POLITICO NIGHTLY: Slower than Suez: Global travel during Covid

 

BY RYAN HEATH With help from Joanne Kenen HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD IN 68 HOURS — That little paper card the CDC issues when you get your Covid vaccination: It probably isn’t going to help you cross borders in 2021. That’s my takeaway from a 68-hour journey I took this week from New York to Sydney. As I traveled via Detroit, Seoul and Singapore, authorities cared only about seeing my negative test results. They had no interest in my vaccination card, and they were all unimpressed by any test result that was missing stamps and logos and signatures. I nearly fell at the first hurdle: Singapore demands a test taken within 72 hours of arrival. Because I was flying the long way, and on a Monday morning (not many tests available on Sunday!), my only sure bet was to join a concierge medical service that promised quick test processing: $199 later I am now a One Medical member, and took a test a couple of hours before my first flight. When I checked in at Newark, Delta insisted to see the test result: the one I had planned to show only in South Korea ahead of my actual flight to Singapore. By sheer luck, my results arrived six minutes before check-in closed. Why the complicated, five-city journey? Australia’s severe arrival caps. No more than 6,000 people per week are allowed into the country, and no more than 30 per plane. Airlines fill their quota selling only first-class and business-class tickets. But at $11,000 one way (plus $2,200 for a mandatory 14-night, military-guarded hotel quarantine on arrival), I decided to hack the system instead. That meant flying economy to Singapore on three separate flights, and swapping to business for the final 8-hour flight, saving me $6,400. Along the way I was served by flight attendants in full medical scrubs and clear plastic glasses designed for industrial protection. I was thumb printed six times, temperature checked and escorted nearly everywhere. That was the easy bit. My Singapore stop wasn’t a mere plane swap. With a 34-hour gap between flights, and no possibility of staying in the airport under Covid rules, I turned to Connect@Changi: the world’s first “business exchange quarantine facility.” This prefab hotel has been installed inside a massive hall at Singapore Expo Center. With rooms starting at $400 a night, guests are taken from the airport under escort — after their mandatory Covid test on arrival. You aren’t allowed outside, in fact there is no natural light at all. But you are allowed to roam the facility (your movements are tracked) to use its private gym pods — essentially shipping containers with exercise bikes and treadmills — and take prison-style business meetings with locals: Your guest is fully separated from you via a glass wall. See the Orwellian Chic vibe. But first I had to get through Singapore’s border. My problem: None of the border officials had ever heard of Connect@Changi. At one point nine officials crowded in front of me trying to figure what to do. I later learned that Connect@Changi is so new, I had booked the sixth-ever meeting at the facility. I passed 32 hours without seeing a single other guest, though I did see used food trays outside two rooms. I finally boarded my flight to Australia Thursday morning. I’m typing this from the 21st floor of a five-star hotel in Sydney. But is it five-star with no room cleaning or rooftop pool? I can’t open my room door for 14 days except to receive a food tray. It took an hour and 45 minutes to receive a breakfast roll I ordered off the snack menu. But there is a huge bathtub. The two biggest issues I see with these good-faith efforts to keep local populations safe: They aren’t standardized, so it’s annoying to repeatedly share biometrics, documents and stories. And labor-intensive escorting simply can’t scale: Changi airport processed 68 million passengers in 2019. There are only 5.8 million people in Singapore, and they can’t all work as visitor escorts. Mass tourism is going to be hell, chaos or both when it returns. And the process of getting there might include a lot of extra expense for travelers. At the Sydney airport I texted my brother, who lives in the city’s western suburbs, to complain about being forced to wait on a bus (no social distancing) for a police escort to arrive, to guide us to our quarantine hotel. He didn’t care — there’s huge public support for these extreme measures. He texted back, “Imagine if America had done this instead.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news and tips at rheath@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @politicoryan and @renurayasam.   SUBSCRIBE TO "THE RECAST" TO JOIN AN IMPORTANT CONVERSATION : Power dynamics are shifting in Washington and across the country, and more people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that all politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. "The Recast" is a new twice-weekly newsletter that breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics, policy, and power in America. Get fresh insights, scoops, and dispatches on this crucial intersection from across the country, and hear from new voices that challenge business as usual. Don't miss out on this new newsletter, SUBSCRIBE NOW . Thank you to our sponsor, Intel.     AROUND THE WORLD AIRLINE FORTUNES DEPEND ON YOUR SIDE OF THE ATLANTIC — After a year of relentless gloom for the aviation industry, there’s some light at the end of the tunnel for the sector — unfortunately for European airlines, it’s in the U.S., not the EU, Mari Eccles writes. Stocks in U.S. airlines are rising as vaccinated Americans jet off on vacation. Last week, Moody’s credit rating agency announced it was upgrading the outlook for U.S. airports from negative to stable as passengers begin flying again and Covid relief cash starts to flow. Meanwhile, Europe’s sector remains in a slump. The industry blames a patchwork of travel restrictions, a lack of bailout cash and a plodding vaccine rollout. “We probably have a three months time lag compared to the U.S. on that one — at least,” said Olivier Jankovec, director general of airport lobby ACI Europe. American trips in February were at the highest rate since mid-March 2020, according to the Airlines Reporting Corporation. FIRST IN NIGHTLY By the end of March last year, New York City had been transformed from a teeming metropolis with a booming economy, to a city gripped by pandemic and in economic free fall. | Sarah Blesener 365 DAYS OF COVID NYC — On March 22, 2020, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s order shuttering all non-essential businesses and encouraging New York residents to avoid leaving their homes took effect after a month of misleading and progressively dire warnings from city and state leaders. Hospitals were overrun, bodies piled up in makeshift morgues and residents abandoned the city in droves. One year later, more than 30,000 New Yorkers have died, close to 800,000 have been infected and much of the city’s economy remains in peril. Restaurants and theaters are on the brink of insolvency. Hotels are largely empty of the tourists that poured money into the city’s economy. Hospital and health care workers are still reeling from the onslaught of Covid victims. Most students are still not in classrooms. And the city’s commercial real estate and retail sectors are facing foundational changes. New Yorkers have begun to crawl out of the darkness of the past year, but a POLITICO review of the city shows that much of New York is still waiting to recover and bracing for what could be permanent changes to the biggest city in America. WHAT'D I MISS? — Pelosi taps D.C. National Guard chief as top House security official: Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped the head of Washington, D.C.’s National Guard, Maj. Gen. William Walker , as the House’s new top security official. Walker, a 39-year military veteran, will become the House’s permanent sergeant-at-arms, Pelosi announced today. — Biden presses Congress to pass voting reform in wake of Georgia voting restrictions: “This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country is a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience,” Biden said in a statement this afternoon. “This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end. We have a moral and Constitutional obligation to act.” — U.S. Navy offers to help clear cargo ship from Suez Canal: The Navy is prepared to help Egyptian officials clear the canal and has offered assistance, Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, said in a statement. — WH nixed Haaland party over Covid concerns: The White House recently ordered that a 50-person, Southwest-themed indoor party the Interior Department was planning to celebrate Secretary Deb Haaland’s confirmation be canceled after senior administration officials raised concerns that it could become a superspreader event. PUNCHLINES NORMALCY, FOR BETTER AND WORSE — Brooke Minters leads another Weekend Wrap with a roundup of the week’s political satire and cartoons, including spring breakers causing trouble in Miami and the continued vaccination push. ASK THE AUDIENCE Nightly asked you: Have you gotten vaccinated? Or are you struggling to sign up on your state’s website? Are you still ineligible? Tell us your vaccine story. Your select, lightly edited responses are below: “I am a volunteer at a mass vaccination site in Charlotte, N.C. At the event, at Bank of America Stadium, they had a few left over and asked volunteers if they wanted to get the shot at the end of our shift. Yes, please!!! Next shot is scheduled for the end of the month.” — Karen Van Dyne, real estate broker, Charlotte, N.C. “As someone 65+ (I’m 66), I tried to get an appointment in January, on the Los Angeles County website, but there were no appointments available. I tried again at the beginning of February and was finally able to get an appointment at a local Rite-Aid pharmacy near me. I got my first Moderna shot on Feb. 17, and my second shot on March 17. Both doses were the same, and I didn’t have side effects. I’m grateful and happy to be fully vaccinated but, of course, still wear a mask in public.” — Gail Suber, self-employed, Santa Monica, Calif. “My wife stayed up and signed me up right after midnight for the vaccine, which was being administered in a distant city, which we drove to twice to get protection for me.” — Earl L. Gingerich, retired, Iowa City, Iowa “I’m writing this from Levi Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers, where I just got my second shot. As I wait the mandatory 30 minutes (I had an allergic reaction to an injectable medication 35 years ago), I’m reflecting on how well run this rollout has been in Silicon Valley. This is my second time at Levi Stadium in three weeks and it is easily the biggest and best demonstration of the public-private partnership government officials have lauded for the last two decades. I cannot speak for everywhere, but the vaccination effort in this corner of the Bay Area justifies faith in government and our ability to collectively do good. Now all we need are more shots.” — Phil Stupak, lecturer, Saratoga, Calif. “I was vaccinated with J&J on March 12. I heard rumors that they had plenty of vaccine and not enough takers at a federal vaccination site, so I stopped by on one of the rare days when I left my house. I was in and out in 25 minutes. They didn’t seem to care that I didn’t meet the age guidelines set by our governor.” — Lisa King, senior vice president, Jacksonville, Fla. “Finally got my first dose. But I was delayed by six weeks when Virginia changed the rules retroactively. My Jan. 29 Virginia Hospital Center appointment was cancelled, and I then had to register later than I would have otherwise with Fairfax County. Despite being over 75 and otherwise at risk, I was put ‘at the back of the line’ and no one seemed to be willing or able to deal with the problem. Despite attending several town halls and raising this problem, and communicating directly with Fairfax County officials, no resolution took place.” — Katherine Kersten Wallman, former chief statistician of the United States, McLean, Va. NIGHTLY NUMBER 20 million The number of delivered single-shot Covid vaccine doses that Johnson & Johnson aims to deliver by the end of March. J&J is on track to meet its goal after facing scrutiny for a slow ramp-up of production, the Biden administration said. PARTING WORDS THE ELEVENTH PLAGUE — Health care editor at large Joanne Kenen emails Nightly: I keep a box of plagues in my attic. This year, I might leave it there. Over the years, my kids and I had a great time collecting Passover plagues to enliven our Seder. Plastic frogs (jumping and non-jumping varieties). Rubber lice. A wind-up cow that ambles across the tablecloth before falling onto its back (Bam! Pestilence!). D.C.-area parents reading this might have guessed that many of our most sublime acquisitions, including a hideous foot-long locust, came from the late lamented Bruce’s Variety store on Arlington Road in Bethesda. We skipped the plague box last year. Passover was three subdued people, instead of the rambunctious 18 or so we normally squeeze in after big arguments about rolling up carpets and rearranging furniture. We talked seriously over the meal that night about whether the coronavirus was a “plague.” At the time, we were less than two months into the pandemic. I held my tongue. I knew we were in for months more trouble (though I didn’t expect it to be this bad, this long). I knew my family didn’t want to hear that as we tried to muster some celebratory spirit. It’s been a hard year. Not as hard for us as for some, but we have all endured. But yes, this has been a plague, of bodies and hearts and spirits. I see hope now — and I grasp at it. But I also see dangers — it’s part of my job. One in four Americans have received one vaccine so far — a big number but not big enough. It’s like we’ve taken our first steps into the Red Sea, but those walls of water could still crash down. Sometimes I do think about lugging the plague box down from the attic. I can show them to my youngest niece, on Zoom, and we’d laugh. But maybe I’ll leave them boxed up in the attic, until next year, when, I hope, we’ve made it safely to the other side.   TUNE IN TO GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS: Our Global Translations podcast, presented by Citi, examines the long-term costs of the short-term thinking that drives many political and business decisions. The world has long been beset by big problems that defy political boundaries, and these issues have exploded over the past year amid a global pandemic. This podcast helps to identify and understand the impediments to smart policymaking. Subscribe and start listening today.     Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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