New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by actually_a_dog on Friday November 26, 2021 @05:03PM (#29354645)

I agree with about 95% of this, but, I don't think "travel bans got a bad name because you-know-who proposed them." I think they got a bad name because you-know-who proposed them previously, targeting countries with you-know-what religion, for a political reason. Had it been just "we're going to reduce air traffic into the country to slow the spread of the virus," I don't think that would have been terribly controversial.

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by ehsankia on Friday November 26, 2021 @06:07PM (#29355228)

It's also worth noting that a lot of the narrative makes it sound like people called him racist for the ban, but it was mostly his use of "Kung-flu" and "china virus" that people had an issue with, not the ban itself.

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by tomjen3 on Saturday November 27, 2021 @02:56AM (#29358431)

This was a missed opportunity. Have one group mask up for the China virus* and one for covid, with masks indicating which group you belonged to. Make it a competition to see who can wear the most masks.

* we have always named diseases from where they are found, and China/Wuhan virus would have been more catchy. However that hurt the pride of Xi and suddenly we all changed our minds.

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by freshpots on Friday November 26, 2021 @08:36PM (#29356318)

No, it was because the 'ban' still allowed thousands of people from China to arrive from China in spit of the so-called 'ban'.

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by blindmute on Friday November 26, 2021 @07:56PM (#29356015)

This is absolutely not true. Every public figure left of center in the country commented viciously about the racist, stupid travel ban.

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by ehsankia on Friday November 26, 2021 @08:26PM (#29356237)

Source please. Find me a prominent politician that specifically called the China travel ban itself racist or xenophobic.

If every politician did it, it must be easy to find a clip.

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by blindmute on Friday November 26, 2021 @08:51PM (#29356438)

Oh, I did not read the thread closely enough. The muslim country travel ban, yes, there are many examples. China, not that I know of.

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by ehsankia on Friday November 26, 2021 @11:45PM (#29357505)

For the other ban, the fact that he called it a "muslim ban" and the specific countries that were picked is what made it racist and ineffective. It's hard to claim it's for security when they didn't include UAE, KSA, Egypt or Lebanon where the 9/11 hijackers were from [0]. It also happened to exclude all muslim countries where Trump has business in.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_...

So yes, it had no other purpose than being racist. Just like Trump didn't really care to use the time bought by the Chinese travel ban to actually develop tests or ramp up PPE. It always was a show rooted in xenophobia.

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by readflaggedcomm on Saturday November 27, 2021 @12:48PM (#29361930)

Joe Biden called it "hysterical xenophobia and fear mongering [against] science." Pelosi was on the ground in San Fransisco's Chinatown with similar words. Maxine Waters too, though she had been talking that way since 2015, predicting every possible racist act.

The official record is better, though. This bill calls out travel discrimination based on national origin: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2214...

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by bradlys on Friday November 26, 2021 @05:11PM (#29354726)

Yeah, people forget the muslim ban happened before COVID.

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by rowathay on Friday November 26, 2021 @05:31PM (#29354917)

People also forget that it wasn’t a Muslim ban. The world’s largest Muslim country was not included in it.

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by msie on Friday November 26, 2021 @05:47PM (#29355052)

Well, those excluded countries included places where Trump had business interests and longtime allies of the US (Saudi Arabia). https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-trump-immigration-ba...

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by rajup on Friday November 26, 2021 @08:12PM (#29356139)

So it wasn't a Muslim ban then?

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by Aeolun on Friday November 26, 2021 @11:03PM (#29357293)

Just because it doesn’t target all muslim majority countries doesn’t mean it didn’t target solely muslim majority countries.

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by nsxwolf on Friday November 26, 2021 @05:26PM (#29354872)

Please just say "Trump" and "Muslims" and don't do the Voldemort / Macbeth thing.

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by readflaggedcomm on Friday November 26, 2021 @05:29PM (#29354895)

It failed to apply to populous or notorious Muslim countries like Indonesia or Pakistan, only to those which Obama had previously put on a list. It got a bad name for political reasons, not for the facts of the executive order.

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Re:New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529 by XorNot on Friday November 26, 2021 @06:38PM (#29355454)

The China travel ban wasn't opposed, it was ineffective because it was both late, and then they wasted all the useful time you could've gotten by not stopping indirect travel or travel from Europe where it was already spreading at the time.

By the time a European travel ban was created, it was basically pointless because spread within the US was at wildfire levels compared to any possible contribution from international travel (the question of the morality of forcing flight crews to expose themselves to a deadly novel virus is of course quite a different one).

The story of the Trump pandemic response is taking weak action months too late.

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