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Swine Flu: When will it affect air travel, what will the response be [Merged threads]
First the fuel shock, then the recession, now this. What might we expect?
This one feels real, not (only) a media whirlwind, and not another lever for a subsidy to the pharmaceutical industry. Considering that the eight NYC students returned from Mexico with it. Millions of square miles and people, and they got it? Considering how poor medicine and communication channels are in Mexico. Considering what they are doing all around their country in response.
Combining all these observations, it just feels like it's already worse than we know.
[Mods, if there's a more appropriate - Health? - forum for this that I don't see, please transfer it.]
We're travelling to San Francisco, Hawaii and New York in July on honeymoon (from England) and are a bit concerned things might be jeopardised.
California in particular may be a problem. We may know more as time goes on but it could be a nerve-wracking few weeks!
I guess the worst that could happen is a period of complete lockdown, which would be catastrophic for the industry as well as for people's lives, but if it stops a pandemic then may have to be done.
Europe Urges Citizens to Avoid U.S. and Mexico Travel
Quote:
Hoping to head off a global pandemic of swine flu that has surfaced in North America, the European Union’s health commissioner on Monday urged Europeans to avoid traveling to the United States or Mexico if doing so is not essential.
I've got a MR to FRA coming up this weekend, lets hope I'm not a social outcast for my 24 hours in Germany.
I'd be most worried about things like the "closing" of the US Embassy in Mexico City until Thursday. http://www.usembassy-mexico.gov/eng/...influenza.html The embassy says they've put a hiatus on processing 5100 visa applications waiting to be processed.
A. This particular version of the flu doesn't appear to be particular severe in most patients, unlikely to cause death unless totally untreated or in a patient with already weakened resistance/poor health. Obviously, the lack of a specifically targeted vaccine hurts, but then in the Northern Hemisphere, we're past the "height" of flu season.
B. Ahhh, those isolationist Uropeens, never forgetting those Euxine Sea rats debarking in Mediterranean ports with their deadly fleas in their backpacks, but failing to remember that daily flights from Mexico City arrive in several UK and Continental cities, sending through the jetways a horde of folk potentially exposed to or infected with the swinish flu.
I wouldn't change travel plans....(and as for Mexico's medical care, first rate it's not - unless you're among the "ricos", but overall several steps above some popular venues).
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El Pelon Sinverguenza "Pour discourager les huitres"
It is already effecting the airlines as UAUA droped 1.00 and every other airline stock took a nose dive; Im thinking because of the idea that's floating around that we'll see some travel bans coming shortly after the WHO declares a pendemic(?).
I'm still flying from LAX to JFK this weekend. My only concern is that some over-anxious airline personnel might stop me as I sniffle. My allergies are driving me nuts so I'm sneezing and blowing my nose but do not have the flu
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"Estimated time of arrival, 9:30 am"
I have a mileage run in 2 weeks, one leg of which involves a same-day turnaround in LHR. I hope security does not nag me about traveling from the US, and more so from Texas. (IAH-LHR via CO)
Most airlines have already posted travel waivers btw.
'B. Ahhh, those isolationist Uropeens, never forgetting those Euxine Sea rats debarking in Mediterranean ports with their deadly fleas in their backpacks, but failing to remember that daily flights from Mexico City arrive in several UK and Continental cities, sending through the jetways a horde of folk potentially exposed to or infected with the swinish flu.'
Thanks I'll try and remember my 'isolationist' tendencies the next time I watch the next movie from Hollywood, watch CNN, spend the night in Chicago, Berlin, Moscow or read about the next death British soldiers death in Afganistan.
These days 'isolationism' is a state of mind rather than a physical act, I seem to remember that the US response to SARS was at least to offer advice to the travelling public. Suggest that these forums are the wrong place to use use 'isolationist' as a comment. but hey maybe I'm just a sensitive soul today!
I haven't seen the latest numbers, but last I saw, there were around 2,500 cases reported worldwide with 83 deaths (all in Mexico).
Compare that to just a normal, run-of-the-mill annual flu season per the World Health Organization:
In annual influenza epidemics 5-15% of the population are affected with upper respiratory tract infections. Hospitalization and deaths mainly occur in high-risk groups (elderly, chronically ill). Although difficult to assess, these annual epidemics are thought to result in between three and five million cases of severe illness and between 250 000 and 500 000 deaths every year around the world.
It looks like we're getting set to issue travel warnings to Mexico. If the media and government hysteria hasn't already decimated Mexico's tourism industry, surely travel warnings (or, worse yet, restrictions) will. What kind of deals can we expect to see for summer travel to Mexico? I wasn't paying attention to these boards during SARS and Bird Flu, but perhaps some that were could advise of the types of Asian deals that were available. I'd think we'd see similar things in Mexico in the upcoming months
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department plans to issue a travel warning later on Monday urging Americans to avoid all "nonessential" travel to Mexico because of an outbreak of swine flu, a U.S. official said.
Swine flu has killed 103 people in Mexico and has spread to the United States. Spain has reported one case of the virus, the first to be confirmed in Europe.
"There will be a travel warning urging Americans to avoid all nonessential travel to Mexico because of the swine flu," said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition he not be named as the warning has not yet been announced.
"Hong Kong, shaped by lasting scars as an epicenter of the SARS outbreak, announced very tough measures. Officials there urged travelers to avoid Mexico and ordered the immediate detention of anyone arriving with a fever higher than 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit after traveling through any city with a confirmed case, which would include New York.
Everyone stopped will be sent to a hospital for a flu test and held until it is negative. Since Hong Kong has Asia’s busiest airport hub, the policy could severely disrupt international travel."
It doesn't feel real to me. It feels like much ado about nothing. How many people usually die of the flu in the U.S. each year? It is many thousands. But suddenly we're going bonkers over 80 people dying of the flu in Mexico? They're allowed to die of the flu in Mexico too, you know. It's actually a serious disease.
Many years ago I too went to Mexico on spring break and caught the flu and didn't see a doctor and nearly died because I let it progress to pneumonia. If you are sick and have the flu, see a doctor. Don't wait to get pneumonia just because you're 20-40 and think you're immortal. Pneumonia is happy to take out any of us. That's my opinion of what is happening. Young people in Mexico are not thinking, wow, I have the flu, let me run to the doctor. So they get to the hospital too late. In the 90s I knew someone who died like this in his 30s, but it didn't make the news. Nor does it usually make the news when a few dozen people die of the flu.
It's silly season stuff, as far as I'm concerned. But with all the tit for tat of the U.S. saying, don't go to Mexico, and the EU saying, well, don't go to the U.S. it is certainly a bad thing for the travel economy. Any time you travel in fall, winter, or spring, you risk being exposed to the flu. Or you could just stay home and catch it from your kids in school. Whatever. When it's your time to go, that's when you'll go.
If the response is to go overboard with hysteria and screenings and further barriers to travel, it won't be good for the travel industry this summer at all. The "don't let your little darlings go to Mexico for spring break" stuff was already getting obnoxious, only they were originally giving drug lords, rather than swine flu, as the reason. I suppose there's some political stuff going on behind the scenes, but not knowing what it is, I feel bad for Mexico being blamed for all the trouble in the world.
On the bright side, didn't SARS hysteria mean some really great Asia fares? So maybe we can look to that?
I just saw a news story claiming that it's the first flu pandemic in 40 years. Do they think we're idiots? I well remember the epidemic in 1997 because I was sick as a dog myself, and so was everybody else in Vegas. One old boy died at the dice table but maybe he would have anyway. Because he was really old. There are worse ways to go, methinks. But, my point is, they can't scream at us to get flu shots every year and then pretend that the flu hasn't happened for 40 years. It just becomes apparent that they're making "stuff" up.
Poster "Bob Thompson" above has a sensible post. It just makes you wonder, why this scare stuff? Who profits from this being blown so far out of proportion?
How many people usually die of the flu in the U.S. each year? It is many thousands. But suddenly we're going bonkers over 80 people dying of the flu in Mexico?
Sure it's probably hype, but to address your comment I think the issue is not the death count but the death rate. It's something like 7% compared to 2.5% in 1918. Plus, the affected age group is different this time.
Swine Flu: When will it affect air travel, what will the response be [Merged threads]
