I don’t know about you, but I now see light at the end of the tunnel in our long battle against COVID-19. With a pair of very promising coronavirus vaccine trials, I am more confident than ever that travel can resume in earnest by the middle of 2021. But we now face a bleak winter and should prepare ourselves accordingly.
Great News: Another Successful COVID-19 Vaccine Trial
This morning, Moderna announced that its COVID-19 vaccine trials were 94.5% effective. The news comes on the tail of Pfizer’s similarly positive announcement a week earlier. Within weeks, Moderna will seek emergency FDA approval. If approved, by the end of the year over 60 million doses of the two vaccines may be available. The Moderna vaccine does not require ultra-cold storage like Pfizer’s, which will make it even easier to distribute.
More information here.
Travel Will Return With Coronavirus Vaccine
A vaccine is not our great savior, but an effective vaccine, especially as time goes by, will prove essential in re-opening borders. Testing and masks will still stick around for quite sometime, but a vaccine will also .
I realize I am on the optimistic side, but I am hopeful that we will continue to see clinical breakthroughs around the world and that the vaccine will not just be a hot commodity for those who are well-connected or rich, but accessible to all who want it.
Perhaps in this era we will finally shift from yellow physical vaccination cards filled with stamps and handwriting to an electronic vaccination card (much like my negative COVID-19 test in Germany).
But First A Bleak Winter…
Not so fast, though. While the future looks brighter today, we still have to get through the northern hemispheres winter. While I strongly question whether lockdowns are the answer, we are in for a lot more pain before healing.
Newly reported cases are surging and deaths figures are again creeping up. If hospital beds fill up again, avoiding shutdowns is going to be virtually impossible.
Now is the time to rally together as a nation and as a world to take the sort of precautions necessary in order to minimize the spread of the virus. I’m not talking about locking yourselves in your basement. But avoiding unnecessary gatherings and contact is a reasonable start. We’re still figuring out how the virus spreads, but we know there have been so-called super spreader events. We can all do our part by taking sensible precautions during this period of (hopeful) transition and waiting.
CONCLUSION
Good news today. I’m heartened by the brilliance of the human mind in overcoming enemies both visible and invisible. But we’re not out of the woods yet…we still have a dark winter to get through. I’m not telling you to stay home (because I’m certainly not), but let’s all be mindful in our interactions with others and take reasonable precautions to get us to a point in which we can once again freely fellowship and travel.
The problem with vaccine will be a reliable way for a passenger to prove that they got said vaccine to be able to board airlines.
Is this proof just an entry in yellow fever cards? If so, many will just add the fake entry and airlines will stop accepting it.
Is the proof some other one page document from your clinic saying you got a vaccine? If so, people will fake it and airlines will stop accepting it after a week or so.
And then we will have to wait for a globally accepted vaccine proof setup similar to our biometric passport system. Creating such a setup will take at the very least 3-4 months, plus several more months for all airlines and countries to get on board with accepting it
So all this is to say, simply having the vaccine rolled out and starting to be taken by public isn’t enough. It will be a year behind that to setup a proof mechanism
Unfortunately we are well past “coming together as a nation” to do anything effective to slow the spread before a vaccine comes. United added what – 1,000 flights? – to next week’s schedule because they know everyone is over it?
And now my MIL is pushing for an in person thanksgiving, probably because all of her friends are doing the same and she feels left out.
Steve, before you belittle your MIL, you should know that there are people who do not think the relatively small risk of the virus justifies putting a halt to life and tradition. I count myself as one of those people. Yes, I believe in masks, and have been quarantined at home since March. But you better believe I am going to hold Thanksgiving with my family. Not because I “feel left out” as you so condescendingly put it, but because I have a lot to be thankful for and want to celebrate the gifts of life with the people that I love; something I count as more important than arbitrary COVID restrictions.
@Andy So when you or your family contract the virus and need hospital admission will you be refusing treatment? It’s the only reasonable thing to do when you flaunt the rules and do activities that put you and others at risk.
I’m pretty sure we won’t contact the virus.
Matt,
As a International Pilot I will NOT be experimenting with ANY jabs. If forced, I will retire. The vaccine industry has a very bad record of safety even with proper testing. Now we are going to mandate a new unproven and not properly tested vaccine that alters your DNA? No thanks! You first! Let me know how you do after a year and multiple doses. The vaccine injury court has paid out $4B in damages to families with damaged children. Lives ruined by big pharma. Big Pharma gets immunity and this makes everyone vulnerable to rushed vaccines hitting the market.
All who served in the Bush wars were forced to get jabs and most are suffering ill effects. Vaccines react differently with each blood type. A rushed vaccine is like sleeping on a grenade with the pin pulled.
I’ll happily go first!
Vaccine “alters your DNA”??
When did they stop requiring a high school diploma to become a pilot John?
The middle of 2021? Yikes.
P.S. Always Trump.
John if you are over 60 I’m more than willing to take your place in the ‘high priority’ list of people to get the vaccine first!
Maybe I can do a quick CPT trip then before summer with your help
For anyone who is tempted to believe that a vaccine will alter your DNA, please read below:
“RNA vaccines have some distinct advantages. One is that RNA-based vaccines appear to perform better than DNA-based vaccines. Another is that they are also safer, as injection of RNA presents no risk of disrupting the cell’s natural DNA sequence. To continue our kitchen analogy, disruption from DNA is like inserting a foreign ingredient in an existing recipe, which can change the resulting dish [2]. Injecting RNA, on the other hand, is like temporarily adding a new recipe in the cook book while keeping old ones untouched, and therefore will not result in surprising changes to existing recipes.”
http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/rna-vaccines-a-novel-technology-to-prevent-and-treat-disease/
“many people are saying” that these vaccines will change your DNA/RNA and turn you into zombies – don’t you know the MSM is hiding that from you? lol 🙂
To add perspective, both these vaccines use a new type of modified rna technique. It is not Pfizer vaccine. It is biontech vaccine, invented by a turkish couple. Pfizer just ran the clinical trials.
The moderna vaccine was bankrolled by bill gates through his foundation. The same bill gates vilified by trump supporters because they had to keep pushing the virus is a hoax narrative. What has trump done through his foundation except steal from children’s cancer charities? So to put the record straight, trump is still a pos, scum, turd that needs to be flushed. His white supporters are also pos, especially all the republican senators who sit around watching as that orange turd sets the country on fire. Screw McConnell, Graham, Cruz, Cornyn and all the turds that voted for them. And don’t forget trump’s kids.
All trump voters should be the last to get any vaccinations or any treatments for covid.
The sad thing for Trump is that he lost not so much due to his polices, but due to his tone and rhetoric. Had he just played peacemaker and employed a less incendiary style and embraced people like Gates, he would likely have cruised to re-election, even with the same overall COVID-19 polices. His style worked for him in 2016 but people were bored of it by 2020.
Matthew I respect your opinion but that comment is a tad naive, the reason being that Trump is not capable of normal behavior. He is a mentally ill person, and I genuinely hope he gets the help he needs post-Presidency because it’s actually kind of sad to watch. So saying “if he had just played peacemaker” doesn’t really work, since Trump isn’t really in control of his own actions.
As far as his COVID policies go, it’s pretty obvious that they were disastrous. Admittedly the US is one of the harder places to get this thing under control in general (given the federal system, resistance from state govs, 330+ million people) but by any objective measure almost 250K deaths is a bloody disaster. As far as helping with the vaccine goes, yes, the huge funds pumped into Op Warp Speed were hugely beneficial in yielding the results we have now. But I honestly can’t think of a single potential Pres who would not have invested in a vaccine, so it’s hard to bill just the act of doing something completely obvious as an ‘achievement’
I know people who voted for him 2016 but not in 2020 because they were simply tired of his bombastic rhetoric. The election turned out very close and I don’t think it is naive to point out that he forfeited his entire incumbent advantage by acting like a stupid child. Of course COVID was woefully mishandled…I’ve written about it several times. But as you point out, the USA is a federal system and presented a unique problem that I’m not sure others would have handled differently.
I disagree that the Covid-19 response was “woefully mishandled”. I characterize the response as an average government type response. Some good points but not as good as if you were protecting yourself. That is why self directed measures are very important. We do rely on others and rely on government but much of protection is on our own initiative.
For example, I do not wait for government to tell me about masks or to use non-medical masks. I simply make my own decisions. My own decision is to wear a surgical mask often and we have a very, very limited supply of N95 masks for high risk situations but not enough to wear daily or even once a week. No hoarding was done so doctors and hospitals could have N95 masks.
Derek, to be clear I am not singling out the POTUS (though he rhetoric was obscene) but also including my governor, Gavin Newsom, and Mayor, Eric Garcetti.
@Matt (not Matthew) point well taken, but you can’t hold Trump responsible for his actions if you say he’s mentally ill. Don’t give the man an out — he is responsible for everything Matthew said above.
I would vote for a republican if they run a candidate that is clean and has history of service to community and is truly fiscal conservative, which means balanced budgets and fiscal prudence. Sadly i don’t find many candidates in the republican party like that.
So you voted for the inveterate plagiarist and prevaricator, the Senator from MBNA, a Harris-Biden administration with Joe Biden as President?
Say what you will about Trump, but at least he didn’t start the War on Terror, continue to prosecute it, destabilize Libya and Syria, and create the European refugee crisis as Bush 43 and Bush 44 (AKA Obama) did. Should that not give him a bit of leeway to be an otherwise terrible person?
“look at me, I hate everyone and everything, and stand for nothing; I bash Biden endlessly but swear I didn’t vote for Trump”
The fact that you think someone who doesn’t support Biden must be a Trump voter demonstrates just how blinkered your worldview is. Your cognitive function has been totally debilitated by TDS. Also, yet again, you can’t actually refute the substance of my comment, fatty. Trump’s evil must be so massive that it distorts the fabric of space-time and he is to blame for the destruction and havoc wreaked by Bush 43 and Bush 44.
I look forward to your inevitable asinine point about how Biden is just Trump 46. And link to a Breitbart article or 4Chan post “proving it”.
GFY.
Again, you can’t address the points I made and merely resorted to ad hominem. When have I ever referenced Breitbart or 4chan? I make a point of linking to leftist/mainstream sites to show that the evidence is not biased by the right. Are you actually denying that all those foreign policy debacles didn’t happen thanks to Bush 43/44? That you think I have to “prove” anything shows how blinded by TDS rage you are. Pure leftist hysteria, totally devoid of reason.
Well there you go. Lindsey Graham is a POS.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/brad-raffensperger-georgia-vote/2020/11/16/6b6cb2f4-283e-11eb-8fa2-06e7cbb145c0_story.html
These jerks have never been about law and order. They use that only to suppress votes.
I just want a vaccine for the stupidity and hysteria that was on display in 2020.
If people get this vaccine, and it shuts them up, that would be a double bonus.
The rest of us can live life while people stop the world for something so minor.
Matt,
The debit comments are hate speech and should not be tolerated by your forum.
Which means i am ready to run for president. Will you vote for me or are you in the camp i will be villfying?
I’m optimistic as well with the current news on the vaccine. I just hope the virus won’t mutate too much to the point that the vaccine would become useless.
Kennedy has done the vaccine research and anyone that is considering any vaccine needs to do their own research. If you act like a sheep you will be treated like one.
Steve, thanks for the clarification. RNA vaccines are also risky and everyone needs to do their own research.
debit, do you have a job? Do you produce anything? I paid 50% of my salary last year to feed people like you. Soon you will have to take care of yourself. Who is John Galt?
EVERY presidential candidate since Teddy Roosevelt has been a proxy for the Rothschild’s City of London debt/slave banking and crime cartel. Presidents come and go and nothing changes. Blue/Red two sides of the same coin. Debit you really need to do some reading and catch up a little. The Creature from Jekyl Island is an excellent primer. The hate you are spewing is directed at the wrong target. You are ignorant and a product of the current educational brainwashing. The fact is debit the Federal Government is 100% corrupt and an enemy of the American People.
“The highest earning 1 percent of New York City residents generated 43 percent of city income taxes and 51 percent of the New York State income taxes collected from individuals living in the city as of 2016, according to newly released data from the Independent Budget Office (IBO).
“The IBO’s latest tax liability estimates highlight once again New York’s heavy dependence on the top 1 percent, for which the income cut point as of 2016 was $713,706.
“As shown below, the highest-earning 1 percent of New Yorkers paid more city and state income taxes than the lowest-earning 90 percent—combined.
“…[I]f just 100 New Yorkers in this super-high income category (>$5 million) picked up and move to another state, the income tax loss alone would come to $60 million for the city and $130 million for the state.”
https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/nycs-high-income-tax-habit/
So much for the rich not paying their fair share. Let the city descend into rampant crime while trying to soak the rich and see where that gets you. Limousine liberals have left the city in droves and the state overall has lost well over a million people during Cuomo’s reign.
The population of Lower Manhattan ended up doubling years after 9/11. NYC will rebound. People flock to cities for reasons.
The top 1% has done fantastically well in Covid times – no sweat off their back with these taxes.
Keep cherry-picking to suit your “I hate everything and stand for nothing” narrative.
I heard the first plane hit on 9/11. I understand the attraction of living in New York. The city’s population was already increasing due to a drastic drop in crime (likely thanks to increased policing, the exact opposite of what the left wants) and a booming economy. Do you think limousine liberals want to live in a city in precipitous decline full of rampant crime? My friend witnessed a shooting in broad daylight in Brooklyn.
You totally miss the point regarding taxation. What do you have to say about New York state losing 1.4 million residents since 2010? An OPM wage-slave probably doesn’t understand or care how economies work anyway.
Every piece of data I mention is “cherry-picked” according to you. You’d probably say I was cherry-pocking data against Mao if I mentioned that 40 million people (or more) died from the Great Chinese Famine. Socialism works!
You are too ignorant to understand what I am for and what I am against. You think I hate everything because you are full of hate and devoid of reason. I suspect your brain was rotten before it was stricken with TDS.
Stop getting your “research” from Facebook John. The ‘Vaccine Court’ you site was created specifically to deal with cranks like you. If every Alex Jones conspiracy freak was allowed to litigate their anger at the world for having a child with special needs and development challenges, then literally the drug companies would not make vaccines – those things also known as the biggest life-saving medical breakthrough in modern history. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was a simple actuarial decision in which it’s easier to pay you morons to go away versus taking the time and money to prove you wrong. The US Government long ago realized that it’s more important to save millions of lives than disincentivize these companies research and development to the point they don’t make vaccines. This is reality no matter how much you want it not to be. No, vaccines did not give your kid autism. Leave the “doing your own research” to actual scientist.
Vaccination will likely be a condition of entry to most countries. It’s difficult to enforce compulsory vaccination for citizens, but neither onerous nor inappropriate to require it of visitors . Fraudulent certificates would be an issue, so there’ll need to be a secure and verifiable database linked to passport numbers, or some such method.
Contrary to the statement by one poster above, vaccines do indeed have a very good safety record. While nothing is 100% safe, and tragic adverse events do happen, the reality is vaccines have saved hundreds of millions of lives. I’m planning to be as far up the queue as I can be.
Dear Paolo,
I have a vaccine injured child. I can tell you all vaccines are not safe. As far as the safety record, have you seen the polo outbreaks in India and Africa? All vaccine induced. Lives destroyed. Here in the USA Big Pharma is immune from all liability. The vaccine court has a high bar to prove damage and they have paid out $4B in awards to families who have damaged children. All I can figure is you are a Troll for big Pharma. If you look at various religious groups and cultures that don’t vaccinate there is ZERO autism. 1/34 kids is on the scale today. The devastation to our country from those “Safe Vaccines” will be felt for generations.
The race for a covid vaccine is all about the Billions and possibly trillions to be made. Profit is the prime directive not well being of the worlds population.
One of my favorite memories about traveling in sub-Saharan Africa are the random outbreaks of polo. The horsemanship of the locals was simply amazing. I can’t ride myself, but I really enjoy watching. Thnks fr th mmrs, TWA John
While I’m sorry that your child has been injured by a vaccine, I maintain that most vaccines are safe and administered without complications. Of course we wish it was 100%, but sadly it’s not.
As a polio survivor, though a very mild case and largely unaffected 65 years on, I grew up seeing the devastation of that disease; if only the vaccine had arrived just a couple of years earlier, countless lives would have been spared or improved.
I’m certainly not an apologist for Big Pharma…far from it…but do believe in vaccination programs, and will certainly have the COVID one as soon as it’s feasible.
Once passengers accept the COVID (Certificate of Vaccination IDentification) we will be allowed to travel again. Welcome to the NWO.
Let me guess…you think George Soros is controlling all of us? And Q is still a thing?