GroveHillWanderer

Firstly, I don't know what your process for getting a re-entry is, but as far as I'm concerned it's absolutely no hassle whatsoever. I just get one automatically as part of the yearly extension process. Even if I didn't, it would still only be a simple five minute process at my nearest Immigration office (admittedly I'm lucky in that it's only five minutes from my house). Maybe I'm not understanding the situation correctly with the OP or maybe they aren't (I'm not sure) but for me the re-entry permit is highly useful if not absolutely critical. Without a re-entry permit, if you're on a yearly extension of permission to stay (and I don't know why else you'd even be thinking about one) you would lose your extension - as others have pointed out it would be automatically voided. On returning, would only get a 30-day visa exempt entry. Then if you wanted to stay long-term again, it would mean starting again from scratch by converting to an O visa - which to me represents a much bigger hassle than getting a simple re-entry permit before leaving. The scrapping of the TM6 and lack of need to report on returning have nothing at all to do with the reasons for getting a re-entry permit, which is to preserve the validity of your permission to stay. Note: For some reason, my replies keep getting changed to bold text half way through. Not sure why. I could go back and retype but it doesn't seem worth the effort.

No - for herd immunity to work, it requires that immunity - whether naturally or vaccine-acquired, stop transmission somewhere around 95% of the time (or more). This is known as sterilizing immunity. As has become glaringly obvious however, neither having CoVid-19 nor being vaccinated against it, gives rise to sterilizing immunity. As Khunper pointed out, it is much more likely to be like colds and flu where relatively large proportions of the population will get infected every year - and possibly even several times a year. Any chance of herd immunity started to recede with the Delta variant, and the chances have only diminished further with subsequent variants. Now, with the increased transmissibility and immune evasiveness of Omicron and especially the BA.4 and BA.5 variants, the prospect of herd immunity is really only a distant memory.

Except that they kind of are (though not completely) since they imply that no-one tried to intervene, whereas someone did. On hearing the cries, his uncle went to try and stop the beating, but unfortunately, "The group then reportedly took the boy away on a motorcycle ..." He was later returned, but was already dead.

I've read through that report and I don't see anything in it that shows excess mortality at +83% for the 25-54 age group. I did find a Reuters Fact Check that documents false claims circulating on social media about an 84% rise in excess mortality for 25-44 year-olds, though. Is that related to what you're claiming? Fact Check-No evidence that people aged 25-44 experienced an 84% increase in excess mortality