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Comment by CaptainZapp | Hacker News Reader

> I'm pretty sure nothing's going to change in the next 5 years.

Given the speed in which effective vaccines were developed I think this is a rather bleak outlook.

Sure, a lot is still unknown with the new virus variants and as has been expected vaccination drives had their teething problems. But in a few month time (almost) everybody who wants their jabs can get it (in rich countries, that is).

I for one, see myself on a 3 week vacation in Asia later this year. Optimistic? Maybe, and certainly dependent on a number of factors beyond my control. But I think it's a much better perspective than wallowing in misery and not seeing a way out.

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It is worth reading what the epidemologists advising Western governments actually think. Many of them are arguing for social distancing and border closures to continue until the entire world is vaccinated, regardless of how many people are vaccinated within your own country. That is expected to take probably until 2026, so the OP's worries about five years are founded. Some outliers among those advisors are even arguing for social distancing for the rest of the 2020s, or (because they want to take the opportunity to end flu transmission as well) in perpetuity.

That would be pretty dystopian.

Thank god the epidemiologists are not the ones making policy. Most state and local governments in the US have not shown a willingness to follow such a hardline approach, and we're already seeing reopenings as numbers drop, long before the vaccine has even had a major impact.

Pretty sure one of Biden’s main talking points of his election campaign was that America would start listening to the scientists more closely.

Nothing Biden has said or done has implied he wants to take a hardline approach to COVID restrictions, aside from briefly floating the idea of limited domestic travel. And he made no effort to tie the massive relief package to restrictive state polices. Beyond that, he has limited authority over state and local restrictions.

One of the Biden administration's first moves was to reinstate the ban on travel to the USA from Schengen that was about to expire. And it was just announced that this ban would now be extended indefinitely. The US ban on travel does not just affect tourism, it affects family reunification as well, and I would consider that a hardline approach.

That travel "ban" is riddled with exemptions.

Can you cite those exemptions? There is a longstanding campaign on Twitter (loveisnottourism) that complains that the US policy is preventing partners from seeing one another. Also, even if in some cases one could theoretically board a flight, that means nothing if you need a visa and your local US consulate won’t issue you one, because it says no visas will be issued during the pandemic.

To say nothing of control over how people actually act.

In any case, listening to scientists means you take their input and factor that into the tradeoffs that drive policy. Which may well involve simultaneously that there is e.g. some risk associated with allowing people to travel by air while allowing them to do it anyway.

So far no meaningful action has been taken that indicates he's particularly concerned. He's focused on trying to reopen schools, last I heard.

Some people have argued that the vaccinations are evidence of his success regarding Covid-19 but I don't see any part of that that wouldn't have been proceeding with or without him. As far as I can tell, the only difference between Trump and Biden's handling of covid has been "Biden knows to keep his mouth shut about specifics and predictions, because he might be wrong" which is exactly the kind of playing-both-sides I've seen from many state and city governments for the last year (talking a lot about how we need to follow the science and keep locking down to keep the spread low, but also taking no steps to enforce the rules or financially support people/businesses.)

Oh I'm sure he's concerned. But there's precious little he can do other than doing what he can to get vaccines rolled out faster and closing borders to foreigners. Most people certainly support the former and most are at worst indifferent to the latter. He can also set a "good example."

But getting into a tussle with states he thinks are opening up too much, etc. is almost certainly counterproductive at this point.

Do you have a source for that?

Many of these advisors are speaking directly to media. Devi Sridhar, one of the advisors to the UK government, for example, has been doing interviews recently about maintaining long-term border closures and requiring expensive hotel quarantines.

Right after I posted my comment above, at 15:12 comments regarding Canadian forecasts appeared in The Guardian's COVID live blog, in which epidemologists say that restrictions must be preserved within the country because the vaccine rollout is a global problem, not a local one.

The only article that seems to be quoting Devi Sridhar is behind a paywall, but doesn't seem to be supporting your argument.

I can't find anything on The Guradian's COVID live blog talking about what you're referring to, can you provide a link?

If you go to Google News, set your location to the UK, and search for "devi sridhar", you'll find abundant content that is not behind a paywall. Here is just one article[0] of many in which she advocates for an approach where borders stay closed until the whole world is vaccinated.

Apparently this[1] is the permalink for The Guardian post.

[0] https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19036150.covid-scotland-...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/feb/19/coronavir...

There is zero chance that democracies will conform to those kind of restrictions. Once most people are vaccinated, people are going to shift back to business (mostly) as usual subject to changes like more remote work. Governments can't enforce policies if people won't follow them.

Are you sure this is the case? From the Norwegian news it seems very much like the epidemiologists that are advising the government in many cases are advising lesser restrictions than what is actually implemented.

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