Thought of the Day - September 22 2021 - New Caledonia Is In Trouble

Like me a couple of years ago, you are probably saying: "Where the heck is New Caledonia? ".

New Caledonia is a mineral-rich French colony located in the South Pacific. This tropical paradise is known for being home to the world's largest lagoon; the lagoon encircling New Caledonia is almost 25,000 square kilometres (3/4 the size of Vancouver Island). It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008, in part as the marine biodiversity found here is exceptional.

I got the opportunity to travel to New Cal two years ago. In the fall of 2019, sixteen of us, largely from the Viking Sailing Club, arranged a two-week sailing excursion. The combination of the shelter of the lagoon, coupled with South-Pacific winds and sandy island atolls make it an awesome spot for cruising.

Since the pandemic broke, I have been keeping an eye on the territory ( Thought of the Day - December 30 - COVID Free Locales ). Tourist locations have been "going down" one by one with COVID outbreaks - this year driven by "the vaccinated". That said, New Caledonia has been holding its own. Until now.

This past week, New Caledonia leaped to third in the world for cases per capita (notice Grenada and Bermuda are 1&2). While they saw no deaths in the first eighteen months of the pandemic, they have had 33 this month, 29 last week alone. It should be noted in response New Caledonia (following Indonesia, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan) has now mandated vaccination for all those over 18 - at present less than 30% of the population are vaccinated.

It is so sad that these amazing places and these amazing people are being so badly affected by the rich and vaccinated. It is sickening that in the western world our media is exalting the benefit of vaccines in preventing severe disease and death, yet fail to mention COVID vaccines do not prevent transmission - they do not prevent you from being a carrier of this deadly disease.

Cheers

Cliff