The Road goes ever on and on ... Day 471 (971)

It was another slow news morning. If news continues to be thin and/or too technical to summarize easily, I may think of stopping posting every day or at all, but only after I've hit Day 500 (1,000) in about four weeks. I would be able, then, to write about the other things I find myself thinking about. Or not. I have a few weeks to think about it and, who knows, there may be another winter surge that merits attention.

China is keeping its zero COVID policy even as it eases some other restrictions. People entering China now must quarantine in a hotel for five days followed by three days isolation at their home. It used to be 10 days of quarantine followed by seven days at home. The penalty for airlines bringing in travelers with COVID has been scrapped while the requirement that airlines test all passengers has been reduced. The government has limited contact tracing and eased some lock-down measures, though local governments can override this and keep in place some restrictions such as mass testing. China is still the last country adhering to strict pandemic rules, and it is not clear how long zero COVID will remain in effect. There were over 10,000 local cases Thursday, the highest daily count in over six months. The pandemic is not seen as over in China.

It will be interesting to see how the relaxation of the restrictions meshes with continued zero COVID. It would be interesting if some objective criterion were to emerge showing that China was right all along in suppressing as much COVID as they could. And then there's Turkmenistan, a country that as far as I can tell has reported no COVID. It's an autocracy, with pretty tight restrictions. The Professor and I actually had a 2020 trip that included Turkmenistan cancelled by the pandemic. The requirements to get a visa were onerous, and it looked as if visitors had to be accompanied by a guide. Now, the tour company has reworked that tour and replaced Turkmenistan with Kyrgyzstan. I think I'll dig around and see if I can find anything out about COVID in Turkmenistan. It's not as if I have something else to do. NOT!