Good on you folks for testing.
That way you have some way to know if you are risking spreading it to others. Covid has been shown in quite a few studies to damage the immune system, and repeated infections damage it further. So it's not surprising that people are having wicked colds, strep infections, etc., to a degree that previously wouldn't have been considered "normal". (Nothing new with this virus on that front. Measles pretty much wipes the immune system memory. Although I ~ think ~ with Covid it's not so much a wiping of immune memory, but a damaging of the production of T cells that's hurting the most people at present.)
I wince when thinking of all those parents who thought that it's "not serious in children" because they seemed to only have mild symptoms at the time and who took no or minimal mitigating actions. Adults whose actions brought it on themselves I have less empathy for. But adults are supposed to be doing whatever is necessary to keep children safe, so.... yeah. I'm sure they'll find a way to rationalize their way around it all, should the children end up suffering in the long term for their stupidity.
Covid causes havoc within the bodies of a lot of people, and from what reputable studies I've read it appears that the damage there is also cumulative. We will, if that holds true, be seeing more cases of diabetes, more people dead before their time of heart and vascular issues, more people with kidney damage, neurological issues, and on, down the road. I would expect that the general public will find a way to ignore that, as well. Unless it happens to them or a loved one. And, of course, the public will howl if they have to pay more in taxes to provide the needed supports for those people who need the extra help or care.
The local variant here is particularly hard on older people. They haven't quite figured out what's going on with that, but even when vaccine status is taken into consideration, older people are dropping from it more than expected. Apparently, and I'm a little fuzzy on the exact stats, but even fully immunized and boosted people over 50 (60?) are having vaccine efficiency in the 30% range, and even that protection drops off more quickly than in younger people. People don't want to hear it - they're tired of Covid - so even the older folks around here aren't masking. They've hit the "well, if it kills me, it kills me" stage. Sorry, I'm not ready to go yet.
And their actions have a direct impact on what I can and cannot safely do, on a daily basis.
The more people who have any variant, the more chance of a nasty mutation. The more of a lid that can be kept on the spread, the less chance of that happening. Let it run wild, which is easier of course, and you take your chances. And everyone else's with you. I resent other people taking (or not taking) actions that threaten my welfare and the welfare of my daughter. But there's not a lot I can do about that, other than expect it. A lot of people will always take the road that is less inconvenient for them. The "oh well, there's nothing I can do about it" so they stop doing anything at all - like testing and masking and keeping environmentally safe air filtration going.
Of course, all testing/masking/air filtration is only buying time for researchers to sort out how to combat the virus. I've never believed we can "mitigate" forever. But I certainly hoped people would have continued to do so for long enough for a realistic, effective treatment to be developed and for the contagion itself to be boxed in - as was done with polio, ebola, MERS, etc. And yes, I do think they'll figure out how to neutralize it to an extent much greater than we have now. At least with polio we had the advantage that many fewer people were traveling great distances as they do now. The battlefield has changed, to that extent.
Be that as it may, it doesn't seem logical to be putting restrictions on people coming in from China a couple of weeks after it's run wild. (Talk about closing the barn door after the horse has run away!!) My assumption is that they're wanting to monitor for new variants. But if the tests are being done IN China there's not going to be a realistic way of knowing that. The Chinese government seems, to put this as mildly as I can, to be hesitant to share information with the rest of the world, officially. So it looks more like window-dressing to me. Doing something publicly so it looks as if they are on duty, and all that. Unless there is a variant they know about. But again, testing IN China for passengers leaving isn't going to get them much info. So... I'm not clear on the usefulness, other than as previously stated.
