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 | | The New York Times |
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Variants halt travel worldwide |
Countries across the world are tightening their borders as they attempt to seal themselves off from the threat of more resilient and contagious variants of the virus. |
Australia recently suspended its travel bubble with New Zealand for three days after a case of the South African variant slipped past New Zealand's strict quarantine system. New Zealand's prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said today that the country's borders would remain closed until New Zealanders are "vaccinated and protected." |
Where implemented, strict travel restrictions have been very effective at reducing the spread of the virus. But my colleague David Leonhardt, who writes The Morning newsletter, points out that the U.S. restrictions have a number of gaping holes, such as allowing U.S. citizens to return home. |
Still, said John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, travel restrictions can still be useful in curbing their spread. |
"Even if they are already here, the more often they are reintroduced, the more likely there could be a super-spreader event," Dr. Moore said. |
Unequal lockdowns in Hong Kong |
 | | Government health workers in the Jordan area of Hong Kong which has been locked down.Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times |
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Beneath the glimmering high rises are neighborhoods like Jordan, where more than 200,000 of Hong Kong's poorest residents live in tenements. The average living space per person in such units is 48 square feet — less than one-third the size of a New York City parking space. |
My colleagues Vivian Wang and Tiffany May report that out of 1,100 cases recorded in Hong Kong this month, more than 160 were found in Jordan. The government responded by locking down 10,000 residents in a 16-block area. Many were trapped in poorly ventilated apartments, with little choice but to work through the lockdown, despite the risks. |
Many South Asian immigrants live in and around Jordan, and some locals suggested that they were responsible for the spread of the virus. Raymond Ho, a senior health official, stoked outrage after he said that Hong Kong's ethnic minorities were fueling transmission because "they like to share food, smoke, drink alcohol and chat together." |
Meanwhile, wealthy Hong Kongers have caused outbreaks of their own or flouted social-distancing rules, without facing such severe measures. |
Andy Yu, an elected official in the lockdown area, pointed out the double standard applied to his constituents: "If they did anything wrong, it is to be poor, to live in a subdivided flat, or to have a different skin color." |
What else we're following |
I picked up the banjo six months ago, three months into this new life at home. Last week, I had some sort of cognitive breakthrough. In an unexpected wave, my brain and fingers cracked some code and figured out how to bury a clear melody inside of my clawhammer strums. For the first time, I feel like I can sing on an instrument, no books in front of me. Just jamming. — Emma Reasoner, Columbus, Ohio |
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