The Black Mirror Shit Has Begun To Ramp Up, China Wants Everybody To Have A QR Code In Order To Travel, Quantas Airlines Requiring Covid Vacine To Fly, and Airport Chaos Breaks Out Over Mass Mandatory Testing
The Independent - China has called on countries across the world to adopt a global Covid-19 tracking system using QR codes that would speed up international travel during the pandemic.
During a virtual G20 leaders’ summit on Saturday, Chinese president Xi Jinping said nations would need to coordinate their policies in order to facilitate the “smooth functioning” of the global economy, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.
“We need to further harmonise policies and standards and establish ‘fast tracks’ to facilitate the orderly flow of personnel,” Mr Xi said.
“China has proposed a global mechanism on the mutual recognition of health certificates based on nucleic acid test results in the form of internationally accepted QR codes. We hope more countries will join this mechanism.”
Mr Xi failed to go into further detail about how the scheme might work, or how similar it could be to China’s own QR code system, which issues a traffic-light style code to citizens telling them whether they should quarantine or not.
Can we pump the brakes a little bit on the Black Mirror turning everybody into a barcode with all their information linked to it and scanned everywhere they go? Please?
The scariest part of proposals like this is once they're implemented, how do you walk them back?
Once something like this is being used and people are forced to show their personal QR code in order to access buildings, transportation, or whatever else, when the storm passes is the government going to just say "ok we don't need that anymore"?
Obviously in China absolutely not.
But if this becomes a worldwide thing do you see anybody having control like this and relinquishing it?
Zero chance.
Airports and air travel also seem to be where the first domino in this thing is going to fall.
Sun- AUSTRALIAN airline Qantas will require travelers on international flights to have had the coronavirus vaccine once an inoculation is ready, CEO Alan Joyce said.
He told Australian news programme A Current Affair: “Whether you need that domestically, we’ll have to see what happens with COVID-19 in the market, but certainly for international visitors coming out and people leaving the country, we think that’s a necessity."
Australia’s largest airline is planning to enshrine the mandate in its terms and conditions, which would be amended to say that international travelers must be vaccinated before they can board a Qantas plane.
Other airlines are likely to impose similar requirements once health regulators around the world approve a vaccine, according to Joyce.
He said the policies could be enforced by providing travelers with a digital “vaccination passport” that shows what vaccine they’ve received and whether it’s “acceptable to the country you’re traveling to.”
He added: “I’m talking to my colleagues in other airlines around the globe and I think its going to be a common theme across the board.
I blogged about Ticketmaster announcing the same last week. Except it was to get into conerts and events. So this isn't much of a surprise. But what's crazy to think about is how widespread will it be and will it just be standard going forward?
What's eery as fuck is how Black Mirror continues to predict the future -
One thing that seems apparent is it's not going to be easily enforceable. And not just here in the Land of The Free Home Of The Brave. People went ballistic in Shanghai today over just being forced to take tests-
NY Post - One of Shanghai’s international airports descended into chaos after officials ordered mass COVID-19 testing for workers in response to a small cluster of cases detected among cargo handlers.
Footage showed people in hazmat suits trying to contain swarms of people overnight Sunday at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, as crowds filed into a temporary coronavirus testing center in a parking garage, the Guardian reported.
More than 17,700 employees stationed in the cargo-handling terminals underwent testing for the virus, according to Zhou Junlong, vice president of the Shanghai Airport Authority.
The mandatory testing came after two cargo handlers who cleaned a container that had just arrived from North America tested positive for the virus, officials said.
Doesn't seem crazy until you watch that video and look at the pics. 17,000 people being rounded up and processed through lines is pretty wild.
The middle of nowhere in Wyoming becomes more and more appealing by the day.