Well this sucks.

[ontdiver]

By all accounts, we will most certainly see a post Xmas spike in cases that is likely to force new closures and/or extensions. As much as I, too, would like to be planning a dive trip, I don't think we will be going anywhere before we get vaccinated...and that is starting to look like the summer.

As so eloquently stated by @Storker: "Wear a mask, socially distance and wait this crap out."

 

[Joneill]

By all accounts, we will most certainly see a post Xmas spike in cases that is likely to force new closures and/or extensions. As much as I, too, would like to be planning a dive trip, I don't think we will be going anywhere before we get vaccinated...and that is starting to look like the summer.

As so eloquently stated by @Storker: "Wear a mask, socially distance and wait this crap out."

The only real solution to get out of this from day 1 was the development of effective vaccines - masks and social distancing are just attempts to minimize the spread until vaccines are available broadly.

 

[Storker]

The only real solution to get out of this from day 1 was the development of effective vaccines - masks and social distancing are just attempts to minimize the spread until vaccines are available broadly.

So, what you gonna do until a viable and reasonably safe vaccine is broadly available? To reduce the number of people dying from the virus, that is?

Reducing the spread by wearing masks, socially distancing and staying the f at home. Only thing we can do until 90+% of the population have been vaccinated with a viable vaccine.

 

[Joneill]

So, what you gonna do until a viable and reasonably safe vaccine is broadly available? To reduce the number of people dying from the virus, that is?

Reducing the spread by wearing masks, socially distancing and staying the f at home. Only thing we can do until 90+% of the population have been vaccinated with a viable vaccine.

Please check your reading comprehension. I did not say to not wear a mask or not to socially distance while waiting for a vaccine - I merely said that they were not solutions to the issue - just stopgap attempts to minimize the spread. Without a vaccine, no amount of masking and social distancing will make this go away. I have stayed home unless to shop for groceries /pick up food (to support local restaurants) and worn a mask and socially distanced since this started for us in March. I even cancelled dive trips I could have gone on because I didn't think it was worth the risk. So why don't you take your condescending and judgmental attitude elsewhere.

 

[Shasta_man]

I didn't take your general thread as mocking coronavirus measures Joneill and Storker speaks for himself but I'll guess the response came from frustration after dealing for months with so many other people, including, incredibly, some dude named Donald, who have mocked measures and had unbelievable conspiracy theories you can't begin to reason with when things could have been different. All in the face of people dying the world over. I think when you have a relatively large proportion of people in an educated nation unwilling or afraid to take a vaccine against a pandemic, the nicest thing you can say is we are not in a good place.

BTW, I think we'll have to continue with the mask for some time after getting vaccinated because I think, though I could be wrong, the vaccine blocks the symptoms, but not catching the disease. So we could still pass it to someone who is not vaccinated. But that's a separate point.

 

[Storker]

Please check your reading comprehension

I will.

In the meantime, could you answer as to what you are gonna do until a viable and reasonably safe vaccine is broadly available? I know very well what I'm gonna do, and given my posting history on this subject I don't think that's particularly hard to fathom.

 

[Joneill]

I will.

In the meantime, could you answer as to what you are gonna do until a viable and reasonably safe vaccine is broadly available? I know very well what I'm gonna do, and given my posting history on this subject I don't think that's particularly hard to fathom.

Geez - are you serious??? If you bothered to actually read what I just wrote - you would see exactly what I've been doing from the start and will continue to do until vaccines are broadly available... BTW, the ones already approved for emergency use (Pfizer and, likely tomorrow, Moderna) are viable and reasonably safe and more vacinnes are on the way including one from the company I'm lucky to work for that I hope will be a large contributor to getting this scourge behind us.

Also - it's no so simple for many people to just "stay the f at home" as you say. I'm lucky to have been able to work remotely from my home, but I know many people that don't have that luxury if they want to survive financially and we want to keep the country functioning.

 

[Lorenzoid]

My wife and I are thinking July as a likely time by which we and enough others will have been vaccinated that we won’t be transmission vectors if we resume dive travel. Just a few more months.

 

[Joneill]

My wife and I are thinking July as a likely time by which we and enough others will have been vaccinated that we won’t be transmission vectors if we resume dive travel. Just a few more months.

I'm hoping to be able to do my rescheduled Fiji trip in August - we'll see? It appears that some locations like Grand Cayman, for example, are considering allowing travel for those with proof of vaccination and negative PCR tests, along with some degree of masking and social distancing by March or April. Hopefully, that works out as many livelihoods in these destinations will not survive much longer without tourism and will die as a result of this pandemic.

 

[drk5036]

The only real solution to get out of this from day 1 was the development of effective vaccines - masks and social distancing are just attempts to minimize the spread until vaccines are available broadly.

The only think that refutes this is that they got rid of it in China without a vaccine. So it is possible...