eugyppius

1/ I don't know. I do know long term border closures are not something I want for many reasons - I grew up in South Africa in the 80s/90s with sanctions. It only punishes the poor, the rich just travel anyway. Lived in Oz too, and there is a lot of corruption around imports.

2/ an example: brother is a motorcyclist. Helmet needs Australia Std sticker to be legal. Helmet is significantly cheaper to import directly from Japan, pay import taxes etc. But can't use imported, identical helmet legally. Importation company is making a huge profit.

control the movement of people, as the nascent totalitarian system ramifies. Obviously "border closure" won't apply to the hordes of migrants storming the shores of the UK; it will be to prevent the legacy English from fleeing Airstrip One.

is there an anti-immigrant angle despite it all though? UK promises to resettle Hong Kong residents. does that irritate China? is that crazy?

Lots of weird flipovers. I don't really understand it. Eg Trudeau wouldn't stop flights form china in 2020, even when it was obvious they were a problem. Now he wants to keep the US border closed for another year.

There's far more COVID in the U.S. now than there ever was in China in 2020. U.S. has one Wuhan every week.