Coronavirus Special Report
Year Three: March 12-18, 2022
Year Three: March 12-18, 2022
Read all about Covid! U.S. Coronavirus deaths pass 970,000, but new cases have plunged since January peaks. The national vaccination rate finally reaches 66%. Canada drops testing requirement for fully vaccinated visitors starting on April 1. Flying for Spring break is roaring. Heathrow Airport and British airlines drop their mask mandates. New Zealand and South Korea welcome tourists again starting in April. Domestic airline traffic fell 27.3% in 2021 and global seat capacity remains 22% below pre-pandemic highs. Miami Airport reports busiest day in its history. Shenzhen locks down and China closes parts of Shanghai, too. And more.
Coronavirus Update: Friday, March 18, 2022
Moderna has now followed Pfizer and asked the FDA to approve a second booster dose of its vaccine. TheHill.com has details of the emergency-use request. Here are today's other developments:
Millions and millions served The TSA says 2,221,946 people passed through U.S. airport security checkpoints yesterday. That is a hefty 88.4% of the volume on a similar day in 2019. It is also the ninth day in March with daily traffic above the 2-million mark. Pacific lockdown American Samoa has locked down after registering its first case of locally transmitted Coronavirus. The New York Times has details. La Dolce Vita Italy's Covid state of emergency ends at the end of March and the government says April will mean the end of most Coronavirus restrictions. Especially notable: the functional end of the "super green pass" that has been required to eat in a restaurant, have a coffee or cocktail in a bar or visit a museum. The WantedinRome.com site has details. Dumb and dumber The anti-vax crowd has a new crusade: pro-Putin propaganda. Because stupid is as stupid does or something. Politico has details of their attempt to blame Ukraine for being invaded. The sheep got sheared again Surprise! Ivermectin, the animal medicine that also has limited human uses, doesn't reduce hospitalization rates if you get Coronavirus. So says the largest trial to date. The Wall Street Journal has details. Stuck in the lobby The nationwide hotel occupancy rate for the week ended March 12 was 63.2%. That's nearly 10 points below a similar week in 2019, according to lodging statisticians STR.Coronavirus Update: Thursday, March 17, 2022
Jeff Zients, who was the Biden Administration "Covid czar" since Inauguration Day, is stepping down. A management and logistics expert, his tenure was not free from criticism. The new boss? Dr. Ashish Jha, a well-known face to cable-news viewers and dean of Brown University's School of Public Health. The Washington Post has details. Here are today's other developments: Just roaring along The TSA says that 1,993,734 people passed through U.S. airport security checkpoints yesterday. That's a hefty 85.9% of the volume on a similar day in 2019. No tests for you Canada has announced that fully vaccinated visitors no longer must test for Covid before entering the country. The new policy--or, more accurately, the return to something like "normal"--is effective beginning April 1. CTV News has details. Luck of the Irish Every year on March 17, the President of the United States and the Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland meet at the White House to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and renew their ties. During the height of the pandemic, the meetings were virtual. This year, however, Taoiseach Micheál Martin flew to Washington to show that the pandemic was essentially ended. But (bad) luck of the Irish: Martin tested positive for Covid and the in-person meeting became a virtual get-together with Biden at the White House and Martin several hundred feet away at Blair House. Martin must spend ten days in the United States before he can return to Ireland. The Irish Independent has details. The crawling recovery OAG, the airline industry schedulekeepers, says global capacity has "settled" at about 82 million seats a week. That remains 22% below 2020 capacity in early March, just before the pandemic decimated global traffic. Cathay Pacific should be so lucky The world may be down 22% compared to the happy days before the pandemic, but Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways remains a shell of its former self. It carried just 31,253 passengers in February, down 98.9% compared to February, 2019.Coronavirus Update: Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Pfizer officially asked the FDA for emergency authority to offer a second booster dose of its Covid vaccine to people over the age of 65. The Washington Post has details. Here are today's other developments: Two years was forever ago The TSA says that 1,858,773 people passed through U.S. airport security checkpoints yesterday. That's almost exactly double the number of passengers who flew on a similar Tuesday in March, 2020, the first day when daily volume fell below one million passengers. By mid-April, 2020, daily passenger volume had fallen below 100,000. New Zealand (finally) busts out New Zealand will begin a phased reopening of its borders to the rest of the world in April. Australia visitors will be first in line--a "travel bubble" between the two countries collapsed last year--and Americans should be welcome by early May. Marketwatch.com has details. WestJet gets normal During its peak summer schedule, WestJet, the Canadian discounter, says it will operate on 94% of its pre-pandemic routes. That means about 600 daily departures to 43 domestic, 23 transborder, 16 Caribbean and eight transatlantic destinations, the airline says. No one's impressed During the past six months, the TSA has imposed more than $640,000 in fines on passengers who have disrupted flights or flouted the in-flight mask mandate. That statistic was included in a new report issued by the Government Accounting Office. No one is impressed because we know no one is actually paying the fines, but The New York Times felt compelled to offer a credulous account of the report. Damned Yankees (and Mets) New York City's vaccine mandate for private companies may bar many players for the New York Yankees and New York Mets from playing during the teams' home games. (The scenario has caused Kyrie Irving to miss all home games of the Brooklyn Nets basketball team this season.) The New York Daily news has details.Coronavirus Update: Tuesday, March 15, 2022
This is ugly: The real death toll from Coronavirus may be triple the official estimates, according to a study published in The Lancet. You can read the study's methodology and full report at this site. Here are today's other developments: And the Brits shall lead us Effective tomorrow, London/Heathrow lifts its mask mandate. And at least three airlines, including British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, say they'll lift their in-flight mask mandates tomorrow, too. Of course, you'll continue to have to wear a mask between the U.S. and United Kingdom and wherever else the local authority requires it. Heathrow and the airlines are able to cut loose because England's restrictions end tomorrow. Miami nice Miami International Airport says it handled 166,727 passengers on Sunday (March 13), making it the busiest day in MIA history. ThisClose to normal The TSA says that 2,200,172 people passed through U.S. airport security checkpoints yesterday. That's a hefty 89% of 2019 volume as the Spring break period ramps up. It's also the eighth day in March above 2 million passengers. The doors open South Korea says that it is dropping quarantine requirements for vaccinated travelers effective April 1. That means the country is opening to tourism and travel again. The official details are here. Small progress More than 2.3 million passengers traveled through Dublin Airport in the first two months of 2022. That's down 44% from the pre-Covid levels in 2020. Traffic should grow quickly, however, since Ireland eliminated most entry rules this month. The Irish Independent has details.Coronavirus Update: Monday, March 14, 2022
The chief executive of Pfizer says that a fourth shot will be needed for most people to guard against Coronavirus. Of course, he and Pfizer make money the more shots he convinces us we need--and even he admits that two shots and one booster have been effective against Covid-19. TheHill.com has details. Here are today's other developments: Pre-Spring break Nearly 6.6 million people passed through TSA security checkpoints at U.S. airports over the weekend (Friday-Sunday), a roaring start to Spring break. It represents 88.2% of traffic on a similar weekend in 2019. Careening down the mountain There were 246,950 new Coronavirus cases in the United States during the last week, according to Johns Hopkins. That is a startling decline from the record-high 5.6 million new cases recorded just two months ago. The death toll is falling, too, down to 8,901. But more than 1,200 daily deaths is nothing to celebrate. A flying year that was The Department of Transportation says 673.7 million people flew in 2021, down 27.3% from the all-time high of 926.8 million flyers in 2019. Domestic enplanements were off 24.6% from the all-time high of 811.5 million in 2019. International enplanements were much harder hit, however. The 61.8 million who flew overseas in 2021 was down a whopping 46.4% from the all-time high of 115.3 million in 2019. We have all been here before China has locked down Shenzhen, the city of 17 million on the other side of the Hong Kong border. It is the tenth Chinese region that has been completely or partially locked down in recent days. That includes parts of Shanghai. Agence France-Presse has details. Europe surprise Europe flights averaged 20,080 for the week ended March 13, according to Eurocontrol, which operates the continent's air traffic control system. While that is down 1.4% from the previous week, it represents 73.6% of 2019 aircraft volume, a surprise given the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent airspace closures.Coronavirus Update: Weekend, March 12-13, 2022
One of the mysteries of the Coronavirus pandemic during the winter of 2020-21 was the surprisingly low amount of flu registered in the United States. This winter hasn't been so lucky as the Omicron variant and the flu both raged. Bloomberg News has details. Here are this weekend's other developments. While we weren't looking It is one of the realities of life that journalists tend to look at Europe and Asia and even Australia and often ignore the rest of the Americas. So it shouldn't surprise you that one of the world's deadliest outbreaks--in Guayaquil, Ecuador--went largely unnoticed. The New Yorker has details. Friday frenzy The TSA says that 2,297,374 people passed through U.S. airport checkpoints on Friday (March 11). That was the highest one-day passenger count since November 28, 2021, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. December details The Transportation Department says that 68.1 million travelers flew during December. That was down 14.4% from the all-time monthly high of 79.6 million people in January, 2020. International enplanements of 7.18 million in December fell 26.4% from the 9.76 million who traveled overseas in September, 2019, the busiest international month on record. Pacific problem American Samoa skirted the Coronavirus for the better part of the last two years. No more. The islands locked down on February 22 and things continue to worsen. The New York Times has details.