The Future: Life in the era of pandemics.

Here is an interesting interview about the history of humanities responses to pandemics. You can see parallels with today's efforts and perhaps glimpse the future of life in a world where people are now very aware of the impacts of an epidemic.

It's from CRNS.

"What is the CNRS ?

The French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) is a public-funded institution that covers all scientific disciplines, from the humanities and social sciences to biological sciences, nuclear and particle physics, information sciences, engineering and systems, physics, mathematical sciences, chemistry, Earth sciences and astronomy, and ecology and the environment. 

With 32,000 researchers, engineers and technicians, the CNRS is at the forefront of international research and is the world's first producer of scientific research papers. It has been home to no fewer than 21 Nobel Prize laureates and 12 Fields Medal winners. The organization plays a key role worldwide through 36 International Joint Units and partnership agreements with more than 76 countries. It is also involved in the development and operation of large-scale research facilities, including telescopes, particle accelerators, supercomputers and very large databases."

“Humanity has always lived with viruses”

04.27.2020,

by Louise Mussat

When the next virus coming. 5 years 10 years or mutated 2 years.
PPE has a bright future Vietnam

VietCanada wrote:

Air travel has been in decline for a couple decades. So par for the course.
I never liked buffets. I've been sick from them more than any other cause in my whole life.
But room service?! No way man.
Seriously? That is evil.

For years I travelled to the US on business. Twice a week, about 25 times a year. I'd get to my hotel late. First thing I'd do is order room service. King cut roast beef with a baked potato, butter and sour cream, tasteless green stuff I assumed were chives. Green beans prepared in butter with garlic and almond slices. My mouth waters. The beer I brought with me from the duty free because.. American beer.

In the morning I always went to the coffee shop/restaurant for three eggs, three sausages, three buttermilk pancakes with blueberries, whipped butter and faux maple syrup to slather all over it all.  Breakfast sausage with syrup is surprisingly tasty. And of course hot, black coffee to combat the sugar. LOL

Didn't need to eat until late afternoon.

You can't replace that with a little box of cereal and milk.

What a strange new world we live in with no room service. Tragic.  Now I'm depressed. Thanks a lot Ontheroad57.

That's odd just been reading that since 1974 air travel has increased 8 fold... Both Boeing and Airbus are selling record numbers of planes.. ( well up until the virus).

Airtravel potentially going to double in the next twenty years

I think VietCanada means service re: air travel has declined. It's abysmal on most airlines if you're in economy class... flying cattle cars.

Plus, I honestly don't know how the airlines can legally get away with some of the crap they pull - like selling you a direct, 5-hour flight, and 24 hrs. before departure changing the itinerary to a 17-hour odyssey with two changes of planes. It's like a car dealership selling you a Bugatti... and delivering a Volkswagen.

Canceled/changed flights... you request a refund and are assigned a case number; then, they stop communicating in the hope you will 'give up' and they can keep your money. Go after them by doing 'charge back' on your credit card.

I hope they all go broke.

Seats are smaller, legroom is less, no more meals or drinks. Apparently you can't even be sure of sitting next to your partner or children. Overbooking, you can't even be sure they'll honour the ticket you bought.

I've been flying since I was around 10 on BOAC to England once a year. Later I used Air Canada to take vacations in the Caribbean. Business flights to the US (not business class). More recently flights from Canada to Korea and Japan and back as well as around Asia.

The quality and service has declined severely.  They have gone from a paradigm of  customer service to acting like you owe them a living.

I used to love flying, it was part of the travel experience. Now it's a necessary evil of planned discomfort and anxiety.

That's been my personal experience over the decades. Yours may differ.

In other news the virus is mutating. This from the LA Times although several other sources have been reporting this today as well.

What it means is that the vaccines we are working on today may not work on the version of the virus that exists when and if the vaccine is ready.

Apparently this new strain is more contagious but thankfully not more deadly.

A mutant coronavirus has emerged, even more contagious than the original, study says

It may be responsible for the tragedies in Italy and parts of the US.

goodolboy wrote:

China has a lot to answer for here & when the dust settles I for one hope the US & the West take them to task for devastation they have caused the whole world.

Maybe, and maybe not. Research now shows the virus was in France, and very probably in other countries, long before it was even identified as a new strain.

https://www.sciencealert.com/genetic-in … e-reported

The French case alone, a man who had never been to China, proves the virus was in France on December 27, and very probably for at least a few weeks before as he must have been infected in that country, so the person that infected him must have been in France before the virus was known to exist as a separate entity. Looks like Italy might well be the same, that suggesting pretty much everywhere else had similar unidentified cases as well.
This isn't defending China's less that reasonable attempts at local cover up including arresting doctors, but it pretty much shows the virus was already well and truly established in chunks of the world anyway.

Seems the timeline will have to be reassessed.

Here's an article about that:

Virus detectives tracking COVID-19 to its genetic origins

Amélie Bottollier-Depois

Agence France-Presse

An excerpt:

"Imperial College London, in collaboration with the WHO, has also traced the virus’ family tree, estimating that it appeared in China on December 5 (with a margin of uncertainty between November 6 and December 13).

Erik Volz, an epidemiologist at Imperial College, said all of the very earliest genetic sequences of the virus collected in Wuhan in December and January "have almost identical genomes".

"And all viruses currently circulating elsewhere in the world are descended from these closely related lineages in Wuhan," he told AFP. "

Genetic analysis is pretty clear that It started in Wuhan we just don't know the exact date.

cruisemonkey wrote:

I think VietCanada means service re: air travel has declined. It's abysmal on most airlines if you're in economy class... flying cattle cars.

Plus, I honestly don't know how the airlines can legally get away with some of the crap they pull - like selling you a direct, 5-hour flight, and 24 hrs. before departure changing the itinerary to a 17-hour odyssey with two changes of planes. It's like a car dealership selling you a Bugatti... and delivering a Volkswagen.

Canceled/changed flights... you request a refund and are assigned a case number; then, they stop communicating in the hope you will 'give up' and they can keep your money. Go after them by doing 'charge back' on your credit card.

I hope they all go broke.

I had hoped to experience 2 meters of legroom in coach.

Apparently (rumor) not to be.

A fairly reliable source told me yesterday that social distancing on domestic airplane flights in Vietnam will now be abolished, while the wearing of masks by crew and passengers will continue.

Because they didn't provide a source link, I'm hesitantly sharing it here as a rumor, hoping that someone can either confirm or refute it.

Also in the same rumor, Airlines will now be able to return to normal flight schedules.

During quarantine the Airlines were severely restricted in the number of flights they could fly each day.

No need to attack me if I'm wrong.

Simply use a source to confirm or not.

OceanBeach92107 wrote:

cruisemonkey wrote:

I think VietCanada means service re: air travel has declined. It's abysmal on most airlines if you're in economy class... flying cattle cars.

Plus, I honestly don't know how the airlines can legally get away with some of the crap they pull - like selling you a direct, 5-hour flight, and 24 hrs. before departure changing the itinerary to a 17-hour odyssey with two changes of planes. It's like a car dealership selling you a Bugatti... and delivering a Volkswagen.

Canceled/changed flights... you request a refund and are assigned a case number; then, they stop communicating in the hope you will 'give up' and they can keep your money. Go after them by doing 'charge back' on your credit card.

I hope they all go broke.

I had hoped to experience 2 meters of legroom in coach.

Apparently (rumor) not to be.

A fairly reliable source told me yesterday that social distancing on domestic airplane flights in Vietnam will now be abolished, while the wearing of masks by crew and passengers will continue.

Because they didn't provide a source link, I'm hesitantly sharing it here as a rumor, hoping that someone can either confirm or refute it.

Also in the same rumor, Airlines will now be able to return to normal flight schedules.

During quarantine the Airlines were severely restricted in the number of flights they could fly each day.

No need to attack me if I'm wrong.

Simply use a source to confirm or not.

A link has been posted here in another thread. Some restrictions are being relaxed for domestic travel only. Border restrictions are not being relaxed in any way.

Probably it should be in the sticky about VN Covid news. If I can find it I'll post it there.

OceanBeach92107 wrote:

cruisemonkey wrote:

I think VietCanada means service re: air travel has declined. It's abysmal on most airlines if you're in economy class... flying cattle cars.

Plus, I honestly don't know how the airlines can legally get away with some of the crap they pull - like selling you a direct, 5-hour flight, and 24 hrs. before departure changing the itinerary to a 17-hour odyssey with two changes of planes. It's like a car dealership selling you a Bugatti... and delivering a Volkswagen.

Canceled/changed flights... you request a refund and are assigned a case number; then, they stop communicating in the hope you will 'give up' and they can keep your money. Go after them by doing 'charge back' on your credit card.

I hope they all go broke.

I had hoped to experience 2 meters of legroom in coach.

Apparently (rumor) not to be.

A fairly reliable source told me yesterday that social distancing on domestic airplane flights in Vietnam will now be abolished, while the wearing of masks by crew and passengers will continue.

Because they didn't provide a source link, I'm hesitantly sharing it here as a rumor, hoping that someone can either confirm or refute it.

Also in the same rumor, Airlines will now be able to return to normal flight schedules.

During quarantine the Airlines were severely restricted in the number of flights they could fly each day.

No need to attack me if I'm wrong.

Simply use a source to confirm or not.

Internal flights only as far as I'm aware. No distancing re seats etc or food and masks need to be worn.

There is talk about allowing some international flights. Of course there will be conditions. Pilots and crew will have to do quarantine, maybe for domestic flights too.

IMHO it would be good for countries like VN to work on domestic demand. Their economy would be stronger in the long run.

I think I read that the island of Phu Quoc is visa free for a month of vacationing. probably for tourists stuck here now.

Can't find the links now so these should be fact checked if they are important to you.

Indices wrote:

OceanBeach92107 wrote:

cruisemonkey wrote:

I think VietCanada means service re: air travel has declined. It's abysmal on most airlines if you're in economy class... flying cattle cars.

Plus, I honestly don't know how the airlines can legally get away with some of the crap they pull - like selling you a direct, 5-hour flight, and 24 hrs. before departure changing the itinerary to a 17-hour odyssey with two changes of planes. It's like a car dealership selling you a Bugatti... and delivering a Volkswagen.

Canceled/changed flights... you request a refund and are assigned a case number; then, they stop communicating in the hope you will 'give up' and they can keep your money. Go after them by doing 'charge back' on your credit card.

I hope they all go broke.

I had hoped to experience 2 meters of legroom in coach.

Apparently (rumor) not to be.

A fairly reliable source told me yesterday that social distancing on domestic airplane flights in Vietnam will now be abolished, while the wearing of masks by crew and passengers will continue.

Because they didn't provide a source link, I'm hesitantly sharing it here as a rumor, hoping that someone can either confirm or refute it.

Also in the same rumor, Airlines will now be able to return to normal flight schedules.

During quarantine the Airlines were severely restricted in the number of flights they could fly each day.

No need to attack me if I'm wrong.

Simply use a source to confirm or not.

Internal flights only as far as I'm aware. No distancing re seats etc or food and masks need to be worn.

Yeah, internal flights. That's what I meant by domestic.

I found some links about domestic and international flights. i posted them in the VN Covid sticky.

There is a point of view that the lifestyle changes enforced on society (not economics or quarantine) are positive and we should embrace them. This notion keeps popping up on News sites. I've never seen this POV expressed by anyone with any political power so I give you this video from a priest from the UK.

This is from the BBC.

Pause For Thought: 'I don’t want to go back to the way it was before.'   

There's a bit of religion in it obviously but try to ignore that and consider his points about lifestyle.

So, anybody think else think that there is some potential good coming from all this?
Pollution is low, self reliance is high.

VietCanada wrote:

There is a point of view that the lifestyle changes enforced on society (not economics or quarantine) are positive and we should embrace them. This notion keeps popping up on News sites. I've never seen this POV expressed by anyone with any political power so I give you this video from a priest from the UK.

This is from the BBC.

Pause For Thought: 'I don’t want to go back to the way it was before.'   

There's a bit of religion in it obviously but try to ignore that and consider his points about lifestyle.

So, anybody think else think that there is some potential good coming from all this?
Pollution is low, self reliance is high.

Wet Markets & killing of wild animals for food, killing of endangered species for so called medicine & aphrodisiacs, that could be potentially good coming from all this. On CNN this morning news, US & OZ already starting to put pressure on that front.

VietCanada wrote:

...They are the cause of many international problems of the day.

So arguably is the US, especially those of the Middle East.  China does bad things, but so does Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the US, to name some of the more outstanding world citizens.  Nevertheless they are a very large country with a growing mass of consumers, and they will continue to be a major factor in the world economy after this coronavirus mess is over.

cruisemonkey wrote:

On the other hand, a virus could save us when the aliens invade.

Only if they come from Mars.

paulmsn wrote:

goodolboy wrote:

paulmsn wrote:

I've been reading about the novel coronavirus since it was still only in Wuhan (as far as anyone knew then), and I'd like to clarify a few points:  it was not the Chinese government that hid the severity of the epidemic and imprisoned the doctor -- both were actions of the Wuhan local government, and they hid the severity from their own national government for quite a while.  Yes, the Chinese National government is guilty of minimizing the severity of the outbreak, but so are Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. 

China didn't "unleash" the virus, they suffered from it, and the virus spread, as viruses do.  Had everyone involved been completely open and aboveboard, it still would have done that.

You can selectively read anything about what happened prior to the virus becoming a pandemic just depends who you read & where the report comes from, like the Chinese government knew there was a problem in Dec 2019 & did very little about it. I have read that had they acted 7 days earlier & locked down (banned all travel) before Chinese New Year Jan 25th the virus would have been contained in Wu Han & China. I have also read & of course its just a rumor that the Chinese government deliberately allowed travel from Wu Han because they knew the havoc it would cause all over the world & they would come out of it smelling of roses economically. So we can deduct whatever we want from what ever we decide to read & believe but there is two sides to every story & I know which one I believe!

There was no "selectively"  -- I read what I read as it was happening, from trusted sources, not conspiracy sites or YouTube videos.  It appears you want to believe that China is purest evil and nothing will change your mind. 

I know now to dismiss anything you have to say on the subject, since you clearly lack anything approaching objectivity.

Latest stats link below.........

DEATHS.......       China 4,633

                             US 85,197
                             UK 33,186
                         ITALY 31,106
                        SPAIN 27,104
                      FRANCE 27,074

REST OF THE WORLD 98,000+-

Easy to see who is the winner & who are the losers here. Hope this link meets your trusted criteria.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

paulmsn wrote:

Hope you realize you proved nothing at all.

Oh I have to disagree with you, I think he has proven something very important. The statistics he quotes show that the country that caused this world wide catastrophe has basically come out of it scot free with very few deaths per head population & their economy basically intact.
However the rest of the world has by no fault of their own seen their innocent citizens die by the tens of thousands & their economies in tatters with people queuing to get food aid. I personally & many others be they Right or Left wing hope that China is brought to book & be required to pay monetary compensation but more importantly accept their humanitarian liability for the world wide suffering they have caused.

paulmsn wrote:

flippers wrote:

paulmsn wrote:

Hope you realize you proved nothing at all.

Oh I have to disagree with you, I think he has proven something very important. The statistics he quotes show that the country that caused this world wide catastrophe has basically come out of it scot free with very few deaths per head population & their economy basically intact.
However the rest of the world has by no fault of their own seen their innocent citizens die by the tens of thousands & their economies in tatters with people queuing to get food aid. I personally & many others be they Right or Left wing hope that China is brought to book & be required to pay monetary compensation but more importantly accept their humanitarian liability for the world wide suffering they have caused.

China didn't "cause" it, nor did they get off scot-free -- they are number eleven on the list of worst-hit countries and number twenty-four by death rate, while the US is only a little above them at number twenty  -- and their more limited damage was the result of the extreme measures they took once they realized the deadliness of COVID-19.

Some of the world chose not to take it very seriously until it was too late to stop massive explosions of cases.  They cannot be blamed too much for this -- they didn't have the recent first-hand experience that East Asia did -- but the fact remains that measures that would have helped were taken too late in several European countries and the US.  Note that much of SE Asia and Australasia were not severely hit, as well as some European countries, because they did take precautions -- in the case of Vietnam, before the danger ever reached them.  Kind of throws your "rest of the world" claim in the dumpster.

When you have Trump minimizing the dangers even now, you can hardly claim "by no fault of their own".  Your need to blame China may be parroting Trump, but it is simply nonsense.  China did not cause the suffering -- the virus did.

Hacking into research on Corona vaccine development.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52656656

That figure you gave of 5.52 is the death rate percentage of actual cases, the actual death rate per 100,000 is as I stated 0.33. If you dont believe it, try using a calculator,1.4 billion citizens with a death rate of 4600 wont give you 5.52%.

Yes, I misstated the number type  in my second post.  The first post correctly says "death rate".  A mental slip in my reply where I restated the numbers.  Now corrected.

You're welcome.

China may not be alone as a potential source of new enzootic pathogens.  See this article on a market in Indonesia that is still selling bats.  Bats for sale  Ethically I have no problems with most of the animals sold, having personally ingested both dogs and rats, but I really have a problem with a nation allowing the selling of bats in light of recent events.

The future is here -
https://thepointsguy.com/news/this-8-ho … tnsTGbRosc

cruisemonkey wrote:

The future is here -
https://thepointsguy.com/news/this-8-ho … tnsTGbRosc

I recall reading about passengers taking up to 12 hours to get thru Hong Kong airport.
Unless it’s absolutely necessary, I can’t see anyone going thru that ordeal & calling it a holiday.

Seriously, if they gave away the air tickets & hotel bookings ,   how much would they have to pay you to get on a plane & go somewhere.

The penny hasn’t dropped with the airlines & tourism operators.      They actually think people are lining up to get on planes........that was the “old” theory.

Today people are cringing at the thought .   

Until everything returns to how it was ( likely never) travel will be something better to have done ,than do.

Ontheroad57 wrote:

cruisemonkey wrote:

The future is here -
https://thepointsguy.com/news/this-8-ho … tnsTGbRosc

I recall reading about passengers taking up to 12 hours to get thru Hong Kong airport.
Unless it’s absolutely necessary, I can’t see anyone going thru that ordeal & calling it a holiday.

Seriously, if they gave away the air tickets & hotel bookings ,   how much would they have to pay you to get on a plane & go somewhere.

The penny hasn’t dropped with the airlines & tourism operators.      They actually think people are lining up to get on planes........that was the “old” theory.

Today people are cringing at the thought .   

Until everything returns to how it was ( likely never) travel will be something better to have done ,than do.

I'm Just hoping I can extend my Vietnam tourist visa every 3 months...............for ever!!

Unfortunately, no more 3 mth tourist visas after 1st July , according to current visa policy.
They’ll be 30 days.

They may have to review that...since the virus has created a whole new ball game.    Maybe you get the 3mth business visa, they are renewable up to 12mths.   Apparently they don’t have the “baggage” & problems the 12mth DNs had.

TRC could be an option,,but they’d also need to figure out a way to issue those to single retirees.  From what I see at the moment, businesses , employers & “wives” can sponsor those.   

If your a self funded single retiree that doesn’t need a wife, job or headache of running a business ,,the pickings could be thin.😆

Remember Jerry Stiller (RIP) from Seinfeld.    It’s all about “Serenity Now”     

From what I’ve seen after 9 years here, wives, jobs & businesses don’t fit that frame😆😆

I don't really need to go to the US, I just wanted to go for a while.  But 14 days on either end of even a 2 month trip is kind of unacceptable.  I was leaning towards a July trip, now pushed to maybe September.  Maybe not even until Christmas.  Depends on a lot of things like when they schedule our consulate visa interview.  Maybe just suck it up and move back as soon as our interview is done.  We were going to wait until next June when the school year is done.

SteinNebraska wrote:

Maybe just suck it up and move back as soon as our interview is done.  We were going to wait until next June when the school year is done.

The visa comes pretty quickly after the interview.  After she gets the visa she only has a six month window to use it.  (I pulled that 6 month number from memory so please correct me if I am wrong.)  By the way, are you sure you will have a 14 day quarantine in Nebraska?  I was looking at a chart the other day (sorry I no longer have the link) and only a few states had a quarantine for arrivals.  There is a national block for some countries but Vietnam is not one of them.  The way things are going lately, I wouldn't be surprised if some countries specifically began to block air travel from the US.

THIGV wrote:

The visa comes pretty quickly after the interview.  After she gets the visa she only has a six month window to use it.  (I pulled that 6 month number from memory so please correct me if I am wrong.)  By the way, are you sure you will have a 14 day quarantine in Nebraska?  I was looking at a chart the other day (sorry I no longer have the link) and only a few states had a quarantine for arrivals.  There is a national block for some countries but Vietnam is not one of them.  The way things are going lately, I wouldn't be surprised if some countries specifically began to block air travel from the US.

I don't have a formal quarantine when i go home but I need to self-quarantine from the office as company policy. 

We submitted everything to NVC and normal processing is 3-4 months to interview.  With the delay in scheduling any interviews for two months already and maybe one or two more I am looking at 7-8 months.  That puts me into the next school semester and getting close to April 28 which will be our two year anniversary which moves us to 10 year green cards instead of provisional 2 year cards.  So, I'm sure we will wait until June as it sits today.  I'm just tired of Sai Gon and that influences what I want to do even if it isn't practical.

Easier to move at the beginning of the summer break and have three months to buy a new house in one of the districts in my city that has a high Vietnamese population to ease the transition for both of them.  Some of the high schools have 400 of 2000 students as Asian with the bulk Vietnamese, some Chinese and a very few Korean.  We can live in my current house while house hunting.  It's outside of the city which I love but if we stayed here my daughter would be the absolute single "non-white" in the entire high school.  Her English isn't good enough to be dumped into a regular high school.  The other high schools have very good ESL programs and help Asians transition better.

THIGV wrote:

...By the way, are you sure you will have a 14 day quarantine in Nebraska?  I was looking at a chart the other day (sorry I no longer have the link) and only a few states had a quarantine for arrivals.  There is a national block for some countries but Vietnam is not one of them...

A U.S. citizen friend flew back to the USA this past week:

Quy Nhơn to SGN/HCMC to Japan to DFW/Dallas-Ft Worth.

No quarantine and he was immediately able to travel on to Arkansas.

One anecdotal example (I don't know any current regulations)

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Looks like there are more than just a few countries interested in this inquiry. A lot more than another person quoted recently.

62 countries back inquiry.

In Britain the government has asked students to pick fruit, a job usually done by immigrants. Students replacing immigrants who can longer travel to work is a probably a good idea IMHO.

IMHO any business model that requires masses of people needs to adapt.
Sports, shopping malls, mass transit including airlines, public celebrations or festivals, concerts, movie theatres, bars and restaurants, sports clubs, hotels, tourism.

These types of businesses are on life support now. I don't believe simply easing restrictions will be enough for them. That would require 100% buy in from the public and I seriously doubt that's in the cards.

I think there are some ways to adapt including literally walls of some sort to prevent or inhibit the travel of infected aerosols or water droplets. You can't touch anything or anything you touch has to be cleaned before anyone else comes in contact.

If there is no immunity or vaccine, the situation is that we just keep getting infected with lung damage each time until we are invalid or die. Older people are more susceptible but kids are getting weird symptoms, anyone can get it, the virus mutates to becoming more efficient at infection and spreading.

Stay safe and if you don't respect the science or the disease then at least respect your fellow humans.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

A vaccine may be a year or two away if it's even possible to make one.

Sadly, there are people that would make everyone live like that, cruisemonkey.