Category Archives for Destinations.
They aren’t requiring mRNA vaccines, and they aren’t requiring boosters. Showing proof of a Chinese vaccine whose effectiveness against the original Wuhan strain was questionable at best is considered enough. Fear of an onslaught of infected people from China demands that politicians do something. And this is something.
Now that China is re-opening to travel starting January 8, the U.S. is is imposing testing requirements on arrivals from China, Hong Kong and Macau – effective January 5.
Note that travel and testing requirements have done nothing to protect the U.S. in the first three years of the pandemic. They were didn’t keep out Covid, its surgest, or its variants.
China opens its borders, and welcomes visitors again, starting January 8. The only remaining Covid-era requirement will be to show a negative PCR test taken within 48 hours. That’s a wrap on Zero Covid, even for foreigners who were often blamed by China even though the virus almost certainly originated in or near Wuhan.
The country no longer pursues zero Covid, they just pursue a policy of no longer reporting most Covid cases.
Hong Kong has had some of he world’s most extreme measures for foreign arrivals during the pandemic. Those are being mostly scrapped starting Wednesday.
The hotel workers union in New York City yields outsized political influence, blocking projects that would turn hotels into residential housing or homeless shelters. That helps keep rents high and people on the streets, but protects jobs. It also ruins hotels.
Indonesia is expected to approve a law this month banning pre-marital sex as well as living together prior to marriage. While Bali is generally more liberal than the rest of the country, the law would apply nationwide, including for tourists.
And while homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia per se (except in the Aceh province) same sex marriage is not legal. As a result same sex partners living together would become criminalized, under a statute that includes penalties of up to a year in prison.
Early in the pandemic ‘getting Covid later’ versus getting it right away made sense. We didn’t know what we were dealing with. It was better to delay until there were treatments and vaccines, and better to preserve hospital capacity. But what mattered is what you did with that time.
The U.S. and U.K. developed functional vaccines and treatments. China’s Sinovac Coronavac vaccine barely worked against the ancestral Wuhan strain. Most of China remained immunologically naive to the virus, especially as it mutated. The only end game was Xi’s re-election at the 20th People’s Congress. China didn’t use the time to prepare itself.
Brazil is bringing back its air travel mask mandate. They say a surge in Covid-19 cases makes this urgent, but the rule isn’t going into effect right away. It starts Friday, November 25. Paper masks will be permitted as long as they are two-ply in airports and inflight, and there will be no limits placed on inflight service.
They won’t be limiting indoor gather at bars to watch the World Cup.
The U.S. doesn’t require most Europeans to get a visa to come here. They do, however, have to register online in advance and get an approved “ESTA.” Which is like an electronic visa! It’s just that the process we put people through to get something we actually call a visa is much, much worse.
Europe is responding in kind and creating their own online registration system that residents of much of the world will have to use before being allowed to enter. It’s called ETIAS, for the European Travel Information and Authorization System.
Among other things, airlines will no longer be penalized for bringing a Covid case into the country. Yet nothing has changed in China – they still aren’t using Western vaccines, the vast majority of the population remains immunologically naive – except for Xi having broken with precedent to extend his time in office, while vanquishing rival power centers.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
