Worst in US history: COVID-19 surpasses WWII and 9/11

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Written by George Taylor

407,316 Americans died in World War II. 282,405 Americans died so far because of COVID-19, with 2,492 reported just today. 2977 vanished on September 11, 2001, in the terror attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.

With numbers out of control in the United States more people will die every day of COVID-19 than they did on that awful September 11 day in New York City.

The number of coronavirus pandemic deaths in the US every day equals the number of passengers on 10 fully loaded widebody passenger planes.

Why is mask-wearing still an issue? Why do people still travel on Thanksgiving, and why are some tourism boards in the US still trying to get visitors to arrive? The economy?

“A personal hero in this pandemic is mayor Kirk Caldwell of Honolulu, Hawaii,” said Juergen Steinmetz, who is also the founder of World Tourism Network. The economy in the Aloha State has crashed against a brick wall, but Hawaii again had the lowest number of COVID–19 infection increases (2.49%). If this number is below 5% many regions would lift most COVID-19 restrictions. Hawaii also maintenance tough regulations in place to keep the State safe, and US visitors out.

Mayor Caldwell today asked a difficult question, why any visitor from the mainland US would want to get on a 5-hour flight to visit? Currently visitors from the US mainland can enter the State without quarantine and a negative COVID-19 test from approved labroatories. Due to the demand for the spread of the virus on the mainland, such tests are not always available. Anyone arriving in Hawaii without having a negative test still need to observe a 2 week mandatory quarantine. There is a discussion to bring the time frame of such a quarantine down to 10 days or even 1 week.

Hawaii recently established a travel bubble with Japan. Japanese visitors with a negative COVID-19 test can now come to the State and avoid quarantine. However, when returning home a 2-week quarantine is mandatory.

Such a travel bubble would be ideal for countries including South Korea, Australia, or New Zealand to follow, but according to Honolulu Mayor Caldwell these countries will not move forward. The reason: Hawaii is part of the United States.

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