Would this include the beloved Argentine government which has simultaneously announced that we now have Delta among us and also that football stadia will now be re-opened and foreign tourists welcomed?
Public authorities everywhere who
bother about making plans for the pandemic now seem to want people infected. That's the new strategy.
Every single one but China's and New Zeland's has been led by fools at some point, and once fallen into the covid hole it's very difficult to get out. Vietnam may be trying to suppress again. In Australia most states have good governments, but the federal government is hell bent on having all the australians infected. The problem with that cunning plan is, people don't just get infected once and are done with it. What we know leads us to believe people will get reinfected, again and again. The antibodies wane and protection against new infections disappears - even without viral mutation.
But mutation happens. The virus is still evolving for worse. Immune escape is nearly complete with some of the delta lineages, there's dozens of them already. Vaccines cannot keep up with the virus, neither in logistics and rate of vaccination, nor in newer vaccines against immune-escaping escaped variants. Vaccinating people with a third dose of the same vaccine is foolishness, next month the vaccinated will probably be up against a new variant capable of overcoming those antibodies. Then how will they be gotten to accept a fourth vaccine for the delta? And that vaccine anyway won't be for this delta or whatever greek letter but for one back from May or June.
We could hope that Biden, after ending a war against the beliefs and interests of all the elite of Washington, might fire Fauci, rightfully blaming him for this wave there, and announce a change of strategy saying "the USA is not less that China, we can do what they did". But it's a pipe dread, the guy will be lucky to survive the ongoing attacks.
No other of the countries currently ruled by fools will change policy this year. The people just don't have the confidence to demand the country go it alone. And the governments are in too deep with being members of the "international community" and aligning with the suicidal policies of the others. So outside China and the outliers that decided on a different strategy early on, everyone imitates the US government. And outlier Australia tries to move that way too.
There's the "hermit" countries, sure. North Korea, not that anyone pays them attention, probably has managed to suppress covid like China. Russia or Cuba or Iran could
politically have decided to go it alone, but their governments chose badly also. I bet Putin must be kicking himself for the bad decision, not that he'll ever admit it. Cuba was bankrupt without tourism and foolishly decided to "open", not it's bankrupt
and covidose! Iran probably has excessively porous borders and a weak state incapable of clamping down on cases that manage to enter. And that's it, I don't think there are any others capable of changing policy.
Unless the US changes strategy the world will continue down this path until the virus gets to 10% case fatality rate. Then the impossible becomes possible. If it never gets there but just keeps coming year after year we all get -10 years of live or so due to accumulated damage from repeated infections along life. Or we luck out and the virus gets less deadly with a stable dominant variety serving as a kind of permanent vaccine, and lose fewer years? Or good treatments are put into use more perchance than by public sponsoring. The point is, it depends on
luck, it's the XXI century supposedly of the technical wonders and most of the governments in the world are acting like they have no agency to end a pandemic!
