Day 320…
Friends of ours who were supposed to have been married overseas this past June have just pushed off their wedding until September of next year.
The onslaught of television commercials for St. Jude Children’s Hospital are slowly being replaced by an onslaught of television commercials for resorts in the Caribbean. Only because Jersey Boys has a production installed on board one of its ships, I remain aware of when cruising is going to resume - at any rate when cruising hopes it’s going to return.
In a press release last week, Norwegian Cruise Lines announced that their suspension of global cruising was being extended until April 30th. As opposed to the airlines who are getting some business these days, albeit at a far lower level, Norwegian and its sister companies are not able to operate at all during these suspensions. For them to get up and running, international travel is going to need to open back up and borders are going to need to be reopened.
These cruise lines are not American companies. They are all registered in other places so that they can avoid paying taxes. They are important to the US economy, however, because of all of the local support industries that surround them. They also need to comply with US rules in terms of where and when they are allowed to port.
President Biden has just announced that he is extending the ban on travel from all non-US citizens from The United Kingdom, Ireland and 26 countries in Europe as well as instigating a ban on travelers from South Africa.
US travelers coming from those countries will still need to have taken a COVID-19 test within three days of their flights and have the paperwork proving that they have tested negative. The last Administration had added a two-week waiver from having to do this that countries without adequate testing capability could apply for. That waiver option has now been taken away.
The reason for this, of course, is to try and stop the spread of the more virulent strains of the virus that have arisen in England and in South Africa. While there is evidence that the UK variant is already here, it does not appear that the South African one is.
Yet.
Although we can’t be certain.
The United Kingdom’s health minister, Matt Hancock warned yesterday that both the South African and now a Brazilian mutation of the virus might be more resistant to the vaccine. The British government has begun a vaccine trial to try and get some actual data to prove that concern.
Moderna has said that their vaccine does appear to be somewhat less effective against the South African version of the virus. Reports are that its efficacy reduces from 95% to somewhere between 70 and 80%. That’s still a fairly good rate but practically it means that out of every 100 people that take the vaccine, twenty to thirty of them could still get infected.
In response to this, Moderna is developing a booster to specifically protect against it. That would mean a third shot might be necessary for each person. Their work is still in its initial stages so, at this point, it is too early to tell.
The UK has banned all flights from South Africa and from South America as a whole. They have also banned flights from Portugal which has a close relationship with Brazil which was one of its former colonies.
Travel bans are effective if they are actual travel bans. Cancelling all flights, the way the UK is doing it, is more effective than just prohibiting foreign travelers.
The virus isn’t checking passports. The three-day testing protocol is all well and good but at any point over the three days following the taking of the test the person could easily become infected. Not that the UK is doing it perfectly, either. Truck drivers transporting essential goods from Portugal to the UK have been exempted.
Japan has already detected several cases of the Brazilian variant within its borders.
We here in the US have to begin investing more of our resources into widespread testing and contact tracing if we are going to have a prayer of being able to keep up with how this virus is spreading and changing. If we don’t, how will we fight it?
Rochelle Walensky, the new Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been at work now for six days. This what she said in an interview on Fox News yesterday:
“I can’t tell you how much vaccine we have and, if I can’t tell it to you, then I can’t tell it to the governors, and I can’t tell it to the state health officials. If they don’t know how much vaccine they’re getting, not just this week but next week and the week after, they can’t plan. They can’t figure out how many sites to roll out, they can’t figure out how many vaccinators that they need, and they can’t figure out how many appointments to make for the public.”
While her honesty and openness are beyond welcome, what she is saying is not necessarily easy to hear. The CDC Director was very blunt, “The fact that we don’t know today — five days into this administration and weeks into planning — how much vaccine we have, just gives you a sense of the challenges we’ve been left with.”
How can we get back to traveling the world if we cannot effectively vaccinate our own population? The UK variant of the virus is projected to be the dominant strain here in the United States by March. That’s sounds like it’s far in the future, but it’s only a few weeks away.
Broadway is unlikely to start up again until we can truly welcome foreign visitors back into the US. Before that, New York City needs to be able to welcome in visitors from within our own country. There is no sign that that is going to happen any time soon.
Now experts are saying that we should all be wearing at least two layers of masks. Two layers of cloth masks made with high thread count material comes much closer to giving civilians the same protection as a surgical-level N95 mask.
That recommendation is coming from many different experts. Dr. Dave Hnida from CBSN Denver and Dr. Linsey Marr from Virginia Tech have both advocated for it.
Even Dr. Fauci has added his support to the recommendation. This morning he said, “So if you have a physical covering with one layer, you put another layer on, it just makes common sense that it likely would be more effective, That’s the reason why you see people either double masking or doing a version of an N95.”
The CDC hasn’t officially recommended this yet, but it seems that it is coming. Mayor, soon to be Secretary, Pete and his husband were double masked during the inauguration.
I think that we will start to see manufacturers making masks with extra layers. Until that happens, I guess I am going to need to pick up some extra masks.
In the meantime, all of the travel brochures that are arriving in our mailbox on a daily basis are going straight into the recycling bin. Because of my work with Norwegian, the bulk of ours is from them, but we are getting them from other companies as well. I am sure that what they are trying to do is build up demand and expectation so that when all of the bans are finally lifted that people will be immediately ready to get back onboard.
Honestly, that kind of travel doesn’t tempt me at all, so I have no idea how people who do like to travel that way are feeling. I am more than ready, though, for a different sort of adventure.
My mother had planned on taking the whole family on an Alaskan cruise last August. She was inspired by the trips I was taking up there while I was working with the show. We were booked for a trip on a small 250 passenger ship which would have allowed us access to areas that the larger ships can’t get to. In comparison, the Bliss, which is the ship Jersey Boys is on, holds 4,500 passengers. It’s one of the largest passenger ships on the planet and is limited in where it can go.
Our cruise was postponed until this June. I cannot imagine a scenario that will lead to us actually get onboard a ship in June, but until they officially cancel the trip, we are still booked on it.
Like the prospect of Broadway reopening, it will happen when it happens. Until there is some evidence that we have turned a corner, I’m not counting on any of it. We are certainly not going anywhere near a ship until it is safe to do so.
I am definitely ready for at least another road trip, but until the country is going to need to get its collective wits about it first. I don’t think that we are going anywhere here either.
Over the holidays, I started turning the channel every time I heard the first few mawkish notes of the Children’s Hospital commercial underscoring.
St Jude seems like a wonderful organization, but they were relentless. How much did all of that coverage cost? I’m hesitant to donate to a charity that is going to channel all of the money I give them into television advertising.
Those commercials are still on, but with far less frequency. The resort commercials that have filled the void are no less annoying. Lying in the sun wearing two layers of masking is not my idea of a vacation.
For the moment, I am just going to curl up on the couch with the cat and plan where I’ll go today on my walk. It’s ever so slightly warmer today than it was yesterday when it was almost too cold to walk in.
We may be getting snow tomorrow morning, so I should take advantage of the bright and clear day ahead of me and get out there and make my own adventure.
With my two masks.
💕Two masks to the future