Coronavirus Special Report
Year Three: April 2-8, 2022
Year Three: April 2-8, 2022
Read all about Covid! U.S. Coronavirus deaths pass 984,000. The national vaccination rate is mired below 67%. White House Covid czar says the test requirement for travelers returning to the United States stays. Another airline meltdown over the weekend did not stop travelers flying at 92% of 2019 levels. British carriers cancel hundreds of flights due to Covid sick-calls. Airlines jockey Australia and New Zealand routes and schedules as the countries reopen to travelers. Ryanair and Turkish Airlines now have more capacity than in 2019, but Lufthansa and SAS remain down more than 30%. And more.
Coronavirus Update: Friday, April 8, 2022
A federal appeals court has reversed a Texas judge and upheld the White House vaccine mandate for federal employees. The appeals court also ordered the Texas judge to dismiss the case that led to his injunction on the mandate. It's mostly moot anyway since about 95% of federal employees are vaccinated. The New York Times has details. Here are today's other developments:
Gliding along II The TSA says that 2,216,218 people passed through security checkpoints yesterday. That is 89.1% of the volume on a similar Wednesday in 2019. Doctor Robert(a) A Napa Valley doctor pleaded guilty on Wednesday for selling fake Covid vaccination cards and immunization pills, the Department of Justice says. The doctor also falsified vaccination cards to make it appear that her customers had received the Moderna vaccine. KTVU in Oakland has details. Backward walk With spring break churning to an end, nationwide hotel occupancy did a backward walk. The national occupancy rate was 64.1% for the week ended April 2. But lifted by the NCAA Men's basketball tournament, New Orleans registered a 43% boost in average daily rate. Island style Cyprus is rushing to tear down Coronavirus travel rules before the summer travel season begins. The outdoor mask mandate ends April 11. Showing a vax certificate to enter most private places also ends next week. And most public places will be allowed to return to 100% occupancy. Still Shanghaied Shanghai remains locked down as Coronavirus conditions worsen. Several Communist party officials have also been fired. The Associated Press has details. The haves and the have nots Ryanair (+10%) and Turkish Airlines (+12%) are now operating with more capacity than a similar period in 2019. At the other end of the spectrum, SAS is down 40% and Lufthansa is down 32%. The statistics were released by Eurocontrol, which notes that there are still 21% fewer flights in Europe's skies. Coronavirus Update: Thursday, April 7, 2022
Eurocontrol, the agency that operates the continent's air traffic control, has a fairly bullish prediction for summer travel in Europe. It expects peak-summer aircraft traffic in August to be 89% of the volume in August, 2019. Here is its outlook. Here are today's other developments: Booster battle France will continue to offer second booster shots to people in their 60s. But European regulatory agencies yesterday took a pass on offering second boosters to almost all of their citizens. And a new report from Israel suggests the added immunity conferred by a second booster is distressingly short. Gliding along The TSA says 1,978,691 people passed through security checkpoints yesterday. That is 88.7% of the volume on a similar Wednesday in 2019. Hawaiian aye Hawaiian Airlines will resume flights from its Honolulu hub to Auckland, New Zealand, beginning July 2. Hawaiian has flown to New Zealand since 2013, but suspended flights when the country shut down at the beginning of the pandemic. Rolling sevens U.S. hotels reached 77% of gross operating profit per room in February. That's comparable to the highs reached last summer, according to lodging statistician STR.Coronavirus Update: Wednesday, April 6, 2022
Good news, bad news department: Airlines in February consumed about 11% less jet fuel compared to February, 2019. But they paid an average of $2.60 a gallon for what they burned, the highest price since October, 2014. The statistics were released by the U.S. Transportation Department. Here are today's other developments: That's not good ... Outgoing Covid czar Jeff Zients says the federal requirement to test before returning to the United States from international destinations isn't going away. "No," he said yesterday at a White House briefing, "there are no plans to change the international travel requirements at this point.” Silver lining? Zients is departing this month and his replacement, Dr. Ashish K. Jha, may have different priorities. The in-flight mask mandate is currently due to expire on April 18. On the down low(er) The TSA says 1,848,862 people passed through security checkpoints yesterday. It's the lowest one-day total of the month so far and the lowest number in nearly a month. British bummer British Airways and EasyJet continue to cancel flights in bunches, claiming Covid-related absences have made it impossible to stick to published schedules. The result? Chaos at the airports. The Independent has details. Mask confusion The experts say well-fitted N95 masks are unquestionably effective against transmission of Covid and other viruses. So why are some hospitals demanding patients replace their N95s with less effective surgical masks? Politico.com has the bizarre details. Star scammer Robert Malone was once a respected scientist. So how did he become, in the words of a noted virologist, an "extraordinarily dishonest and morally bankrupt" person? Money and publicity, of course. The New York Times has details.Coronavirus Update: Tuesday, April 5, 2022
How far have we come? The TSA says 2,139,084 people passed through U.S. airport checkpoints yesterday. That is 90% of comparative volume in early April, 2019. It's also nearly 20 times the daily volume in early April, 2020, when the pandemic was grinding the nation to a halt. Here are today's other developments: No vax, no work Employees of Activision Blizzard, the computer game behemoth, walked out yesterday when the company rolled back its vaccine mandate. The Los Angeles Times has details. Slovakia opens Slovakia's Ministry of the Interior says visitors will no longer be required to quarantine or register when they enter the country. Also going: the mask mandate in most situations. Masks will still be required on public transit and in offices, however. Changes are effective tomorrow. More seats Down Under Air Canada is the latest carrier to juggle its Australia schedule now that the country has reopened to visitors. AC says it will fly 10 times per week between Vancouver and Sydney from June 6 to September 5. Use or lose? How long do at-home Covid tests, many supplied free by the federal government on request, last in real life? Check the expiration dates, but don't be a slave to the exact day. If properly stored, they are fairly stable. The New York Times has details. Speaking of tests Medicare Part B will now pay for as many as eight over-the-counter tests per month. The new rules went into effect yesterday. Here are the details. Coronavirus Update: Monday, April 4, 2022
Australia says people over 65 years of age who had a booster shot more than four months ago can now receive a second Coronavirus vaccine booster. Including some others who are qualified, that means around four million Australians may receive a second booster. Here are today's other developments: Imagine The TSA says nearly 6.4 million people passed through U.S. airport checkpoints this weekend (Friday-Sunday). That is about 92% of comparative volume in 2019. Imagine how close we'd be to "normal" had the airlines not melted down this weekend (see below). Another airline meltdown It was a brutal weekend on the road thanks to unsettled weather in Florida, technical issues at Southwest Airlines and unknown silliness at JetBlue Airways. Around 2,000 flights were dumped and thousands delayed on Saturday, according to FlightAware. Southwest dumped 14% of flights, followed by American (12%), JetBlue (15%) and Alaska Air (11%). Almost as many flights (1,659) cancelled on Sunday. Without evidence, JetBlue blamed air traffic control issues and dumped 34% of its flights. Southwest cancelled 10%. The Despicable Duo of Spirit (37%) and Frontier (15%) were also well-represented. Statis There were 195,963 new Coronavirus cases in the United States during the last week, according to Johns Hopkins. That's a few thousand fewer than the previous week. The death toll was 5,602, up a few hundred from the previous week. We've been treading water for several weeks now. This isn't over ... EasyJet and British Airways have cancelled hundreds of flights because of high levels of Covid infections among staff. The Guardian has details. Zoom Europe flights averaged 23,382 per day for the week ended April 3, says Eurocontrol, which operates the continent's air traffic control system. That's up 10.9% from the previous week and represents 78.1% of 2019 aircraft volume. That upward zoom is the fastest growth in months and is a surprise given how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has negatively impacted flying on the continent.Coronavirus Update: Weekend, April 2-3, 2022
To paraphrase The Godfather, you won't see her anymore. Carrie Lam said Monday morning (local time) that she would not seek reelection to a second five-year term as Hong Kong's chief executive. Widely seen as a puppet of the party powers that be in Mainland China, Lam cracked down on free speech and dissent during her term and turned the Hong Kong Legislature into a rubber stamp for the Chinese Communist Party. And her erratic handling of the pandemic has isolated Hong Kong from the world for more than two years and left it struggling with a late Covid outbreak that overwhelmed the city's once-vaunted hospital and health care system. Here are this weekend's other developments. Remember us? Norwegian Air, which abandoned its transatlantic routes at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, survives as a rump carrier running intra-Europe routes. It says it now will not enforce an in-flight mask mandate on its flights regardless of local rules in the countries it serves. Bulking up Down Under Delta Air Lines has lost it local Australian partner--Virgin Australia has defected to United Airlines--and flies just one route (LAX-Sydney) Down Under. But it is bulking up there as the continent reopens after two years of Covid lockdown. Delta says it will now fly 10 times a week between the two cities, up from daily roundtrips. Slowing down Down Under United Airlines says it'll slow its roll in restoring its service Down Under. The restart of three weekly San Francisco-Melbourne flights, planned for May 10, has been pushed back to June 5. Two other pre-pandemic routes--LAX-Melbourne and Houston-Sydney--won't relaunch until later in the year.