When will the world be ready for us?

We got our second Pfizer shots today so in two weeks we will be ready for the world. Unfortunately, the world is not ready for us! :'(

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  • AlanS
    Unfortunately, the world is not ready for us!

    I'm not sure this is a new phenomenon! :D

  • My husband and I got our 2nd Moderna Vaccine on 1/23/21. We live on Maui. Waiting for HI Gov to accept the Vaccine instead of testing on returning to HI. Would like to go to mainland to see family. We are booked on Tauck Essence of Japan May 6, 2021. I am sure it will be cancelled because Japan is having surge in cases and their borders closed to many countries including North America, We have another trip planned with Viking: Jerusalem, River Cruise Egypt, and Jordan, Petra, Israel in November 2021. As of today Viking has cancelled all their tours thru May 31. We would have preferred to book with Tauck, but Viking was able to set up our pre/post excursions that we wanted. However, who knows what the world will be like in Nov.

  • I just did some calculations. Currently they are vaccinating one and a half million people per day in the U.S. If that rate continues, everyone in the U,S. over 65 could be vaccinated twice in 66 days ... some of course are already vaccinated, and some will refuse vaccination. Feel free to check my math. I’m using the 2016 census figures ... latest available. I think the travel ‘boom’ will happen around the end of May.

  • 😂😂😂😂 travel boom for who? Most countries will not have had their populations vaccinated, just three months away, no, not going to happen

  • edited February 2021

    Sealord - what about those of us under 65? Not every traveler is over 65. And even if they are, all the service people in restaurants, hotels, boats, planes, etc. aren't. There's British with her glass half-empty, and then there's you with the glass overflowing, multiple times over. :)

  • edited February 2021

    Here is an article I just received from the Marin Independent Journal. Availability for the ‘general public’ has been estimated to begin late spring or early summer. Perhaps sooner if the percentages displayed in the article below are correct.

    https://www.marinij.com/2021/02/17/coronavirus-cases-plummet-at-marin-senior-care-homes/

    According to ‘The Points Guy’, there are 60 countries that Americans can visit right now. Some require draconian procedures, and some do not. Some cruise lines claim their crewmembers have been vaccinated. The ‘how or where’ could probably be answered by politicians. (;-).

    ‘Travel boom for who?’. The travel companies. The National Parks are mostly open now. I get ads from Xanterra almost every day. We will be at Yosemite next week if we don’t get a bad reaction to our second Moderna. They are really pushing their resorts at Death Valley right now. Xanterra also owns Windstar. There are several ‘small’ airlines that have announced that they will require proof of vaccination starting July first. I would not be surprised to see more of that, or that it become a ‘norm’. There are already some countries that are exempting vaccinated people from their quarantine requirements ... covid tests sometimes still required.

  • We are scheduled with Tauck for two tours one is Northern Spain and Rioja Valley from May 19 to June 1, 21 and the other is Exploring the Douro, Lisbon and Madrid from June 3 to June 14. We decided back to back tours to save us money on airlines tickets as we fly business class. I haven't heard yet that Tauck has cancelled these trips but it seems very unlikely that we will go. Any thoughts?

    Noreen
    Tucson, AZ

  • Noreen, I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that my June 1 trip to Ireland won't happen, but I'm waiting for Tauck to cancel. Increasingly, I'm also less confident that my trip to the Balkans in September will happen. It involves multiple countries, and each will probably have its own Covid restrictions that make travel problematic even for those people who have been vaccinated. (Put me more in British's camp than Sealord's!)

  • edited February 2021

    I don’t think your tours will happen Noreen
    Sealord, I think you are looking at travel just from your perspective or a California perspective.
    Of course, I’m looking at it from mine. BKMD, I don’t have a half full glass, I am just being realistic.
    In our county, we are receiving around 4000 vaccine doses a week, I believe we didn’t receive any last week. The vaccine clinic runs from 8-30am to 3-45 pm. They vaccinate around 4000 people a week when they can. There are 165,000 people who are over 65 or have an underlying condition on the list. I believe we are nearer to the top half of that list. Tomorrow and Friday, appointments have been canceled due to a combination of not enough vaccine available/inclement weather. So that’s how I see my personal travel outlook.
    The world is just not in a good enough state to open up for travel. In the US, the more people travel out of state, the longer the pandemic will continue and that’s partly because of non mask wearing compliance, or utter stupidity in how people are wearing their masks. I wear two masks when I am out...which isn’t very often.I’m saving so much money on make-up, I should have enough for an extra night on my next tour.....which will probably be in 2022.

  • Sealord - You are the most optimistic person in existence. Good for you. I think your optimism, as it applies to National Parks in the US, for US citizens, could be founded. For international travel, I think your optimism is looking through the rosiest of all glasses. I just read an article that stated Delta is only flying to 7 foreign countries right now. They plan to open up more countries in June.

    I guess it's a matter of definition for 'travel boom', but for me it won't be a travel boom until the three US carriers (American, Delta, United) restore all of their pre-pandemic international flights. At least flights to all of the pre-pandemic countries, if not yet all of the flights. For that to happen, all of the countries would have to open up their borders, without imposing, as you phrase it - draconian procedures. Requiring quarantines upon arrival and passed Covid tests prior to return are no-go conditions for a travel boom. No boom can occur with quarantines or if people are required to get, on their own, Covid tests and wait for the results before they can return.

  • Cathy - You may have to consider a snowbird trip somewhere that will allow you to get vaccinated.

  • Cathy - AZ is fine as long as you don't want any Diet Coke.

  • Many probably did not read my ‘MarinIJ’ link above. I will throw out a number or two. Our county had an average of 60 active covid cases. in nursing homes in January. Two weeks after the second vaccination in the nursing homes they had an average of ‘four’ covid cases. Our county is doing pretty well with vaccinations, but we get ours from San Francisco, not Marin. One of our ‘princess’ friends who really has not tried very hard to get an appointment, just got one in Santa Rosa ... about an hour’s drive from here ... with Kaiser. CVS has run out of appointments in the entire state. That being said, the vaccination rate is around 16.5% so far. It will still take a couple more months to get all of the ‘seniors’, and as luck will have it there will be some seniors at the end of that period. We consider ourselves very lucky to be more toward the front end.

  • edited February 2021

    I saw an interesting chart online- time to completely inoculate the populace in a number of countries around the world. It had to be based on the current rate- because it said it could 10 years for all of Russia to be inoculated! :o

  • I contacted Tauck yesterday and asked about my Rhône River cruise End of May. Told her let’s just move to 2022 and get it over with. She was nice but I would lose any of the perks that are on my current cruise and the 2022 cruises are filling up so I may not have a spot. She wasn’t very knowledgeable about when they will make decisions on any trips and I should call back in March. Really frustrated and anxious again at this Viking is being proactive.

  • edited February 2021

    Did you have her put you on a wait list? Or have you considered double booking?

  • edited February 2021

    I got an email from a Hawaii information website that indicated the they are working on a vaccine passport that could be used to avoid quarantine or other requirements. Their proposed limitations sound a bit inpractical in that it would only be good for three months after vaccination. That might be the time period the vaccines were tested? If they really think it’s only good for three months, why bother?
    Another website (interline) said not to expect ‘cruising’ from U.S. ports until at least the summer, and probably not until the fall. That sounds likely for the big ships, but I think small ships might beat that estimate. The ships we travel aboard carry a few hundred, not several thousand.

  • Have a trip planned to Canada in August, not with Tauck, which was cancelled last year and rescheduled. Just heard from our travel agent and what is required at this time to go to Canada. Jumping through hoops to go on a vacation doesn't sound like fun but I understand the protocol. If things remain the same I can safely say that we wont be going on this trip.
    We have rescheduled our Tauck Spain and Portugal from Ocotober 2021 to May 2022. Hope we are still here to take it!!!

  • Hope this is an abundance of caution, but recently learned my non-Tauck trip to Spain has been rescheduled for the 4th time...from this fall to Spring 2022! So I remain very uncertain when I'll travel again. Trying to remain optimistic.

  • milmil
    edited February 2021

    Unfotunately, all trips to Europe will most likely be postpone to at least late 2021 and it's not just Tauck.. every company, travel agency etc.. as long as the European population doesn't get the vaccine.. and most of them don't want to .. travels to Europe will be a long shot! :(
    On the other hand.. it would be a great opportunity for people to start discovering other countries...
    The world is beautiful ... let's discover!

  • Interesting article in today’s WSJ by Dr. Makary from Johns Hopkins. As I was reading it Dr. Makary appeared on TV.
    He has run the numbers on the diagnosed and undiagnosed covid case probabilities, and the fact that covid cases have dropped by something like 77% since January 8th. In short, he thinks we will have herd immunity by April.

  • Fake news

  • You know, I’m with the President who is being more realistic and saying we may have some normalcy by Christmas

  • Well, Dr. Makary’s article is on the ‘opinion’ page. He is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, and chief medical advisor to Sesame Care, and author of “The Price we Pay”.
    The President lives in the White House.

  • Well here's a weird one - Today I stopped at Target to pick up a few things (groceries), I usually don't shop there, but it's within walking distance, it was a nice day, and I didn't need much. The shelves were pretty bare and I asked one of the clerks about it. She said they haven't had any deliveries for 3 days. It looked like early Covid days. So I left, walked across the street to Whole Foods, and they had everything in stock.

    I don't understand that, as the weather here in CO has been fine. Maybe their distribution center is in TX? The supply chain is surprisingly fragile.

  • For once, I think the pandemic and the vaccine can be regarded for me personally as travel related. If things don’t improve, then we won’t be able to travel.
    My husband and I are in the same boat as Cathy, we can’t find anywhere to get the vaccine. It’s so annoying for me because we are always first in line for any new vaccine, the improved shingles one, the better pneumonia one. The annual flu shot, the tetanus boosters etc and the Yellow fever vaccine that so many on this forum didn’t want to take for some of the Tauck exotic tours. When it comes to medication for Malaria, we always take that too when others don’t bother or stop taking it when they think they are having side effects. We have all the preventive medical examinations like colonoscopies. But now, the world and his dog are running in front of us to be first in lime. Smokers, obese people, prisoners amd today, two women in their twenties dressing as old ladies to get their second shots....Yes, they managed to get their first shots like there...god help us!

  • 😂😂😂 Us too!, trying to limit our wine drinking to the weekends

  • BKMD - I agree with your TX comment. They've really been hit hard by the weather. My daughter, who lives in Dallas and works in a hospital, lives close enough to the hospital that she's been able to make it to work. So many haven't been able to make it into work that the hospital kicked into some special emergency state, asking my daughter to work lots of extra hours/shifts. When this emergency state kicks in she receives triple pay. She was lucky, that at her home she still had power and that the water pipes, although they froze a bit, they did not burst. Since a lot of the pipes are in the 'attic' she removed some ceiling tiles and opened some vents from the main part of the house so more heat could get to where the pipes are.

    Texas has been on a roll the last couple of years: terrible floods in Houston, pandemic everywhere, and now Arctic weather disrupting the power grid and water supply.

  • Vaccine rollout comes in dribs and drabs. My in-laws who live in KCMO have been able to get the vaccine or are signed up to get it. Only one niece is not on board. My brother in law mentioned that while they can get it in Jackson County, MO, it is virtually impossible over the border in KS. It's easier to get the vaccine in western KS than in Johnson or Wyandotte counties.

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