Canada has announced one year ban on cruise ships (Valdez: estimate, rated)

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

The vaccine will do nothing to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. So that is not a solution. At this point the only solution is to wait for herd immunity to take hold, and that will be a long, long way down the road.

We don't know yet if vaccines slow down/ prevent transmission or not.

You Yang Gu at Covid projections estimates that herd immunity in U.S. will be reached around the end of this summer.

[alaskaflyer]

If Congress doesn't like it, Congress can do something about it.

The only reason that Canada's closure significantly impacted (and impacts) Alaska cruises is because of an AMERICAN protectionist law, the Passenger Vessel Services Act, as mentioned on the first page of this thread, that requires foreign flagged vessels (such as all large cruise ships in all large cruise ship companies that visit North America) to touch base in another nation before they can carry American passengers to or from an American port. There doesn't seem to be a waiver process for this like the one contained in the Jones Act, which is a similar but different law regarding the manufacture provenance of a vessel. But Congress could through legislation change the law in various ways that would allow either specific local exceptions, or a waiver process to be put in place.

This regardless of whether I think it is a good idea to have the large cruise ships back in operation up here. WIth these variants in circulation, it's just asking for trouble. Giant traveling petri dishes is what my friend who used to work as a paramedic on these ships, calls them.

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

The vaccine will do nothing to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. ..

And some news today that your characteristically gloomy take is likely to be incorrect:

Twitter.

Angela Rasmussen
@angie_rasmussen
·
1h
This is great news. The Pfizer vaccine reduces viral loads, increasing evidence that vaccines protect against infection as well as disease. This is not unexpected but important to support this with robust evidence before adjusting guidance...

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by Arktikos

We don't know yet if vaccines slow down/ prevent transmission or not.

You Yang Gu at Covid projections estimates that herd immunity in U.S. will be reached around the end of this summer.

Youyang Gu is absolutely not predicting that herd immunity in the U.S. will be reached by the end of summer. His projections may have shown that at some point, but he is certainly not predicting it now. He is not even projecting that it will be reached by the end of 2021. All of the COVID-19 projections are currently showing a high level of infections continuing well into 2022. And Youyang Gu's track record shows that his projections have been way over optimistic. He is constantly downgrading them. He just lowered the estimate of the effectiveness of the vaccine from 90% to 85%.

Path to Herd Immunity: 2021 Outlook of COVID-19 in the US
By: Youyang Gu
Last Updated: February 6, 2021 (First posted December 9, 2020; CDC plots updated daily)

With the availability of the COVID-19 vaccine, we present our best estimate of the path to COVID-19 herd immunity in the United States. Herd immunity will be reached through immunity from two sources: vaccination and natural infection. On this page, we provide the latest COVID-19 vaccine projections and current vaccination progress.

February 5 Update: We lowered our vaccine efficacy estimate from 90% to 85% to account for new variants and a lower efficacy of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. We also increased our final US death toll estimate from 600,000 to 625,000 (±100,000). Due to vaccine hesitancy and the delayed arrival of a children vaccine, it is possible that we do not reach the levels required for herd immunity in 2021. Nevertheless, herd immunity does not have a hard threshold, and being close to herd immunity may be sufficient to prevent large outbreaks. We are actively working to incorporate the new variants into our modeling. Older updates

Path to Herd Immunity - COVID-19 Vaccine Projections _ COVID-19 Projections Using Machine Learning

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

..Path to Herd Immunity - COVID-19 Vaccine Projections _ COVID-19 Projections Using Machine Learning

"..The US will be near COVID-19 herd immunity by summer 2021 (Jun-Aug 2021). At a high level, herd immunity is a concept in which a population can be protected from a virus if enough people possess immunity. Current accepted estimates for the herd immunity threshold range from 60-90% of the population.
restrictions....
Summarizing the above findings, our best estimate of a complete “return to normal” in the US is mid-summer 2021 (June/July 2021)..."

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

.. And Youyang Gu's track record shows that his projections have been way over optimistic.

His track record showed to be the most accurate of all for predicting Covid deaths through November 2020.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by Arktikos

"..The US will be near COVID-19 herd immunity by summer 2021 (Jun-Aug 2021). At a high level, herd immunity is a concept in which a population can be protected from a virus if enough people possess immunity. Current accepted estimates for the herd immunity threshold range from 60-90% of the population.
restrictions....
Summarizing the above findings, our best estimate of a complete “return to normal” in the US is mid-summer 2021 (June/July 2021)..."

You are cherry picking and believing what you want to believe. You have to take the document as a whole. You can't go down to the bottom of the page and pick out outdated info that you like, and ignore the update at the top of the page where he clearly says that levels needed for herd immunity may not be reached in 2021. Even the author is coming to grips with the fact that his previous projections are now unrealistic.

2021 is now down the toilet. We now have to look towards 2022. Personally I'm not holding my breath that this will end in 2022 either.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by Arktikos

His track record showed to be the most accurate of all for predicting Covid deaths through November 2020.

His work was good through November. Since then it has been a complete fail. I stopped even paying attention to it in December. His numbers just weren't making any sense. His charts were showing that the numbers should be going down, while at the same time the actual numbers where going up. His data just wasn't plausible at that point.

[Exwyocowboy]

Originally Posted by Parnassia

It is possible to get to Alaska without transiting through Canada. You can hop on a jet and fly right over it and you can do so via multiple cities and countries. Obviously the sheer numbers of passengers transported is less.

Yes, and cruise ships can go outside - about 50 mi west of Vancouver Island. It maybe uncomfortable for some, but you'll get there and without transiting Canada. We've done that trip from the Columbia Bar to Valdez.

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

You are cherry picking and believing what you want to believe. You have to take the document as a whole. You can't go down to the bottom of the page and pick out outdated info that you like, ..

Sure I can. If it's outdated then he would have removed it.

Here's more:


Jan. 15: Dr. Fauci explains that reaching herd immunity depends on the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan. “President Biden has made the announcement that he is going to try and get one million doses a day so that’s*100 million in the first 100 days,” Dr. Fauci tells Try Guys. “If we do 1 million a day, by the time we get to the end of the summer, we will have reached that percentage of herd immunity.


Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former FDA commissioner, says potential reasons why coronavirus cases are declining in the U.S. is reduced activity and better adherence to wearing masks. He says we’re not yet at herd immunity, but this will happen gradually over time. He joins ‘Closing Bell’ to discuss.FRI, FEB 5 20215:09 PM EST