New Coronavirus News from 3 Nov 2021

Asia Cautiously Opens as Delta Wave Subsides [VOA News, 3 Nov 2021]

By William Gallo

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA —
Asia is finally starting to open up after many nations in the region imposed strict measures to combat the novel coronavirus pandemic.

From Thailand to South Korea to Cambodia, Asian governments are relaxing social distancing rules and in some cases are even starting to welcome foreigners.

The moves come as Asia, once a laggard in COVID-19 vaccinations, speeds up inoculations, helping drive back devastating summer outbreaks driven by the emergence of the more transmissible delta variant.

Asia’s reopening appears more gradual than that of Western countries such as the United States or Britain, where political leaders declared COVID-19 victory only to see cases spike once restrictions were eased.

In many Asian countries, officials warn the moves could be reversed if cases spike. In others, governments are conceding that it may be time to live with the virus.

Here’s a rundown of how Asian-Pacific countries are attempting to emerge from the pandemic:
South Korea

One of the rare countries to avoid both major lockdowns and mass deaths, South Korea has used rapid COVID-19 testing and high-tech contact tracing to quickly extinguish outbreaks, causing only minimal disruptions to daily life.

After reaching its 70% vaccination target, South Korea this month began to open more fully. In Seoul, larger crowds can now gather and nighttime curfews have been lifted for many businesses.

Barring setbacks, all social distancing measures will be dropped at the end of February. However, it’s not clear when immigration restrictions will be eased. Currently, some business trips are allowed, but not tourism.

Japan
Japan has mostly contained the virus while implementing only soft lockdowns.

However, during this summer’s Tokyo Olympics, the country saw its worst COVID-19 wave yet.

That wave has now subsided.

With over 70% of its population fully vaccinated, Japan has lifted its semi-lockdowns and now allows larger crowds at sporting events and concerts.

Japan will soon loosen rules for foreign visitors, starting with short-term business travelers who will now only be required to do a three-day quarantine. Tourism is still not allowed.

Thailand
Strict curfews, public gathering restrictions, and a border lockdown successfully contained COVID-19 in Thailand until June, when cases spiked.

While the outbreak is down from its peak, Thailand is still reporting about 10,000 new cases per day. In many areas, tight social distancing remains, including restrictions on the sale of alcohol.

However, starting this month, vaccinated tourists from more than 60 countries can visit parts of Thailand without quarantines, in an effort to revive the country’s crucial tourism sector.

Vaccinations have also picked up, but only 44% of the population is fully vaccinated.

Taiwan
One of the world's COVID-19 standouts, Taiwan has allowed its citizens to live an almost completely normal life while preventing any major outbreaks.

Taiwan had recorded only 12 COVID-19 deaths until May of this year, when it saw its biggest outbreak yet. However, that wave was quickly suppressed, thanks to temporarily enhanced social distancing and rigorous contact tracing.

Only about a third of Taiwanese have been fully vaccinated. But officials have hinted that quarantine requirements for both foreign visitors and returning Taiwanese may be loosened starting around February.

Indonesia
Indonesia was spared the worst of the pandemic until June, when the country saw one of Asia’s most devastating COVID-19 outbreaks. While cases have since plummeted, only less than a third of Indonesians are fully vaccinated.

Officials say the vaccination rate is much higher in the tourist haven of Bali, which this month started accepting vaccinated visitors from 19 countries. However, the mandatory 5-day hotel quarantine appears to be deterring many tourists away so far.

Elsewhere in the country, stricter social distancing guidelines remain in place.

Malaysia
Malaysia's Delta-driven summer outbreak has receded, thanks in part to a successful vaccine drive. More than 75% of the population is now fully vaccinated, allowing its most intense lockdown measures to be ease.

Fully vaccinated Malaysians can now cross state borders and travel internationally, although they must quarantine for 14 days when they return from overseas. Mask-wearing and other social distancing guidelines are still enforced.

Reports suggest international tourists will start to be welcomed back to the tourist haven of Langkawi as part of a pilot project starting this month.

Cambodia
Like many other Asian countries, Cambodia managed to contain COVID-19 until earlier this year, when it experienced its largest outbreak.

It suppressed that wave using severe lockdowns which prevented individuals from leaving their homes.

Although Cambodia is one of Asia’s poorest countries, it now has one of the region's highest vaccination rates.

The country recently declared it is ready to live with the disease. Starting in late November, Cambodia will welcome vaccinated foreign tourists to three popular beach destinations.

Tourists will not be quarantined, but will be required to stay in their initial destinations for at least five days.

Singapore
For most of the pandemic, Singapore pursued a “zero-COVID” strategy. It officially abandoned that approach in June.

Once restrictions were eased, daily cases quickly spiked from double digits to nearly 4,000, prompting the tiny city-state to reimpose some social distancing rules. However, the country’s 80% fully vaccinated rate has helped keep the death rate low.

Singapore currently welcomes vaccinated foreign visitors, including tourists, from an expanding list of countries that now stands at 12.

Australia
Australia enjoys one of the world's lowest COVID-19 death rates per capita. It accomplished this by quickly sealing its borders and employing strict lockdowns.

However, parts of the country have begun opening. Sydney, the country’s largest city, this month will allow vaccinated residents to host unlimited numbers of people at their homes.

Vaccinated Australians can now travel overseas without needing a quarantine exemption.
But with cases still near an all-time high following a surge earlier this year, many regions still enforce tough social distancing.

Foreigners are still unable to visit.

New Zealand
Until the onset of the Delta variant, New Zealand had employed a zero-COVID strategy, with much success. However, it recently announced it would instead rely on vaccinations to contain the disease.

Even as New Zealand continues to set record highs in daily infections, its overall effort is impressive. The country has recorded just 28 COVID-19 deaths. About 65% of the country is fully vaccinated.

Though it has abandoned its COVID-19 elimination strategy, strict social distancing continues. At times, entire regions are sealed off to isolate specific outbreaks.

Almost no foreign visitors are currently allowed.

Philippines
Citizens in the Philippines have suffered through some of the world’s longest and most stringently enforced lockdowns.

However, officials began loosening those measures in June, apparently in an attempt to shore up a quickly shrinking economy.

Shortly after, the country saw one of Southeast Asia’s worst COVID-19 outbreaks.

Only about a fifth of the country has been fully vaccinated. Officials are prioritizing the vaccination of tourism workers, in hopes of soon welcoming back foreign visitors, who will be taken straight to vacation destinations without quarantines.

Vietnam
Vietnam had effectively prevented the coronavirus from spreading until July. Since then, virtually all of the country’s 22,000 COVID-19 deaths have been reported.

Although only about a quarter of Vietnamese are fully vaccinated, the Delta-driven outbreak has slowed. As infections decline, cities including Ho Chi Minh have loosened their curfews and lockdowns.

Although strict social distancing remains, Vietnam is shifting toward living with the virus. Authorities recently announced that vaccinated foreign tourists can visit five popular destinations without quarantines starting this month.

North Korea
North Korea shut its borders to international trade and visitors in January 2020, before the coronavirus was on the radar of much of the rest of the world. It still insists it has found no COVID-19 infections, although experts widely question that assertion.

Though its trade with China recently picked up, North Korea’s broader lockdown may last a while. The country has refused multiple international offers of vaccines. Leader Kim Jong Un has repeatedly stressed the long-term nature of the pandemic. Last month, the U.N. special rapporteur on North Korean human rights said the country’s “extreme isolation could crystalize and become the new norm."

Hong Kong
Hong Kong, a densely packed territory of over 7 million people, has contained the virus in large part because of its entry quarantine, which is among the world’s strictest. Last month, Hong Kong announced the policy would get even stricter.

For most of the pandemic, arrivals had to undergo a 14-21-day quarantine. However, diplomats, business leaders, and others were able to get exemptions. Those exemptions will now end, as the territory aligns its policy more with mainland China.

Strict social distancing rules, including bans on most public gatherings, are also still enforced. About 60% of Hong Kongers are fully vaccinated.

China
Though much of the rest of Asia is reopening, that’s not the case in China, which still employs a “zero-COVID” strategy.

Nearly two years after the first COVID-19 case was detected in China, the country continues to lock down large areas in response to what many other countries would consider small outbreaks.

Though around three-quarters of the population have been fully vaccinated, Chinese officials insist their approach will not change until the vaccination rate goes higher.

Most foreign visitors remain banned.

Laos
Unlike many of its neighbors in Southeast Asia, Laos recently extended its lockdown measures, in an attempt to slow a growing outbreak.

In many parts of the country, meetings and gatherings of any kind remain prohibited. Travel between provinces is also forbidden in many areas.

Only about 40% of the population has been fully vaccinated.

Papua New Guinea
Though it is unnoticed by much of the rest of the world, this island nation of 9 million is suffering its worst COVID-19 outbreak yet.

Reports suggest many hospitals and morgues are filling up, threatening to overwhelm an already fragile healthcare system.

Although only less than 400 COVID-19 deaths have been reported, there are concerns the figure could be much higher, due to a lack of COVID-19 testing.

Only about 1% of the country has been vaccinated, due in large part to vaccine skepticism, logistical challenges, and supply issues, experts suggest.

Can China Maintain Its Zero-COVID Policy? [Foreign Policy, 3 Nov 2021]

By James Palmer

Despite extremely low case numbers, lockdowns are becoming increasingly disruptive.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s China Brief.


The highlights this week: China’s pandemic restrictions are getting more disruptive, a tennis player makes the first #MeToo accusations against a high-ranking government official, and the U.S. Department of Defense issues a key report on the Chinese military.

If you would like to receive China Brief in your inbox every Wednesday, please sign up here.

How Long Can China’s Lockdowns Last?
The entire Shanghai Disney Resort shut down last Sunday after a single weekend visitor tested positive for COVID-19, with 34,000 people unable to leave until they were tested and isolated.

Teams in protective suits sprayed down rides and administered tests under the lights of Shanghai Disneyland’s castle—a microcosm of the lockdowns occurring across China as the country struggles to manage a small but persistent delta variant outbreak.

So far, there are just around 500 delta cases in China, and strict measures are generally still considered necessary to maintain the country’s largely successful policy of pursuing zero COVID-19 cases. Anticipating more controls following a possible spike in winter cases, the government has asked the public to make sure their homes are stocked with supplies. But pandemic fatigue is also setting in, which could lead to weakening compliance with the rules.

Tourist locations are particularly likely to see restrictions because of the high volume of visitors, but the government has also instituted a ring of control around Beijing, and flights have been canceled. Even in a country with a very high vaccination rate, a serious COVID-19 outbreak in the capital would be a political disaster. A major political meeting, the Chinese Communist Party’s Sixth Plenum, takes place next week. Shijiazhuang, a major rail gateway to Beijing, is under emergency status, with entry and exit controlled.

Meanwhile, Beijing’s protocols are in overdrive, with quarantine often mandated for even remote contacts of positive COVID-19 cases. For example, a visit to a restaurant by someone who later tests positive can mean not only quarantine for the other diners and staff but also for anyone who was there in subsequent days. False positives further complicate matters: Although the diagnostic tests are reliable, China is administering them on a vast scale that inevitably produces many false positives, as actual cases are very rare.

China’s COVID-19 control systems are more localized than one might expect, which creates friction. Although top officials set priorities and norms, cities have instituted their own separate rules, use different versions of the health apps that display their testing and vaccination status, and often have problems sharing individual data with one other. Someone traveling or even moving between cities may experience difficulties transferring their information that take days or weeks to fix.

The restrictions are slowing down China’s ports, but they are also contributing to domestic supply chain problems. The movement of goods is dependent on the now-restrained movement of truck drivers, who have been a public health focus due to their role in spreading epidemics in the past. It doesn’t help that they have little lobbying power: 90 percent of trucks are individually owned, and the pandemic hit the industry hard. Low fuel prices last year provided some compensation, but diesel fuel is now being rationed amid shortages.

These bureaucratic hiccups are not new, but the pandemic regime has made them more immediate and more frustrating, such as for someone banned from public spaces because they lack the correct health code. It’s even trickier for foreigners, as accounts from longtime residents suggest. Passports are supposed to substitute for ID cards and other local paperwork in such cases, but they’ve never slotted into Chinese bureaucracy easily.

In the long term, the pandemic restrictions contribute to the general strengthening of the Chinese state. China was uniquely set up to handle the coronavirus—after its initial cover-ups let it spread in the first place. The machinery of surveillance put in place over decades for political control, from cameras to requiring ID to buy train tickets and SIM cards, was easily adapted for pandemic control.

That pandemic control in turn has emboldened the machinery of political repression and normalized controls on movement. Now justified in using that tool set, officials will employ it toward worse ends than eliminating COVID-19.

What We’re Following
#MeToo case hits former official. In a Weibo post that remained up for only a few minutes, Peng Shuai, a 35-year-old tennis star, accused former Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, 75, of sexual assault. Censors deleted the post. Peng said that she began a sexual relationship with Zhang 10 years ago, when he was the party chief of Tianjin, and that he then abandoned her in 2013 when he became vice premier, a post he held until 2018. Peng said he sexually assaulted her three years ago. “I never consented that afternoon, but cried all the time,” she wrote.

China’s #MeToo movement has grown in recent years, despite the government’s efforts to suppress it and the failure of key legal cases. But Peng’s accusation is the first made publicly against a high-ranking official. The news has spread rapidly on the Chinese internet, even as numerous terms that could hint at the names involved are now blocked.

Although Zhang is unlikely to face legal consequences, the post may become fodder for his political enemies: Even retired officials are often caught up in power struggles. It’s not clear where Peng currently is. Her post, which mentions arranging to meet with Zhang on Nov. 2, suggests that she is in Beijing, but there are rumors on Chinese diaspora social media that she is in Los Angeles. If she is in China, she is probably now detained.

Rumors about movie and sports stars entering into extramarital relationships with high-ranking officials in exchange for financial support and proximity to power are common. The Central Academy of Drama and other arts schools in Beijing are particularly infamous as hunting grounds for the rich and powerful. Although many of these relationships are consensual, some constitute sexual predation—unsurprising in a patriarchal system with little accountability.

U.S. issues China military report. The U.S. Department of Defense issued a key report on the Chinese military on Wednesday, with a particular focus on the ambitious expansion of China’s nuclear stockpile. The United States says China is planning to quadruple the size of its current arsenal by 2030, and satellite imagery shows new silos under construction. That makes the world a more dangerous place, especially given that Beijing has little appetite for disarmament talks.

Yet without dismissing Chinese military buildup—which threatens Taiwan and other neighbors—it’s worth remembering that even outside estimates of China’s military budget put it at one-third of the U.S. budget. Every part of the U.S. military is already putting forward Chinese growth as the excuse for why it should get more money. That risks obscuring the actual threat.

Taiwan rumors. The Chinese government is attempting to quash rumors that an invasion of Taiwan is imminent, sparked by the recent requests to the public to stockpile food and by increased foreign media attention to threats against Taiwan. But the disturbing part of the rumors is the volume of posts that take pleasure in the thought of seizing Taiwanese wealth or homes. Once seen as lost comrades, Taiwanese are increasingly portrayed as a separatist minority who must be crushed, much like Hong Kongers.

Tech and Business
Winter is coming. What looks to be a particularly bleak winter marked by early cold snaps has prompted local governments to turn on heating systems relatively early. Most heating in China is centralized and only turned on after an official date—usually around Nov. 15—and turned off on March 15. That often leaves residents shivering in October and early November, turning to small electric heaters or coal stoves. This year, to keep emissions down, the government has also confiscated private coal supplies.

But there is also a national divide in who gets heating at all. Only provinces north of a line that splits the middle of the country, running along the Huai River and the Qin Mountains, have mandated central heating. Although a few high-end residences have it in the south, most others resort to blankets and hot water bottles. That means that some of China’s worst winter disasters have occurred in its normally warm regions, similar to the cold snap that devastated Texas in February.

Yahoo exits China. Yahoo has become the second technology company to exit China in as many months, following on the heels of LinkedIn. Yahoo was once a popular alternative to Google in China, but that changed as the Great Firewall tightened. The company’s email service was shut down years ago, and it had gotten into trouble for handing over confidential information to the Chinese government in 2005 that resulted in the arrest of reporters.
There are not that many Western tech firms left in China. The real test will be if Bloomberg, which has made considerable concessions to the authorities to keep its terminal business operational, pulls out.

Manufacturing falls again. Chinese manufacturing output has contracted for a second consecutive month as the sector continues to struggle with energy shortages and supply chain problems. The energy problems may be partially alleviated as the government forces more coal power online, but electricity remains expensive, and petrol costs are also rising. However, smaller companies seem to be coping somewhat better, according to data from Caixin.

New Coronavirus News from 6 Nov 2021

COVID: German health chiefs call for stricter curbs [DW (English), 6 Nov 2021]

By Nik Martin

The fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic has sparked fresh calls for tougher measures for unvaccinated people to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed this winter. Germany this week saw a record daily caseload.

The German Medical Association on Saturday called for stricter curbs to stem the spread of COVID-19 this winter.

The organization's president Klaus Reinhardt said only those vaccinated or recovered from the coronavirus should be allowed to visit restaurants, bars and cinemas — the so-called "2G" rule.

He said unvaccinated people should, if necessary, be temporarily subject to lockdown measures as the country faces a fourth wave of the pandemic.

"When it comes to securing inpatient care, I think these measures are justified. After all, it is mainly unvaccinated people who have to be treated for severe COVID infections in hospitals," Reinhardt added.

Lockdown for unvaccinated?
Karl Lauterbach, the center-left Social Democrats' (SPD) health spokesman, backed up the call for unvaccinated people to face stiffer curbs.

He said they should be prevented from anything that isn't part of their daily needs, like grocery shopping or visiting drug stores.

Fresh concerns have been voiced about the availability of intensive care beds for seriously ill COVID patients in the same week that Germany's virus caseload hit a record daily high.
Uwe Janssens from DIVI, the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, told public television channel Tagesschau24 that there were only 20 ICU beds free in the city of Munich.

Nationwide, there are currently almost 2,300 COVID patients in intensive care wards.
Janssens warned that just under half of patients in ICU are under 60 years of age and most are unvaccinated.

Unvaccinated key workers face new pressure
Meanwhile, the doctors' union, Marburger Bund, has spoken out in favor of job-related vaccination requirements.

At its general meeting, delegates said they think medical staff, those that work in elderly and nursing homes, schools and day care centers should be obligated to get vaccinated.

Without the rule, health experts think that many vulnerable groups will be put at higher risk of contracting COVID.

On Friday, Health Minister Jens Spahn announced that booster vaccine shots will be offered to all, and not just to those over 60.

"Boosters after six months should become the rule, rather than the exception," he said, but that priority should go to the elderly and care workers.

Saxony takes lead in new curbs
On Monday, Saxony will become the first German state to implement the so-called 2G rule for entry restaurants, clubs or leisure and cultural facilities.

A similar rule will come into force in Austria from Monday.

Most of Germany is currently operating under the "3G" rule, which also includes those who test negative for COVID, but to varying degrees of rigidity.

Opinion: Germany caught in COVID 'Groundhog Day' [DW (English), 6 Nov 2021]

By Sabine Kinkartz

In the classic film, a man trapped in a time loop is condemned to relive the same awful day. DW's Sabine Kinkartz knows how he feels as Germany enters its second pandemic autumn.

Setting off for Turkey on vacation from Cologne-Bonn Airport recently, we were asked by an airline employee whether we were vaccinated. We answered yes, and proceeded to present our mobile phones to prove it by showing our certificates before she stopped us, saying simply: "No need, I believe you."

That isn't good — an it's not a one-off. Across Germany, there seems to be a lax understanding of the rules in place to make everybody safer during this pandemic.
Far too often, restaurants and bars fail to check whether patrons are vaccinated. The same is true at events. And when they do check, hardly anyone bothers to ask for IDs to make sure the QR codes aren't fake.

Many people no longer keep a safe distance in the subway, on buses, on escalators and countless other places. Some wear a face mask, but then don't cover their nose or mouth. "I'm vaccinated," they say, while still others refuse to acknowledge the risk or simply accept it.

Where are the politicians?
Where were lawmakers in the past few weeks? Those who should have been drawing up guidelines and road maps, and ensuring that rules and regulations were implemented?

Germany in autumn 2021 is a country that has drifted into the fourth coronavirus wave without a plan, a country in which COVID cases are rising exponentially and are already higher than this time last year. It's a country where hospitals are raising the alarm, and where people in long-term care homes are falling ill and dying in droves.

The situation is reminiscent of the 1993 film Groundhog Day, in which a man played by Bill Murray wakes up and has to relive the same day over and over again because he fails to learn from his mistakes. Unfortunately, in Germany, the current situation isn't fictional at all.

It was foolish to believe that the vaccine would fix everything. It was clear early on from the example set by Israel that it's not enough to only have two-thirds of the population vaccinated.

That message was heard in Germany but did not spur any action, partly because COVID-19 was not on the political agenda during the recent election campaign.

Who is in charge?
The Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) were voted out on September 26. Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Cabinet are currently in office on a caretaker basis only, and the parties of the next probable coalition are busy negotiating. Merkel has raised the alarm in view of the drastic rise in cases, but does anyone still listen to her?

For days, there has been an inconclusive debate about whether the chancellor should meet with the leaders of the states for a coronavirus summit. After a two-day meeting with the state health ministers late last week, Health Minister Jens Spahn did say that Germans must make more of an effort to follow the COVID rules and said there had to be more monitoring. He has also begun promoting booster shots, but all this comes far too late. Elderly people and those with underlying health issues should have started receiving booster shots in July. Instead, vaccine centers shut down in September.

Not that long ago, Spahn gave the impression that he did not expect the situation to worsen. He even set the ball rolling so that the "epidemic situation of national scope," a legal construct that gives the federal state more powers on pandemic-related policy, would elapse at the end of November.

That means that, from December onward, the 16 German states will make their own decisions on what to do about the pandemic. The country faces the same chaos as in autumn 2020. Nothing has been learned!

The disparities are already obvious. While in Saxony only vaccinated people and those who can prove that they have recovered from COVID-19 can go everywhere, in North Rhine-Westphalia, schoolchildren no longer have to wear masks.

Politicians are reluctant to impose any fresh restrictions on those who are vaccinated, because they promised that this would not happen. But they don't dare introduce compulsory inoculation — not even in care homes. At least visitors and those who work in these centers can now once again be tested for free. Otherwise, people are being forced to pay for tests from their own pockets, which means many are no longer getting tested at all.

Should we just shut our eyes and hope for the best? Spahn has said we should expect difficult weeks ahead, and that's quite likely. However, another — possibly more devastating — COVID-19 winter could have been prevented.

Pandemic travel news: Russia and China fight record Covid outbreaks [CNN, 6 Nov 2021]

By Maureen O'Hare

(CNN) — Russia and China are fighting record Covid outbreaks, US domestic air travel is set to go from bad to worse, but there's good news out of Asia-Pacific.

Here are some things we learned in pandemic travel this week.

1. Russia has moved to the CDC's highest-risk category
Covid cases in the world's largest country by area have hit a record high, with close to 274,000 new cases reported in Russia in the past week and only 34% of the population fully vaccinated.

The rise means that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week added Russia to its list of "very high" risk travel destinations, the criteria for which is having had more than 500 cases per 100,000 residents in the past 28 days.

There are now nearly 80 countries on the CDC's "no-go" Level 4 list, including the UK, Greece, Switzerland and Thailand.

2. China is doubling down on its zero-Covid strategy
All across Asia Pacific, from Australia to South Korea, countries are easing restrictions and reopening borders as they move away from zero-Covid strategies -- but China is holding out.

The country is currently working to contain its most widespread Covid outbreak since Wuhan, although recent case numbers are still only in the hundreds. A single Covid case at Shanghai Disneyland at Halloween sent the whole park and adjacent Disneytown shopping district into lockdown.

Despite fully vaccinating more than 75% of its population, China is sticking to its policy of closed borders, lengthy quarantines for international arrivals and localized lockdowns.

3. Flying has gotten really bad. Here's why
Thousands of canceled flights across the United States. Violent outbursts from passengers and even between crew. Operational meltdowns were behind the recent mass cancellations at American Airlines and Southwest which left tens of thousands of passengers stranded, but problems in US domestic travel run deeper than that -- and may well get worse.

Staffing shortages mean flight crews are overworked and vaccine mandates could lead to even more shortages. Lower availability of flights, meanwhile, means higher ticket prices for those flights. Planes are packed, there's division over mask rules, and tensions are rising.

Meanwhile, the US will reopen to fully vaccinated foreign visitors on November 8. "It's going to be a bit sloppy at first, I can assure you," Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said at a late October travel industry conference. "There will be lines, unfortunately."

4. The ultra long-haul dream hasn't gone away
Ultra long-haul flights are classed as any that are scheduled to last more than 16 hours -- and they've actually been around since the 1930s.

While the aviation industry is currently focused on recovery rather than bum-numbing record-breaking, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has told CNN's Richard Quest that in 2022 his airline hopes to revisit development of Project Sunrise -- a plan to operate the world's longest nonstop flights, which would allow travelers to fly between London or New York to the eastern Australia cities of Sydney and Melbourne. The aim is to then launch in the following two to three years.

The world's longest scheduled passenger flight currently in service is Singapore Airlines' Singapore-JFK flight, which covers 9,536.5 miles and takes 18 hours and 40 minutes on the Singapore-bound route.

5. Try warm-weather destinations, say travel experts
While the 2020 holiday season was a stay-at-home affair, this year moving around the world is safer and more accessible. However, we still need weigh up risks versus benefits during every step of vacation-planning.

CNN Travel asked industry experts and CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen about what you need to consider when making those destination decisions.

Your vaccination status is the most important factor when it comes to ease of travel, with many countries not letting the unjabbed enter. If you want to reduce your Covid risk but are still keen for a vacation abroad, consider warm-weather destinations where most of the activity is outdoors.

7. The 'world's best' cheese for 2021 was revealed
Even if you're not making plans to jet off anywhere for a while, you can still travel the world with your palate.

A soft goat's cheese from Spain won first place at the World Cheese Awards on November 3, having been chosen out of more than 4,000 entries from more than 40 countries.

The winning cheese, called Olavidia, is from an artisan cheesemaker using the commercial name Quesos y Besos (Cheeses and Kisses). The crown returned to Europe this year after the previous winner was -- for the first time ever -- an American cheese, Oregon's Rogue River Blue.

8. There were joyful reunions at Australian airports
Tens of thousands of loved ones and family members have been kept apart for more than 20 months due to Australia's strict border policy in response to Covid-19.

When the country's international borders finally reopened on November 1, there were hugs, tears and emotional reunions at Sydney and Melbourne airports.

So far, only the highly vaccinated states of New South Wales and Victoria have relaxed restrictions on international arrivals, but the Australian government says further border limits will be removed as other parts of the country meet their 80% vaccination targets.