Mooney_Driver wrote:
We could learn from the Japanese and other Asians who naturally wear masks when they got even a slight head cold. But as most others have proven to be egoistic and primitive societies I guess this is a mute vision.
I have lived in Japan, and know quite a lot of Japanese people, and it’s pretty clear to me that most Japanese people wear masks in the “colds season” to avoid catching a cold.
Those with “even a slight head cold” wear a mask to avoid peer disapproval of sneezing/coughing in the office/factory, which they only went into while ill to avoid peer disapproval of “shirking”.
I like the Japanese a lot, for lots of different reasons, but I wouldn’t rate their altruism that much higher than anybody else’s.
It remains interesting why the UK is producing these high numbers.
I think a part is a lot of testing is being done, but also we have a solid core of ~10% anti-vaccers who cannot be shifted no matter what, and the govt is afraid of introducing incentives in the form of privileges.
They are finally doing it now, for foreign travel only, but it is too late because few people are going on holidays now.
Arguably the issue has been mismanaged; they should have pulled out the carrots back in June/July. But I think nobody expected just how hard that last 10% will be to shift, and what makes it harder is that these 10% probably correlate with the lowest IQ groups, and these correlate with occupations with a lot of public contact. For example care home staff must now be vacced but freelance visitors don’t, so anti-vaccers working in care homes simply move to freelance visiting (where there are endless vacancies) and carry on nicely infecting the same old people. Or they can get jobs in hospitals.
I wonder how other countries have dealt with this. The news reports here indicate some pretty aggressive measures e.g. a curfew on unvacced people in Austria.
Back to the previous discussion (@kwlf), reading between the lines it looks like an antibody count of ~700 on the Abbott tester shows a reasonable immunity level, and if one repeated the same test later one should get a reasonable indication of how it declined. Where they get their “minimum 50” value from remains a mystery. We will still get the top-up (which will be Pfizer this time) so we can do airline travel (ski trips). I know someone, about 50, who has just caught it and is pretty unwell at home.
Re masks, the reason I think they work is because only a slight reduction in R makes a big difference in the spread. I will wear the FFP3 in enclosed ski lifts 
The news reports here indicate some pretty aggressive measures e.g. a curfew on unvacced people in Austria.
The best news I heard today.
no more than I would have been likely to vacation in communist European countries in the 80s or before
You obviously haven’t visited any of these countries in that period…
Mexico City instead
Yeah one of the safest places on Earth
I’m familiar through family with Yugoslavia being the hot spot for low cost vacations for 70s era Europeans, and two guys working for me in the US (one Czech, the other Polish) separately went there with their specially colored ‘limited’ passports, but somehow got lost in the Vienna train station on the way home, and eventually ended up in the US. Oddly enough neither of them describes their Warsaw Pact homeland of that era as great vacation destination.
My own travel to Slovenia and Croatia over a period of years and my two year relationship with a Slovenian diplomat (later national ambassador) twenty years ago did teach me a little bit about the former Yugoslavia. I think Ljubljana is a very nice city but the living conditions even as late as circa 2002 were not great. What impressed me at that time was the entrepreneurial ambition of the people there, and it seems to have worked out well for them.
Safety is not our goal, but regardless we’ll soon find out what Mexico City is like in 2021. I’ve heard it’s pretty enjoyable by people who have been there recently and knew where to go. I’m looking forward to it
Oddly enough neither of them describes their Warsaw Pact homeland of that era as great vacation destination.
For those who lived there different rules applied than for foreigners.
Safety is not our goal
Strange…
Not strange at all in my view. Risk and reward are correlated in many things, travel being very much one of them. My goal is to optimize the balance between travel safety and travel reward, not to maximize safely as a goal. Mexico City this year will not be as safe as Munich but I bet it will be safe enough.
I’ve ridden motorcycles all over Europe on many ‘dangerous’ roads for many years since 1988. The experience would not have been worthwhile to me in a safer car (or train, how depressing). I’ve so far had an immeasurably better experience with zero injury on the ‘dangerous’ motorcycle. I did almost kill myself twice in one day in Croatia once, riding from Dubrovnik to Portoroz. The key word is ‘almost’ and I’ve never so far crossed the line. I’m aiming to keep it that way but with good reason won’t choose the safer option to do so. It’s a pretty good example.
dublinpilot wrote:
But most of the population don’t operated in vaccinated, pre-quarantinned and then tested bubbles.
Really?
I thought that was what the UK as a country was, right up until they relaxed the travel measures in October… Except that instead of 100-150 guys in a very small space, you have 65million in a slightly bigger country-sized space? 
wrt masks… You want to wear one go ahead. But as I wander around the supermarket in France wearing a mask – because its the law and Im a generally law abiding citizen – dont tell me that the various chin-straps, random bits of cloth, single use but used for a week masks I see people wearing are doing anything useful. Oh, and “les bises” is back too, Ive noticed. In Supermarkets. And people actually drop their masks to do it…
@skydriller, yep.its a bit of a mixed bag here too.
Still some elbow and fist bumps, but the handshake and the occasional bisou is returning gradually with some close friends and relations.
Over 86% of those over 12 years old vaccinated and my wife and I are both due for the booster and the flu jab next month.
Silvaire wrote:
I did almost kill myself twice in one day in Croatia once, riding from Dubrovnik to Portoroz. The key word is ‘almost’ and I’ve never so far crossed the line.
Obviously. You only cross that line once and if you do you won’t be writing about it.
