This is not a left vs. right issue this is something that should unify us as Americans, and as citizens of the world. There is a good alternative history book 1632 by Eric Flint that actually summarizes this issue really well. The premise of the book is that a town from 2000s West Virginia (Grantville, WV based on Mannington, WV) is sucked back in a time warp to the year 1632 in the middle of Germany alongside religious wars, plagues, and the inquisition and how they react. One thing the "Hard Liners" (Think small minded) say is that they should not be sharing their limited amount of medicine and resources on the refugees flocking into the one modern city in a war torn region because they aren't American. Where as the more ideological (think liberal) characters who are in the government believe in science and think rationally. One thing they talk about is this and I'll try to paraphrase it.
"The plague doesn't come up to you Jimmy and say "I can't go in here this is a good 'murican" and go somewhere else."
My point is the virus doesn't care if you are an American, a Russian, a German, a Nigerian, a Mexican, or a Korean if you are in its path you are going to get the virus. In the America I grew up in we may have had different opinions on things but we always cared about our neighbor, and our world. That is gone now I'm afraid but I'm hopeful it will return. I don't wear a mask to protect me, I wear it to protect the millions of immunocompromised people living in this world. I happen to live with two people who I love and care about who are in that category. I wear it to protect them. America used to be a country that was concerned about others, we fought wars to free other countries from tyrannical regimes, and helped with elections across the world. Somewhere in the last few years we have shifted to being a self centered population that doesn't care about the common good of the common man or the world as a whole.
I understand that people have the freedom to chose to do with their body what they want even if the rest of us disagree with it in regards to the vaccine, or wearing a mask. But I want those people to remember this. Where your freedom starts, someone else's freedom ends. Right now my grandmother who survived World War II in Berlin, fought in the German resistance can't leave home because of the virus. I want you to remember that someone who fought so that others could be free, can't be free because of your freedom to not wear a mask, or not getting a vaccine. We are all in this together regardless of our politics. So lets take care of this. We have a vaccine in the works (two promising ones in the USA from what I've read), and several other countries are close or have them (Russia). And honestly we shouldn't be working on this as a nation state but as the entire world. After all the only thing that doesn't discriminate is the virus.
It may be a living creature because technically cells are a living creature but it's not an intelligent one. It is not capable of thoughts, opinions, or the ability to move on it's own. And in my opinion science denial is one of the biggest viruses around and it's just as large of a pandemic as Covid-19. It just took Covid-19 to bring it to the forefront of peoples minds.
As far as the original post. I see that leisure travel will recover at a faster rate than business travel as teleworking, and zoom conferences have become common place. We are used to that now so I don't see where that's going to truly recover, and when it does it will be at a far lower rate. So the national network trains will do better than the corridors.
Be safe everybody, wear a mask (properly please), get vaccinated when it comes out, and be kind to your fellow man. We will get thru this.
