, but it is expensive there without family to stay with…

        But for more onward travel options, Serbia is a good starting point – enough open travel routes now and more opening up all the time.

        And once you’ve shaken your U.S. tag, you’ll be fairly free to roam again. Just three months ago us Europeans were persona non grata, now it’s the U.S.’ turn. But fear that tag may last a bit longer for you guys. Life is almost normal again, with a few tweaks. No one wants to go back.

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        • Wade Shepard July 3, 2020, 10:22 am

          Definitely, Mexico seems like a good bet. I was there a couple of times this year already. Now I just need to come up with a good project that will float the journey.

          But Serbia is sounding pretty good too. I’ll probably head out somewhere in mid-August. Hopefully, there will be enough open for a big trip.

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      • Wade Shepard July 3, 2020, 10:11 am

        Sounds like life is good! I like Serbia. Good place to hang for a while.

        As for the insurance, I’d just forge it. It’s not like immigration is going to check. Get someone else’s insurance doc and photoshop your details onto it. Or get it in PDF form and use PDF Escape. It’s not like they’re really going to check, and if they did they probably wouldn’t really know what they were looking at and they probably don’t have time to call and confirm it. Seems more like a regulation to encourage people to follow rather than a hard and fast rule that is strictly enforced. They know that most people are going to actually follow it.

        Go to Ukraine!

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    • Wade Shepard July 3, 2020, 10:06 am

      Yes! We can do a lot of things with it:

      “Shit, I missed my bus and was Trevor’ed in Zharkent.” Or “I was Trevor’ing there for a while not sure of where to go next.”

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      • Sarah Bb July 3, 2020, 10:11 am

        Ha ha, right now I’m Trevor’ed at the office when I want to go play.

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        • Wade Shepard July 3, 2020, 11:22 am

          Exactly!

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          • Rusty Amoroso July 7, 2020, 6:22 pm

            I ate way too many tacos last night and now I’m Trevor’ed on the can…..

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            • Vagabond Journey July 9, 2020, 3:39 pm

              Haha yes, that’s how to do it!

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  • Lawrence July 2, 2020, 7:15 pm

    I would hit up Mexico. I think that would be a good place to be. Lots to explore, you speak the language and it seems to be a traveller’s paradise in terms of cheap food, etc.

    I am still pessimistic that things are going to open up in a timely manner. I am starting to worry/wonder if the majority of people really want to open back up or actually enjoy sitting in their houses watching Netflix all day and not feeling guilty about it.

    We are literally watching the majority of people being programmed every single day…it’s crazy.

    Personally I hope you go to Mexico, I have several friends and it would give me an excuse to go when the world opens up sometime in late 2024…..or if Nov 4 this year if a certain election goes a certain way.

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    • Wade Shepard July 3, 2020, 11:05 am

      I agree with you, man. Why they are closed makes no sense if we look at the data and compare the risk with other ailments that we face everyday without concern. Didn’t they just close Melbourne again because something like 50 people tested positive and one 80+ year old guy died? If we close our cities every time an old guy croaks we may as well go back to the stone age.

      But, as Jack commented, this doesn’t seem to be about what makes sense anymore. It’s become clear that something else is at play — our planet can’t possibly be this stupid.

      I wouldn’t be surprised if they are waiting for a vaccine, which would, of course, be accompanied by an app and a special ID card that would be required for travel. That would basically mean that my career as a traveler is finished.

      In the meantime, I should probably enjoy Mexico!

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  • Jack July 2, 2020, 10:01 pm

    You know that I disagree with your numbers. I’m still sticking with what I had in February, 0.5% to 1.0% death rate and every real study backs that up, but I’m not here to argue about that. Only time will tell if I am right or wrong. What I do agree with you about is that there is no rhyme or reason why everything is shut down. It’s not deadly enough for the carnage that was caused. Moreover, vitamins, supplements, masks, and hand washing are enough to dramatically reduce your chance of death. Again, that’s been my mantra since January and February.

    But instead we have a world shut down and for what reason? I don’t know. It’s bullshit. I think there is something else going on and we are all being fed a line. Lots of possibilities but here are two scenarios. 1) The disease is not very deadly but causes hidden damages that last a lifetime and they know this because they engineered it and that’s why they are so scared. 2) They want to flex their muscles over us. I’m sure you can come up with more possible scenarios. The point we agree on is that they haven’t articulated a good reason to shut down everything like they have when simple measures would have been quite effective.

    And that means we are all messed up. And let me digress. Have you applied for an EIDL grant? You fill out the form at the SBA EIDL grant page(Google it) and make sure you mark the box that you want to get a grant(it’s a loan and a grant). Two days later they will put a $1000 grant in your bank account(per employee). You can also choose to accept a loan or not if they offer it to you but it’s a 30 year repayment so the payments so small. I didn’t take the loan but I got the grant. $1000 isn’t much but it buys equipment.

    And I guess that is about all we can do right now is to get our stuff together and prepare. I’m teaching my 7 year old daughter coding because she enjoys it. My 16 year is making videos. I’m trying to write a book. You get the idea.

    I know that there will be an opening. If you are paying attention to the map, it is slowly starting to change colors signifying some limited amount of reopening. I look at South America. I suspect by late August it will be open much more. I think returning to the days of travel we had before may take time, but it will come back to some degree I think.

    Me? i was supposed to start traveling again this last March, April and through the summer. That didn’t happen and now my family is rethinking everything. We might travel in the US, we might go to Mexico, we might to South America as soon as it opens. Two days ago, my oldest son (18) joined the US Army. He is now in basic training. He might actually do more traveling than I will over the next year!

    One last thing in this meandering comment. I know you were using another service for your other site to build subscriptions to your content. Have you checked out the Ghost Blogging platform? You can self host it and use their membership plugin that interfaces with Stripe for selling subscriptions. I haven’t implemented it yet but I will be using it in the future. The demos look good for it. Just an idea. I think you have a few of those sites in you. Maybe even a podcast for you? You are very talented.

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    • Wade Shepard July 3, 2020, 11:19 am

      First of all, congrats on your son! I can remember you referencing him when he was like a middle schooler. Good career choice, considering what’s going on. We’ve really pulled the carpet out from under our young adults. The world was better than it’s ever been in history, the economy was flying high all over the world, and then we decided to destroy it all for no good reason. Good on him for avoiding university too — they seem to have turned into little factories of fascist wokefullness. What’s going on in our universities really reminds me of China’s Cultural Revolution. In February I gave a talk a the U of Michigan and had dinner with a professor who was telling me about how she was afraid of her students. It’s insane.

      As far as Covid, yes, it is seeming more and more like something else is at play. You hear the theories about Bill Gates and want to call BS on them … but when you look at how nonsensically things are playing out it’s getting more difficult to discredit them. I’d say there’s enough evidence coming from a wide array of sources to say that it was probably made in a lab. Too many scientists all over the world have dug into the code, extracted certain elements, and said, “there is no way this is natural.”

      The worst part is that our governments seem to want us to view normal life as a privilege that they can provide or take away at their discretion. If we don’t do what they want us to they will take away our ability to gather with our friends, operate a business, or go to church. So we walk in lockstep. Most of us will take the vaccine — whether it’s properly tested or not, they will install the app, and they will accept a new level of governmental control that only science fiction could have predicted. The rest of us will be known as invalids and we won’t be able to work, travel, or gather in public places. Neighbors will turn each other in. Vigilante forces will run our streets. This has become real.

      I know that there will be an opening. If you are paying attention to the map, it is slowly starting to change colors signifying some limited amount of reopening. I look at South America. I suspect by late August it will be open much more. I think returning to the days of travel we had before may take time, but it will come back to some degree I think.

      Hopefully!

      I will check out Ghost Blogging today. That could be an option. Our big media platforms are either being bought up by China (Forbes) or have become agents of activism. There is no place for me there anymore.

      You are very talented.

      Thank you!

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  • Trevor Warman July 3, 2020, 12:16 pm

    There are buses from Beograd to Skopje ;))

    @Wade am working on the Escape from Africa post.

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    • Wade Shepard July 3, 2020, 2:18 pm

      Sweet!

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  • Chris Smith July 3, 2020, 12:56 pm

    Mexico. There is still the 4-Color Traffic Light System: Red/Orange/Yellow/Green. Some States are safer (and have fewer restrictions) … Mexico City and Baja California are Red, for instance. There are 5 criteria to pass, i.e. if any one of those is Red then the whole State is labeled Red (for Contagion risk).

    I am in (“Yellow”) Oaxaca, a Walking Town and it’s uncrowded with gradually lifting restrictions — I am in a WiFi Coffee Roaster, tapping away, seated, staff very solicitous, recently opened up. Restaurants (some) are serving, but in Patios outdoors. Most people wear masks. Buses are running. Mercados and Walmart stores are open, gradually more Street Vendors. I am beginning to see artesan shopping re-opening. Mexico in the new normal. Overall “Casual”, also rents are cheap. Cost of Living, favorable. Mile-High, good climate.

    Anyway, Queretaro/Oaxaca. Can’t go wrong.

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    • Wade Shepard July 3, 2020, 2:18 pm

      Hello Chris,

      Thanks for this on the ground update. I was actually in Baja a little while back. Not bad except they drank up all the beer! It was wild. While us Americans fought over toilet paper the Mexicans fought over beer. I have to say the Mexicans have their priorities in better order haha.

      Maybe I will be down around there soon. I’m craving it now, man, after all this time in the iron grip of politicians. I just need to come up with a good project.

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  • Jameson July 4, 2020, 1:46 am

    Thank-you for this excellent article. I say Mexico and then as the countries in that part of the world open up you expand your range south. My only concern is you getting back to your family if things close down again in September ( “the second wave of covid, they are trying to implement”) as many are predicting. My thought is give to give up the apartment and take the entire family to Mexico with you so that you are all together no matter what. Additionally as your wife is a teacher she can homeschool the kids so they will not loose any ground academically.

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    • Wade Shepard July 6, 2020, 10:45 am

      That would be a good idea! My wife likes her job though and the kids like their school, so they aren’t going anywhere. My wife also really likes living in NYC. Our neighborhood is pretty cool when things are open. I just always want to keep moving. It’s just the way I am, I guess …

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  • Trevor Warman July 4, 2020, 3:29 pm

    Serbia N.Macedonia Albania. All other options ie other surrounding countries have entry restrictions of some sort. How bout a “Stuck in the Balkans” series??

    Moldova delayed til July 15.

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    • Wade Shepard July 6, 2020, 10:47 am

      Oh shit, man. Stuck in the Balkans series? Go for it!

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  • Trevor Warman July 5, 2020, 2:53 pm

    They r closing mexico borders.
    Serbia is BACK under ‘state emergency’ = masks must be worn in shops and on buses.. hardly difficult. But people have an aversion to comply when there is no one enforcing it. And last time they locked down, they gave 24 hrs notice on airport and border closures.

    Fun times ahead…

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    • Wade Shepard July 6, 2020, 11:04 am

      Man, yoy may be Trevor’ed again! haha. That sucks, man, but at least you can sit back in the sun by the river and drink some beer. Feel free to send updates!

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      • Trevor Warman July 6, 2020, 3:55 pm

        OMFG im Trevor’ed . They closed the North Macedonia land border last night!!!

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        • Vagabond Journey July 6, 2020, 4:06 pm

          Oh no!!!!!! Man, what a story this is becoming. You may want to get out. Serbian gov is a little wacko and unpredictable. But, then again, most other govs fit the same description these days. Sweden, man, get to Sweden!

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          • Vagabond Journey July 6, 2020, 4:30 pm

            … It seems as if Sweden is changing its strategy. They did a blood based antibody test and got scared because not as many people as they thought tested positive. HOWEVER, this only catches the most severe cases, and up to 5x more people have antibodies in their mucus — but for some reason they are not testing this. Don’t get it.

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            • Sarah BB July 7, 2020, 3:18 am

              Big news out of Spain this morning is disappointingly only 5.2% of Spain has antibodies, in Madrid the rate is up to 11.7% but doesn’t look like herd immunity is going to save us any time soon. Guess we’ll have to live with this another way. On the plus side all decisions are now devolved to local provinces to act as they see fit. Bars are already all pretty much open and live music starts again as of Friday, real life is back…long may it continue

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              • Vagabond Journey July 7, 2020, 9:10 am

                Hmm… I believe they only did blood antibody tests, which only come up positive for the more severe infections. Mucus based antibody testing will turn up positive results that are 5x higher. I don’t understand why they’re not doing them. But cool that life is coming back to normal.

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                • Sarah BB July 7, 2020, 10:44 am

                  Yeah if that’s the case it doesn’t make any sense why govt’s aren’t going mucas-based testing at scale. Even Sweden a place that bet big on herd immunity isn’t doing mucas testing at scale and they must be desperate to prove the strategy was right.
                  All I can say was there was a genuine sense of disappointment here today that despite being hit hard, Madrid scored so low for levels of immunity (although higher than the rest of Spain), think everyone wanted it to be higher. No matter, we’re open and I can do more here than I could in London right now so I’m happy.

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              • Jack July 7, 2020, 11:20 am

                If only 5.2% of Spain has antibodies and there were 43,000 to 44,000 excess deaths in Spain, the fatality rate for this is close to 2%.

                Fortunately, a 5.2% prevalence, those numbers could be very wrong and prevalence could actually be higher. I’d have to look at the study to get the exact numbers.

                If that death rate is true then we know this is less contagious than we thought…..because an accepted way of getting true numbers of infected people is by knowing a death rate.

                I still haven’t seen anything to really change my numbers that the death rate is between 0.5% to 1% but those Spain numbers push that envelope.

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                • Sarah BB July 7, 2020, 12:20 pm

                  Ouch that maths has just hurt my head, but think I now follow. Madrid death rate by that measure looks around 2% too if not a touch higher, based on excess deaths as of 17 June (16,078) which won’t be too dissimilar to today.

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                • Vagabond Journey July 7, 2020, 12:46 pm

                  That’s only blood based antibodies — and who knows if the tests are really accurate??? That’s also been an issue this entire time. I can’t see how only 5.2% can be the number of infections when that seems to go against the number of confirmed cases if fleshed out across the entire population (although I don’t believe we have a good number for this as it doesn’t seem as if Spain did widespread testing of asymptomatic people). It would also be in stark contrast to places like NYC. I’m going with the theory that most people who have minor infections never develop blood based antibodies, so the test is pretty much a waste.

                  What do you make of this study: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.21.108308v1.full

                  Or the one that found that 40 – 60% of people already have some degree of resistance to Sars-Cov-2: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30610-3

                  Also, I’d wager that lockdown-related causes are more responsible for the spike in death rate. It seems to me as if their lockdown was far more brutal than even ours.

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                  • Jack July 22, 2020, 5:42 pm

                    I’ve had a chance to go through the article on the 40 to 60% resistance. It talks about T-cells…lot of interesting things not only in that article but others. Interestingly, SARS2 attacks T-cells. We have known that since probably February or March. We also know that 40% are either asymptomatic or have such mild symptoms that they don’t think twice about it. That’s because the body is able to fight it. Why? It could be T-cells or another reason. We don’t know for sure. There is a lot to learn about this. They are finding out now that some people are suffering long after their recovery. I think we can second guess the reaction and the measures taken, but it’s foolhardy to judge the severity of this disease without the whole picture. What we do know is that more Americans have died from this than from all the wars since WW2.

                    About measures: At what level of death in society would lockdown measures be appropriate? 0.5%, 1%, 3%, 5%, 20%, 99%? I say none of them. That’s why it doesn’t matter the severity that it turns out to be. But everyone wants to debate just how severe it is and if that justifies taking away personal rights.

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                    • Vagabond Journey July 23, 2020, 3:46 pm

                      Hmm… true, but we also have to figure the number of people who died who would have soon died from something else anyway. There’s an interesting study out that shows that the numbers of total deaths have not gone up at all this year … I will talk more with you about this when I look into it better. I’ve only read articles about it … which, as we know, is a little foolish in this climate haha. (Man, how did media get so bad?)

                      “About measures: At what level of death in society would lockdown measures be appropriate? 0.5%, 1%, 3%, 5%, 20%, 99%? I say none of them. That’s why it doesn’t matter the severity that it turns out to be. But everyone wants to debate just how severe it is and if that justifies taking away personal rights.”

                      I agree completely. It’s not the government’s job to nanny us. That was never what it was meant for in this country.

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  • Mary Soderstrom July 19, 2020, 5:58 pm

    Sorry, Wade. Got to disagree with you on the dangerousness of Covid 19. Two friends have died of it before their time, a neighbor who I didn’t know was the first to go on Montreal island, and a youngish friend (43 or so) was desperately ill for four weeks and now has continuing long problems. This is not your usual seasonal influenza. And that’s just in one corner of the world which over all hasn’t done too badly so far.

    You may rightly take to task how some governments have responded. In contrast to the US, the Canadian government stepped up to the plate immediately with a the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit that put $2000 a month in the pockets of people (including those in the gig economy) who’d made $5000 in the previous 12 months. The initial plan was for 12 weeks, but it has been extended. That has made an enormous difference in how folks have been able to weather the storm, and is setting the stage for a recovery that should be rapid and robust.

    What this crisis has shone is the fault lines in society, all societies. Where I live there have been far too many old folks die in “care” homes or in crowded housings. Those are problems that are going to have to be addressed down the line.

    In the meantime, I keep masking up…

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    • Vagabond Journey July 23, 2020, 3:41 pm

      Hello Mary,

      I’m very sorry to hear about your friends. When something like this strikes someone personally it becomes vastly more real than those of us who are just looking at the numbers. I hope things get better there soon.

      Yes, it does sound like the Canadian government is doing some good work making sure people can get through this … but it can’t last forever, and it’s seeming like it’s going to be at least another 6 to 12 months before a vaccine is readily available (if ever). My main argument is against the attempt at long-term containment. It’s not natural, first of all — we’ve been facing viruses since the begging of time — secondly, it isn’t effective — it’s going to spread, the only question is the amount of time it’s going to take. NYC is doing very well now — even with mass demonstrations happening almost daily and through multiple phases of re-opening, which indicates to me (along with what data we have) that most of us who are susceptible to it have already had it. The numbers of new cases and deaths are now so low as to be negligible, and I believe that this is largely due to completely ineffective governance. I guess on some level I have to appreciate how screwed up the USA is right now haha.

      But what you say about cracks in the system is very right on. In NYC over 40% of the Covid deaths happened in nursing homes. This is inexcusable. Those are the people who should have been protected first, and they weren’t. Instead, our government made a big show of locking down healthy people while leaving the vulnerable at risk.

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8520259/Blame-game-Cuomo-takes-heat-NY-nursing-home-study.html

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      • Mary Soderstrom July 23, 2020, 4:04 pm

        “true, but we also have to figure the number of people who died who would have soon died from something else anyway. ”
        Well, we’re all going to die from something, the only question is when and how. But at least here there is strong evidence that there have been a lot of “excess deaths” due to Covid 19. Here’s the June stats from Statistics Canada (the July report isn’t out yet.) https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/200619/dq200619b-eng.htm

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        • Vagabond Journey July 24, 2020, 10:05 pm

          Hello Mary,

          Very true.

          Thanks for sending this over.

          It seems as if our definition of “a lot” may be a little different in this case. The excess deaths in Canada seem on the low end to me — no chance in some provinces, a few hundred in others, a little over a thousand in Quebec, and there’s also other factors to consider in: stress due to the pandemic, medical capacity directed away from other ailments to treat Covid, people’s reluctance to go to the hospital. I’m not saying this isn’t bad; what I’m saying is that our actions are making things worse.

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