Category: Current Events

U.S. ends negative Covid test for international arrivals

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From the State Department:

The CDC order from December 2, 2021, requiring persons aged two and above to show a negative COVID-19 test result or documentation of recovery from COVID-19 before boarding a flight to the United States, is rescinded, effective June 12, 2022, at 12:01AM ET. This means that starting at 12:01AM ET on June 12, 2022, air passengers will not need to get tested and show a negative COVID-19 test result or show documentation of recovery from COVID-19 prior to boarding a flight to the United States regardless of vaccination status or citizenship. Of note, CDC’s Order requiring proof of vaccination for non-citizen nonimmigrants to travel to the United States is still in effect.

One of the last big Covid-19 travel restrictions in the United States disappeared today. Proof of vaccination for some is still required.

An interesting addition by spokespeople for the Whitehouse is that this order could be reinstated if necessary due to new variants. I would love to know the criteria for doing so and how that would actually work. Would the administration just stop inbound arrivals until airlines could get their systems for checking tests back into place?

Hygiene Theater

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Tyler Cowen on Bloomberg:

I am not arguing for passivity in the face of danger. It is distressing that US policymakers do not seem interested in spending big for pandemic preparedness. America needs a new Operation Warp Speed for pan-coronavirus vaccines and nasal spray vaccines. It should be gathering more data on Covid and improving its system of clinical trials for anti-Covid remedies, among other measures.

I am simply saying that removing the Covid test for entry to the US would bring an end to one of the more egregious instances of “hygiene theater.” And it would send a signal that America is welcoming the world once again.

The above summarizes a lot of my thoughts on the inbound testing requirement for the United States. I think it leaves out the fact that there are already hundreds of thousands of cases already present in the US and keeping out a few cases here and there is not a net win. Also, the number of cases not caught by inbound testing due to the disease not being present in large enough numbers in the host or the host not yet having symptoms is also a huge gap. Increasing the amount of research we are doing on long Covid, on future vaccines, and treatments would be time better spent.

I’ve heard from a number of people that the test they received was either a “joke” where they swab barely touched their nose or the test was completely ignored by the airline at the departure airport. From those who do test positive, even with no symptoms, they’re stuck with a costly longer stay in the country they are coming from and while some might be willing to put up with that, a lot of travelers aren’t.

All this to say, Covid is again spiking in the US though I get the impression most Americans aren’t paying attention or don’t care.

Fear and Traveling

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From Live and Let’s Fly:

In the years to come, we will only begin to understand the devastation our overreaction to the pandemic inflicted upon the most vulnerable among us: the children who were kept out of school, the elderly and hospital patients who were separated from loved ones and made to endure pain alone, and those who were forced to live in isolation for a “public emergency” that still has not ended.

We will return to “normal” because we want to return to normal. That should actually unite us, even if we disagree on how fast it should be. The last two years taught us the amazing spirit of human ingenuity that so quickly developed a vaccine. It also taught us that we need one another and those who have been at the forefront of rolling back restrictions cannot simply be dismissed as selfish miscreants, but humans who recognize our need for one another in every area of life.

I don’t disagree that we need to start making moves to return to normal, but I don’t think the new normal will be anything like it was 3 years ago. At the same time it’s a bit of a cop-out to state that “we should want to return to normal” but that it can be over a timeline that we can disagree on. I don’t know of anyone in the United States who really wants to keep things as they are. Even in the article quoted it seems like the author is more concerned about the speed of the return to normal rather than what normal means.

Majestic Cafe

As someone who has lost a family member to COVID-19 (who caught it at another family event) the cost of normal seems too high. Would I love to go out and eat at restaurants or travel freely around the world again? Sure. Is it worth the loss of another family member? Absolutely not. People are tired of being cooped up or limiting their interactions due to COVID but a lot of that is because there is a real risk. We don’t fully understand the impact that the disease has on young children or even healthy adults. We don’t know what long COVID will mean for people who are still struggling from a disease they caught months ago. But sure, let’s just act like none of that is happening and get back to normal.

Also, the use of quotes in the above post carry a tinge of sarcasm. Is 900k+ dead in the United States not a public emergency? Is it only a real problem if we see death in the streets?

Honestly, I think the return to normal is a choice that each person is going to have to make for themselves. I know people who are traveling now and following all of the country protocols of the places they visit. I also know people who are immunocompromised and are staying home for their own safety. I don’t think there is some simple formula we can apply as a society and say “we’re back to what we were” overnight. There is a calculus that people are having to work out for themselves on what they are comfortable with and when.

As far as masks on airplanes and in airports, I’m fine with it; Every airport I’ve visited in the last year or so have been jam packed with people. I would rather the United States end the mandatory testing to enter the country or at least remove it for vaccinated people. I am not sure the policy is actually helping us keep COVID at bay but it is certainly putting a financial burden on people who do test positive after being overseas. For me, I am looking for international travel later in 2022. I hope by then we’ll be at a place where COVID is less prevalent and more people have had the opportunity for vaccination.

Long Covid and Brain Gray Matter Loss

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A study out of the UK has found a significant number of Covid-19 patients who become hospitalized and recover have a noticeable amount of gray matter lost in their brains. The full study is here, but the important excerpt:

We used structural and functional brain scans from before and after infection, to compare longitudinal brain changes between these 394 COVID-19 patients and 388 controls who were matched for age, sex, ethnicity and interval between scans. We identified significant effects of COVID-19 in the brain with a loss of grey matter in the left parahippocampal gyrus, the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the left insula. When looking over the entire cortical surface, these results extended to the anterior cingulate cortex, supramarginal gyrus and temporal pole. We further compared COVID-19 patients who had been hospitalised (n=15) with those who had not (n=379), and while results were not significant, we found comparatively similar findings to the COVID-19 vs control group comparison, with, in addition, a greater loss of grey matter in the cingulate cortex, central nucleus of the amygdala and hippocampal cornu ammonis (all |Z|>3). Our findings thus consistently relate to loss of grey matter in limbic cortical areas directly linked to the primary olfactory and gustatory system.

At the end of the day, Covid-19, even if survived, is not a disease you want. And it’s not just brain matter; People are finding themselves with other very serious long term effects.

Critical Thinking Skills in the Age of Information Overload

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A bit of skepticism is a healthy thing. We should question motives, goals, and drivers in our leaders and in their policies. However, it seems like the sheer amount of information is stifling our ability to take in, process, and move through the chaff. News websites are run by a few different major news organizations and republish the same story with slightly different wordings across their network. Then you have the small time blogs (like this one) that publish stories as fact with little to no journalistic integrity. Those stories then get reposted on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook and “go viral” as a headline without the readers taking the time to read past the headline. So how does someone take in this deluge and not get completely steamrolled by too much information and how do they decipher what is news or opinion or simply information meant to incite some sort of innate emotion?

The first step is to look at how you find and consume news. Completely ignoring anything that is posted on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram is a good start. Most of the “news” you will find there is a friend of a friend’s blog that is usually just a way for that person to vent (case in point, what you are reading right now is that). Sure, there are some actual news stories that get posted on Facebook but a lot of that stuff bubbles to the top because the news organization is trying to get as many eyes on it as possible and they will use headlines or graphics that are misleading to get a potential reader to click the link. Turning off the television is another great way to avoid hyperbole meant to grab your attention. Local news stations are good but remember that most are owned by a big news company. This isn’t to say that they are bad, you just need to know what lens they see the world through as you take in the information.

You can see where I am going. I like written news, whether it be print or online, I tend to get my news in written form from a number of different sources. To know which way the thing that I am reading leans, I use the media bias chart from ad fontes media.

Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart

Just from a quick glance I can tell that NBC and CBS skew a little to the left while The Hill and Wall Street Journal skew a little more to the right on the political spectrum. This doesn’t mean I discount or ignore what they say, it means I read each of them knowing that they tend to favor one side or the other.

My reading list for news is the following (in no particular order)

  • The Hill
  • The New York Times
  • The Wall Street Journal
  • NPR
  • Bloomberg
  • ZeroHedge
  • South China Morning Post

There are a few others that I will glance at including Real Clear Politics and The Atlantic but I try to spend as much of my time as close to the middle of that media bias chart as I can. Knowing that the New York Times is going to lean a little left on a story I can quickly look up the equivalent story in the Wall Street Journal and see what the right leaning thoughts are. This is particularly important when reading opinion pieces because again, these aren’t news, they are someone’s thoughts on a subject, they are going to lean one direction.

Critical Thinking Ignores Personal Bias

Maybe “ignores” is too strong of a word. Critical thinking softens personal bias. If all someone views is news and video stories about how antifa is setting the world ablaze, they are going to tend to think antifa is setting the world on fire, regardless if it is true or not. As a society, we should want as many well read people as possible. I want debates of issues but I want those debates focused on the issues, not the cruft that some news personality brought up. If more people read more opinions that don’t echo their own beliefs, we’ll be better for it. If more people know what is happening in the world, we’ll be better for it.

Part of what I see right now is hyper focus on a few domestic issues and those issues are surrounded by hyperbole and vitriol that actually adds very little to the conversation. It’s intention is to agitate the base on either side of the aisle enough to get them to repost on Facebook or Instagram and get more people agitated. We have to see through that.

Just removing vitriol is a huge first step. Abandon Facebook, or simply limit your time on it. Abandon Instagram, or at least avoid the politics cesspool part of it. Abandon Twitter, or start putting vitriolic posters on your muted list. If the yelling and noise doesn’t get constantly repeated eventually it will fizzle out and people can have debates with actual value and content. Knowing that we are being overloaded with information and disinformation is a good start.

Cargo is Piling up Everywhere

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From NPR —

Soaring demand from Americans for everything from iPads to cars is leading to a surge in freight crossing the Pacific, hitting business owners such as Nephew.

When the cargo with his games finally arrived on the West Coast, the container was immediately emptied so it could be sent back to China for another load.

The games then continued on to Minnesota by truck, rather than rail, which would have been more economical. The final shipping cost was about $12,000, at least 50% more than the game maker had budgeted.

We are getting a lesson in basic economics in real time. Businesses are trying to meet increased demand but there is a constraint on the supply (the shipping companies) and so things get delayed and prices go up. When we look at something like lumber, which is mostly produced domestically, those prices are finally starting to normalize as supply starts to meet demand.

Browsing Instagram or TikTok and you will see people blame increased prices on Biden or the global cabal but in reality the prices you are seeing in stores have little to nothing to do with who is in the oval office and more to do with basic economic principles. Another example is the basic issue of getting empty containers where they need to be to carry more cargo.

From Bloomberg —

First there were the queues at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which left as many as 40 container vessels awaiting a berth in early February amid a flood of traffic. Combined volumes at the terminals hit a record of 1.9 million containers in May, nearly double the Covid-19 low in March 2020.

Part of the problem has been that containers aren’t in the right places. In global terms, trade enjoyed a remarkably short and sharp pandemic. By September last year, volumes were already running ahead of their seasonally adjusted levels in January and February, as demand for medical equipment and spending on durable goods picked up in rich countries.

Trying to make all those deliveries on time meant that many vessels started making their return journeys empty, saving a few precious hours that would normally be spent picking up vacant boxes to ship back to China. That’s resulted in a glut of containers in European and North American ports and a shortage in Asia, pushing freight rates to astronomical levels on export routes.

Containers are sitting empty at ports around the world and can’t be shipped back because the ships are trying their best to keep up with demand. Add to this, there is not a huge demand for U.S. goods in places like China, there is no reason to ship back empty containers on these boats and return the containers to pick up more cargo. Some of the predictions are that this could take years to correct. The empty containers need to get back into a normal rotation which relies on demand to return in certain parts of the world and ships need to reposition to carry all of that cargo.

If there is one thing that COVID-19 has taught me, it’s that supply chains are fragile. Everyone saw the ‘Great Toilet Paper Shortage’ as a problem but what’s sitting in ports right now and the rates to ship goods around the world are the real issue. And the unfortunate reality is that there is no way to speed the process of recovery up for shippers. It will happen as demand returns.

Threats to Critical Infrastructure

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From War on the Rocks:

Circumstantial evidence suggests that Warner was protesting 5G technology — reportedly an FBI line of inquiry. The campervan was parked in front of an AT&T transmission building and the explosion knocked down a network hub. The company website called the blast “devastating,” reporting secondary fires, loss of power, damaged equipment, and hazardous work in a disaster zone. Internet and cellphone service across parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama was badly affected. AT&T scrambled to reroute service or deploy portable cell sites, with 65 percent of service restored two days later.

Experts saw this coming. In May 2020, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued alerts about potential attacks on cellphone infrastructure due to conspiracy theories about 5G technology spreading COVID-19 — misinformation promoted by gullible individuals, celebrities, and nefarious actors like QAnon. U.S. alerts followed dozens of arson and vandalism attacks abroad, including on U.K., Belgian, Canadian, and Dutch cell towers. And in the wake of the Nashville bombing, federal, state, and local law enforcement feared copycat attacks on other U.S. communications infrastructure.

There have always been conspiracy theories but it seems that the prevalence of social media in people’s daily lives has helped perpetuate untruths even faster than in the past. When I talk to friends and family and their main source of news is Instagram, Facebook, or some obscure website, I usually expect to see or hear a conspiracy theory at some point.

Water to be Traded on Wall Street as a Commodity

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From Bloomberg:

Water joined gold, oil and other commodities traded on Wall Street, highlighting worries that the life-sustaining natural resource may become scarce across more of the world.

Farmers, hedge funds and municipalities alike are now able to hedge against — or bet on — future water availability in California, the biggest U.S. agriculture market and world’s fifth-largest economy. CME Group Inc.’s January 2021 contract, linked to California’s $1.1 billion spot water market, last traded Monday at 496 index points, equal to $496 per acre-foot.

It seems these futures are tied to the spot price of water rights in California, measured against 10 acre-feet of water (roughly 3.26 million gallons).

To be honest I am not sure how I feel about this. At the end of the article there is a quote from a researcher saying that there is currently no way for people to manage their water supply risk. I think that has the situation sideways, commodity doesn’t help you manage risk, it helps you make decisions based on general risk.

Is United’s additional Thanksgiving capacity irresponsible?

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United will be adding 1,400 flights for the week of Thanksgiving and plans to use larger aircraft on some flights. From that same Bloomberg article –

Half of its Thanksgiving customers are buying tickets less than 30 days before the holiday, up from about 40% last year, United said. The airline will monitor bookings “in real-time to swap in larger aircraft when needed to accommodate last-minute demand.”

It seems a bit tone deaf for United to add all of this capacity for a holiday week. Yes, they need revenue but at the same time they are enabling behavior that will unfortunately lead to more Covid-19 infections. More people in airports, more people on planes (where Covid can and does spread), and people in their loved one’s homes in close contact. This is amid the U.S. setting new daily records when it comes to coronavirus cases.

United is a business and they are looking out for themselves but their disregard for public health in the name of money is a bad idea right now. I would hope that CEO Scott Kirby would take a moment to think about the company’s actions and the impact they will have on lives across the country.

Mystery Colorado Drones

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Late in 2019 there were a number of reports around mystery drones flying over northeastern Colorado and western Nebraska. The origin of the drones remained a mystery for quite a while (and still does), but a bunch of research has given some insight into the concern around unidentified drones flying around the country.

Nevertheless, the documents already released suggest that the FAA, despite a short-lived, but strenuous effort, was unable to determine the origin of the flying formations of sizable aerial devices reported by many credible witnesses in December and January. Senior FAA officials were able, however, to conclude that “there is high confidence these are not covert military activities.”

The released documents contain no evidence that any federal criminal laws were broken by whoever was operating the devices, although the FAA has withheld at least one key document discussing the legal issues surrounding the case. No document yet released suggests that the mystery drones ever encroached on any U.S. military installation, or even into any airspace that was under special FAA restrictions.

So, although The War Zone and the SCU have pursued the Colorado drone flap for over half a year, we still don’t know who was behind the mysterious activity, and from what we’ve seen so far, no one in the Federal Aviation Administration knows either. It’s clear from these FOIA releases that the FAA, state and local authorities in Colorado, and even the AFOSI, took the sightings quite seriously, but it appears that their attention quickly shifted elsewhere once the public reports stopped.

It seems like whoever was behind the drone flyovers learned that there was a large investigation going on and soon stopped their shenanigans, but it still makes for a fascinating mystery. Based on the “space potatoes” that were found, I am wondering if it was some kind of crop health experiment or a agriculture company doing some kind of research. Again, we’ll likely never know unless the owners of the drones come forward.