Light at the end of the tunnel?

[Brad the Impala]

Capitalism has mostly enabled the R&D and production capabilities to produce billions of vaccines. A wonderful economic system.

In comparison, not one communist country has produced a vaccine worth having.

Cuba! Even under an economic embargo from their capitalist neighbours.

The tiny Communist-run Caribbean island has achieved this milestone by producing its own Covid vaccine, even as it struggles to keep supermarket shelves stocked amid a decades-old U.S. trade embargo.

“It is an incredible feat,” Helen Yaffe, a Cuba expert and lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, told CNBC via telephone..

“Those of us who have studied biotech aren’t surprised in that sense, because it has not just come out of the blue. It is the product of a conscious government policy of state investment in the sector, in both public health and in medical science.”

To date, around 86% of the Cuban population has been fully vaccinated against Covid with three doses, and another 7% have been partly inoculated against the disease, according to official statistics compiled by Our World in Data.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/13/why-...bal-south.html

[Surfcrest]

If you ever played that game as a kid, where you whisper something in someone’s ear and then see what you said sounds like, after it’s been whispered to several other people…that’s how the virus is behaving. People fully vaccinated and with boosters are getting Omicron. The vaccination is just protecting them from the more severe symptoms of the virus, but not protecting them from being infected. It’s not the same virus as it was when it started. Just like what was whispered to the first person, in the game I just explained. The virus is mutating among the unvaccinated. Until enough people are vaccinated to hinder community transmission, it will continue to mutate and require humans to get boosters.

Surfcrest

[poshglasgow]

I should be in Thailand now - my routine of two decades standing rudely disrupted for a second season.

But I'm getting very optimistic that we really are on the final furlong with this wretched bug now.

The Omicron cycle, as experienced by South Africa, seems to last about six weeks, primarily mopping up those who have previously escaped infection. It's also clear that the Covid 'machine' is shutting down in many countries. Large parts of Canada are actively discouraging testing, India's official case numbers are being dismissed as a joke, and from my own correspondence, Omicron appears to be much more advanced in Thailand than the official data indicates. Here in the UK, a senior government medical officer has stepped down - rats and ships come to mind. Although not yet conceded by the UK government, the complete failure of the vaccines to stem the tide of Omicron is evident to all, and demand for vaccination has almost vanished.

We're about two thirds through the Omicron cycle in the UK - Thailand is perhaps one third way through. Many countries appear to have their case numbers cresting right now.

I'm hoping that in the immediate aftermath, governments around the world will be embarrassed by the ultimate failure of the lockdowns and vaccination campaigns, and will want to consign all the accumulated paraphernalia and reminders of Covid to the bin as soon as possible. Quarantines, mask mandates, vaccination 'passports' etc - will, I suspect, be binned in very short order.

How soon? Next month? Possible - but March/April looks much more likely. I want to return to a land of smiles where those smiles can be seen again..

Excellent and credible report OG. Thank you.