First, we should take a look at the pandemic data, before we turn to the pandemic effect on the wine industry, and particularly tourism. The easiest data to access come from the Worldometer COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic website. Official figures are always minimum estimates, of course, because the officials do not always get to hear about all of the events; and in this case this particularly applies to China (the assumed origin of the virus).
The first graph (above) shows the time course of the number of infected people recorded up to the beginning of February. There were a total of 679,174,044 recorded cases, over the whole pandemic, which is c. 8.5% of the people on the planet. However, more importantly, the graph shows clearly that the global numbers are now as low as they have been at any time since the early stages of the pandemic. Yay!
Prior to this, the two biggest pandemics for which we can estimate their approximate size were the bubonic plague known as the Black Death (1346 to 1353), and the influenza outbreak known as the Spanish Flu (1918). The first of these killed a greater percentage of the people estimated to have been alive at that time, than any pandemic before or since (about one-third of the people in the affected area). The second one infected c. one-third of the people on the planet, without necessarily killing them.
So, for the current pandemic, this next graph shows the time course of the number of deceased people recorded up to the beginning of February. There had been a total of 6,794,531 recorded deaths, which is almost precisely 10% of the number of people who got infected.
So, we are talking about something pretty serious here; and it is little wonder that people stopped traveling from 2020 onwards, and thus exposing themselves to other people who may be infected. Many places declared a State of Emergency (justifiably), and quarantines were implemented by almost every country, putting people in isolation for up to 10 days after getting off a plane, for example.
The consequent effect on tourism will be obvious. Here is a graph illustrating the immediate and dramatic change in travel (Global travel remains subdued in second pandemic year). * This has had all sorts of further effects, from the upsetting (see my post: The (saddest) effect of Covid-19 on the wine industry) to the annoying (see my post: How do Covid-19 lock-downs affect wine blog readership?).
There were other big social effects, of course, but many of these seemed to be temporary, unlike travel. For example: US consumer confidence was recorded to recover within months, not years. This pattern is clearly seen in the next graph, where the measure of confidence was depressed for little more than a year. (Current confidence has subsequently decreased, as we all know, by a recession, not the pandemic.)
Perhaps one of the odder effects occurred in Italy (see the picture below): How Italy is reviving its historic ‘wine windows’ for the Covid era; Italy's "wine windows", used during the plague, reopen for contactless food and alcohol sales.
Anyway, for those of you who have not noticed it, the long-term effects are now officially changing, as well. For example, California has only just now removed its State of Emergency:
After very close to three years and more than 100,000 deaths related to Covid, the nation’s largest state ends its State of Emergency related to the pandemic at 11:59 p.m. tonight (March 1, 2023). On March 4, 2020, California Gov, Gavin Newsom announced the State of Emergency in a news conference carried on virtually every local network amid concern over the state’s first virus-related death, but tonight’s transition will take place with very little public notice.So, someone there has officially answered my blog-title question in the affirmative. This action is based on the second graph above, which clearly shows that the number of deaths is now as low as it has been at any time since the early stages of the pandemic. The pandemic is not necessarily over, but it is damn close — we are now “living with” the disease. (There will continue to be people with what is known as Long Covid, unfortunately.)
Along with this, the media are now starting to sound optimistic, as well:
- Seven wine trends to watch (Wine tourism is set to grow)
- Tourism set to return to pre-pandemic levels in some regions in 2023
- Western Europe sees surge in tourism since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hopefully, this is not mis-placed optimism. Indeed, we have been told that current air travel has reached 70% (Air travel recovery strengthens in 2022) to 80% (Air traffic recovery is fast-approaching pre-pandemic levels) of its previous scale. Nevertheless, even Shakespeare did warn us long ago: Beware the Ides of March!
Finally, I also hope that it is clear to everyone that being properly vaccinated is a key component of traveling in the immediate future (ie. for the rest of this year, at least). For those of you who do not know, vaccination was invented by a bunch of uneducated women. That is, it started out as a classic Old Wines Tale, which turned out to be absolutely true. These women were cow maids, and the Latin name (vaccination) translates as: The Cow Treatment. I love remembering this, every time I get jabbed. **
* My wife and I are retired, and we had just started doing some international traveling. On the very day that we returned from a bus tour to parts of former Yugoslavia, the first official cases of Covid-19 were brought into Sweden, from people who had gone downhill skiing in northern Italy, during a school break week. So, all of our plans sadly “went out the window”, for the next 2.5 years.
** My wife and I have just had our 6th vaccination dose (ie. a fifth booster dose). We are both biologists who have worked with infectious diseases, so we know just how important vaccination can be, simply because it is such an effective way to avoid getting sick. After all, old-age pensioners like us are recognized as being the ones most at risk, especially when traveling (we have been to both Australia and India in the past year). So, we will have yet another dose later this year, as currently recommended by the Swedish government (which is apparently the only EU country to have yet released their official 2023 vaccination strategy).
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