China has travel and other restrictions to fight its latest delta COVID-19 outbreak. The outbreak is in its fifth week and involving more than a dozen cities.
China closed the world’s third-busiest port after a single worker tested positive for COVID-19. The Meidong Terminal processes 25% of the cargo that passes through the Ningbo-Zhoushan port.
There was a backlog of 40 container ships were anchored off the coast of Ningbo as of Thursday. Shipping operator CMA CGM said it is rerouting some of its ships to Shanghai, which is about 130 miles north of Ningbo, but Shanghai is already congested.
Freight costs from China to the U.S. rose to a record $20,000 per 40-foot box last month—a 500% increase on the cost in the same month last year. This means anything that is shipped in the container has a portion of the increased shipping cost.
China has reported 878 COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks—more than double the total recorded in July. Some 40 cities have reported clusters of the more contagious Delta variant, prompting new lockdowns and citywide COVID-19 testing campaigns.
Typhoons and flooding have also depressed container handling 10% across East China ports.
These problems impact the global supply chain. China’s factories supply many products and components needed for the world economy.
South Korea and Japan are also getting more COVID cases. The levels are low relative to the US, Mexico and Europe but they are triggering stronger restrictions.
Congestion and Delays at US Ports and With US Trucking
Mid-August is the early days of peak shipping season. There is nearly record number container ships anchored off California.
Port congestion is also building along the East Coast. There are double-digit container ships off of Georgia and growing numbers offshore of the Port of New York and New Jersey.
Last week there were 125 ships of all types (including tankers and cruise ships) either at berth or anchor in Los Angeles/Long Beach.
There are also labor supply issues for container handling in ports and for trucking.
SOURCES- Reutres, Fortune, Stripes
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
Nooo that's imperfect! I require perfection! Lol
But yeah I agree. I don't know that we can sustain both twenty billion humans AND have sustainable green spaces on Earth. It stands to reason that the population should be kept to some minimum on any planet we're on.
I think you're right about preventative medicine. It'll probably eventually good enough stop something before it gets bad, no matter the habitat. That's me talking without knowing enough about medicine, but looking at the current advances, seems like the direction things could go.
True but there is enough diversity on Earth to prevent full-on collapse. If you have 1000 people in a cylinder and a covid situation arises, it would spread so fast as to overwhelm all resources.
Instead of 20 separate cylinders being at 50% you'd have 10 cylinders completely dead and 10 locked down very tight, possibly forever.
I'm not sure 5000 part supply chains ever were "sustainable". China has exposed the flaw in the system, where it only works to the detriment of the USA and other countries importing Chinese garbage.
There's a high cost for cheap.
The claim is not that Space Communities will be disease free perfect, but that they may soon be no worse than Earth. I often am required to provide the *perfect* libertarian solution to a situation or I am ignored, while the more common socialist solutions are debated on and on. I propose that mRNA machines will be good enuf to quickly protect an individual habitat from a new virus, and not become separate breeding grounds. Divide and conquer! Of course, limiting the total number of humans always would help, but then the overall survival of species goes down. This needs to be for a given total number of humans for valid comparison. All on Earth or in groups without forced but easy separations?
"an orbiting iron lung" one of thousands, each separate.
I'm with you guys on settling space and creating more baskets. But– and I hate to be the one to point this up (seriously)– if one group of humans doesn't like another group of humans, they WILL find a way to get great pox blankets to another group of humans. Even between different baskets.
I guess my point is that debating disease in space settlements isn't much use. We're biological organisms and, no matter how sterile our environment, until we figure out how to defend against all sicknesses, it's going to be a thing.
Now, I might be wrong. I'd rather be wrong. We might very never get sick in space. But, I think that would be more due to safety precautions in the beginning, rather than eradication of illness (which could most certainly happen later).
It's a good thing automation is expected to move a lot of manufacturing back to where the product is used.
It does more to encourage competitors, surely? And to encourage customers to diversify their suppliers.
We are currently with all our eggs in one orbiting basket.
The attraction of moving into space (well, one of many attractions) is to increase the number of baskets.
Alternative explanation: They figured that where they could find one, there were a lot more they hadn't detected.
Just like New Zealand: Yesterday they detected 1 case, locked down the whole country. Today another 6 cases turned up because they have locked everyone down and started mass testing.
Well, at least west coast ship backlog will ease a bit since the pressure is off from china (Long Beach particularly), but logistics people seem to be saying there is an overall shipping delay slump that will stretch out through christmas.
possible. long-tail goes mainstream.
3d part printing tech may go a long way in keeping vertical integration within countries or immediate blocs.
I read the article too.
You trust China’s numbers that much?
all the eggs in one orbiting tin-can theorem seems less compelling…
so being in an orbiting iron lung should fill us with confidence on upcoming infections, spreads, and other air-transmissables — O'Neill considered post-1950s epidemics?…
The word for the next Decade is Colocation.
5000 part supply chains are no longer sustainable.
He read the article?
Western Hemisphere dwellers found this out the hard way, but provided "great pox" in return. There seems to be a similar situation with starving populations. At first, more food means more survive and population grows, not solving the problem. But then, with sufficient prosperity, the birthrate drops expecting more survival, and getting over that hump means success in stable, sustainable growth. With virus, we need to eliminate the virus, not have it hang around for later. Get over that hump! I suspect mRNA will be so good, and fast, and easily digitally shared, that even outbreaks can be contained without killing too many. But, if the virus hangs around, fighting it may just make it stronger. Also, the virus is just one of the problems with shipping in a gravity well. Here, it triggers other things and combines with weather for more difficulties.
What makes you think just one worker tested positive?
Or a planned stoppage to damage a competitor?
Thinking about the effects of space settlements on such pandemic scenarios, I realize they would indeed have much more control about people movements.
There are no significant illegal border crossings nor unplanned traveling in O'Neill space settlements. So they could stop any pandemic propagation by tightening the admission controls, or suspending any travels altogether. Like New Zealand squared.
This could produce some other new situations: human populations that remain with naive immune systems to some pathogen for a long time, while others (mostly on Earth and crowded planets) still facing the emergence of new ones.
They could exchange immunization technologies for as long as they remain close and willing to exchange, but as space colonies become more independent and farther from Earth and other planets, they will cease being interested in keeping up to date with shared pathogen immunizations, specially if they don't need to exchange anything with the planet dwellers.
If human space travels still are a matter of months and years, this can be the strongest cause of a cessation of migration on these places, but the avoidance of pathogens could become another.
"Is the surface of a planet . . . ?"
You don't close a major port if one worker tests positive, but you do check everybody three times.