comment: >
  
  There’s zero evidence of that though. It’s spreading like crazy because they 1) enforced zero COVID for so long there is very little natural immunity, 2) because of point one, people became complacent and there was minimal vaccination, and 3) they lifted all restrictions at once. 
  This was always going to blow up. New variant not required.
context: and if they didnt have it at the start of the flight they would by the end.. >
  
  I mean it's gotta be at least 95% right, if 50% of the passengers are infected >
  
  RTPCR should be taken 5 to 7 days after exposure. Surely some of them have false negative results. The positive results are probably those who already have the virus before the flight. >
  
  It's more likely that the Chinese public and government was getting tired of restrictions.
  But I like your positivity there and cross fingers for more lock down. >
  
  No China legit cut off western world, banned every western app like Facebook, IG, and Google, and won’t let their people use anything else, and has strict COVID lockdowns. They can keep their country sealed shut.
  I am NOT in the mood for COVID-22 >
  
  Better get in the mood for Covid-23 >
  
  Covid23andMe >
  
  About 8% of our DNA consists of ancient viral remnants, and another 40% is made of repetitive genetic letters that are thought to be viral in origin, too. >
  
  We are viruses, absorbing other viruses, growing stronger. >
  
  Yeah, let's just casually repeat the start of this shit show again. >
  
  Although before will look like a slow trickle compared to how it will go this time. >
  
  China's infection wave will not lead to a surge in infections outside of China.
  China was the outlier that was still sticking to Zero COVID until a few weeks ago. It's the same thing that happened to Hong Kong in March this year, leading to the world's highest COVID fatality rate in Hong Kong, but having no noticeable effect on other countries. >
  
  You're making the (likely very unsafe) assumption that omicron infecting such a massive population doesn't lead to a new variant that can sweep the globe again.
  If there's no additional significant mutations though, you could well be right. >
  
  Omicron already ripped through the population of Europe, the US and various other countries this year - billions of people - and no significantly different variant with an evolutionary advantage emerged. 
  Epidemiologists think that with Omicron the virus reached a local optimum of evolutionary fitness that it's hard to get out of. >
  
  Virologists are saying they have no idea what variants are coming out of China right now and the Omicron that ripped thru North America isn't even the dominant strain anymore, so why all this discussion on the original omicron?
  Even the new vaccine for omicron is already outdated. >
  
  This is what happens when China doesnt embrace vaccination. >
  
  And refuse to use better Western created ones. SinoVac was/is horrible.
  *Edit. Sinovac is as effective as Western vaccines as long as you get all 3 doses. >
  
  Ah, I see. All I've heard about it is that it isn't as effective and sucks. 
  Appears I and many others are misinformed. Not great with one dose, but perfectly fine as long as you get all 3. But if you only get 1 or 2, Pfizer or Moderna are more effective. Makes sense. 
  Any idea how many people in China get all 3, as oppossed to just the first? >
  
  IIRC, one of the first places hit really hard by covid was Italy. Is there some reason that the Chinese seem to favor going there? >
  
  Decades ago, leather goods and clothing were made in Romania and shipped to Italy to have the Italy label sewn on.  They still do as of a few years ago.
  The US now has "assembled in the US with domestic and foreign parts".  All the parts are produced overseas with only minor work and the final assembly done here.
  Due to tariffs, China has opened steel mills in Vietnam, Philippines, etc. to produce and sell steel under that nationality instead.  European and Indian steel companies have also bought out others worldwide to do similar.
  Very few things are singularly made from scratch at home! >
  
  There's whole black market operations of selling non-Italian olive oil as Italian. Sometimes it's not even 100% olive oil. Shit's wild. >
  
  I read that the most popular market brands always blend olive oil with other seed oils to increase the volume and profits. It is not illegal since everyone does it. >
  
  Yeah, the fake/mislabeled oils I'm talking about aren't just shady Amazon sellers or whatever, this stuff reaches the shelves of high end grocery stores.  The whole industry is a mess. >
  
  Same with San Marzano tomatoes, most are fake. In Italy, if you have money you can get what you want on a label.
  Edit: spelling >
  
  Lol, such trash comments here. No, the European and the Italian laws are very stricts about. It happened that some Spanish oil was sold as Italian because it's a better sales driver. San Marzano and tomatoes always come from Italy. Btw the seasonal workers, that the original comment was about, are much more used for tomatoes and other vegetables not from leathers goods and usually they are not Chinese >
  
  Exactly. This entire thread is just Americans who are assuming that EU/European regulations are as bad as theirs. The EU has plenty of laws on these things and the foreign workers are seasonal workers to help with farming/agriculture because the domestic population aren't willing to fill in all the gaps in those sectors. >
  
  Pretty much correlates with the number of people currently sick with Covid there.
  With no herd immunity and density of the airport-connected cities, it will be a quick bit insanely high spike. >
  
  To be brutally honest some places did ban South Africa the first week or so after the omicron. 
  It’s a bit puzzling that we all forgot so fast how well that worked ~ >
  
  Australia not only banned flights from the whole of Southern Africa when omicron first appeared, we also made it a criminal offence to fly here from India when delta was spreading there.
  Then a few months later when Sydney had a delta outbreak, and it was obvious half the city wasn’t going to bother following a lockdown, the federal government decided maybe delta wasn’t so bad after all and we should just let it spread instead. >
  
  It's like the CCP has decided that if China's economy is going to suffer for their mistakes, then so is the rest of the world. >
  
  So it’s 2020 all over again. >
  
  Except the western country these people were going to has already had several waves of Covid, and have access to fairly effective vaccines, which should help prevent spread and also prevent a healthcare crush. Not to mention the newer strains tend to be less fatal. 
  So, no, not really like 2020 at all. >
  
  The concern is a new strain with high vaccine escape that is as bad as Delta, or worse. Those odds are skyrocketing with the infection rate China is experiencing. 
  Not 2020, sure, but a cause for concern. There’s no magic hand guiding the virus’s mutations, so hopefully we get lucky and no significant new variants pop up. >
  
  Who says those odds are skyrocketing? We already had billions of people all over the world getting omicron and its subvariants. Nothing indicates that there is a likelihood of a more dangerous variant. It has all been trending to more virulent, less dangerous. So really not sure what you are basing your statements on. >
  
  
  Who says those odds are skyrocketing?
  
  The odds of a mutation during any individual transmission haven't changed. The overall odds however are skyrocketing because we went from about a hundred thousand cases a day, about 3 million per month globally, to almost all of China's 1,400 million population getting Covid over the span of a month or two. 
  That's over 400x the cumulative risk factors of a new variant appearing this month. >
  
  
  we went from about a hundred thousand cases a day, about 3 million per month globally
  
  The world has averaged an estimated 20M new infections per day in the last 6 months.
  China's infection surge will, roughly speaking, double the world's daily infection count for two months, and hence roughly double the risk of a new variant appearing in the next two months. >
  
  And the other 50% were infected in the flight and will be positive in days. So 100%, JACKPOT!!! >
  
  Sounds like the beginning all over again. China is a ticking time bomb with the lack of immunity. >
  
  How to avoid this though?
  This is just a huge mass of people. Whether they let it rip in 2021, 2022, or 2110, this is still 1B+ of people that have to get sick in order to close down the pandemic worldwide. >
  
  They should have swallowed their pride and gotten the more effective mRNA vaccines instead of their own ineffective one.
  The truth comes out eventually. >
  
  Even the Sinovac is effective if taken in a decent number of doses.  But they used the 3 years to trumpet how their way of lockdowns was superior, vs using the time to vax up and build out ICUs for the inevitable end of lockdowns.
  Who’s the decadent failed power now, Xi? >
  
  Deny all of them entry already, and quarantine the airport staff, ffs >
  
  They're probably mostly Italian citizens returning home, they can't stop them. >
  
  Australia refused entry to its own citizens no? >
  
  Oh good.
  I'm boarding a plane to Milan right now. >
  
  See you there on Monday >
  
  Safe travels. >
  
  Likewise mate >
  
  The opposite of zero COVID is lots of COVID. What the hell did you all expect? >
  
  Covid / 0 >
  
  No surprise there. It's winter, it's cold, so viruses are thriving and this mixed with chinese population density can't lead to anything else. >
  
  Its also their holiday season where people do a crap ton of travel, sometimes their only chance to see family all year.  The next month is going to be very interesting. >
  
  January 2020 Lunar New Year and now we’re facing a similar situation in January 2023 >
  
  Italy: No way this could go the same way twice right? >
  
  Given how badly it went for them the first time, I sincerely hope not. >
  
  Fun times ahead >
  
  The poor flight attendants. 
  No way they are not going to get it on a cramped flight for several hours. >
  
  What is it about covid that gives people this urge to travel?! I just wanted to crawl in bed. >
  
  Family and work obligations >
  
  My company basically rolled back all the wfh stuff. We’ll now if this shit gets bad again bet they gonna look dumb >
  
  I work for a smaller branch of a big name insurance company, and I'm absolutely shocked they haven't done that yet. A couple weeks back they tried a push to voluntarily get people back in office, but when cases went up (not even the direct area where the office is), they cancelled that.
  After seeing this I imagine it's only gonna get worse again. Hope everyone stays safe >
  
  For those of you that didn't get that real feeling of hopelessness the first time we're running it back. COVID - The End Times >
  
  Ug.... This is just like the Morbius movie fiasco all over again. >
  
  I just flew from South Carolina to the west coast. I was the only one wearing a mask and there were at least a dozen passengers coughing and sneezing. With New Year’s Eve in a couple days I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s another massive outbreak. >
  
  There already is another wave happening, the CDC just refuses to acknowledge it so we have to rely on things like wastewater tracking to see what’s going on. >
  
  My poops are private and this is a huge overstep by the Fauci. >
  
  THE SPICE MELANGE >
  
  The government's going to figure out the 11 herbs and spices. >
  
  I feel like America is still dealing with covid its just not covered anymore, or at least like it was. I know nobody here is talking about it anymore. >
  
  Did Gandhi mention anything about nukes in that article? >
  
  Depends, did his aggression level go through another integer overflow? >
  
  How is the US waiting until January 5th to even start testing?!?!!! >
  
  China is doing this on purpose. Destabilize everything again.... >
  
  Idk, maybe don’t let them in for a while? Kinda how the whole thing started in the first place unfortunately >
  
  Yesterday we put a negative covid test requirement on air travel from China. Should be all counties though >
  
  "We have no COVID" they said
  "It'll be fun", they said >
  
  China doing it again. >
  
  I remember a few years back.  Coronavirus thing in China.  Interesting but don't worry.  Then flights to US., and Europe from China.  Hmmmm suddenly some cases on West Coast, Italy Spain.  Isn't this kind of like a bad re-run TV show? >
  
  Italy imports covid how it all started in Feb 2020. Again. >
  
  Yup, Phuket where I live, is tooling up for a huge influx of Chinese tourists. Gonna be fucking shitshow with how many Thais will go down with covid and be off work at the same time...during a period here in high season where there's already a huge staff shortage in tourism! Interesting times... >
  
  I'm up in Chiang Mai.  Apparently a hot-spot for the Chinese tourists.    Not looking forward to it.    They should be made to pre-departure test/arrival test/sandbox like everyone else did a year or so ago. 
  It's gonna end in tears. >
  
  yeah so really 100% >
  
  Ban travel from China now, not later. Should have been an immediate ban when they lifted restrictions. Who knows what kind of variants they are going to release. >
  
  How fucking dumb are you people? Banning travel from one country does not fucking work. If you want to stop the virus from spreading you need to ban travel from EVERY country. Literally ground every single airplane in earth.
  Last time the retard Trump banned flights from China which did fuck all since covid came in from EUROPE. >
  
  If travel had of been vetted properly at the start of the pandemic, we may not even have a pandemic now. It could have gone the way SARS went if China locked down the country quickly instead of pretending there was no danger. China wasn't open with their information when infections first popped up there, by the time they were - it was too late. Then millions migrated around the world for Chinese New Year and that is why we have the pandemic we have.
  Anyone flying in from China should require a negative test. Last thing we need is millions more cases coming in in a short period of time. >
  
  Italy banned flights from China in  2020, they simply got a plane that landed first somewhere else before entering Italy. It is imperative that everyone starts to defend himself by his own means, with ffp2 masks ecc because it's the only effective way >
  
  Someone explain what I’m missing here. COVID is already hugely widespread throughout the world. Has been for over a year, we’ve all just ignored it. 
  Well, everyone except China anyway. China kept pushing COVID zero, and enforcing massive lockdowns of millions of people anytime even a single case popped up. Not even a month ago they finally gave up this policy under massive protests (unheard of in China!), and everyone knew this wave of sick Chinese was coming. Like, with 100% certainty. We KNEW FOR A FACT it was coming. 
  Now, here it is. I mean, yes, they’re mixing with the rest of the world, but we’re all acting like the pandemic is over anyway, and it’s already circulating widely within every other population on the planet. So, why do we care about more of it coming out of China? They can’t spread it more than it’s already spreading, it’s literally already everywhere. >
  
  I think the fear is that's it's a new or mutated variant that is more harmful and contagious that the one most people have gotten in the west.