STS-134

Tells you something about who wrote these rules. If it was doctors writing the rules, don't you think they would have accounted for that? And why only quarantines for people who have been to Hubei? Shouldn't it be mandatory quarantines for anyone coming from any area with suspected occult cases? (currently just China, but may be expanded later)

If you want to exempt cabin crew from quarantine requirements, then they should be required to wear BSL-4 positive pressure suits connected directly to the bleed air system for the duration of the flight. And they should be sent through a shower of disinfectant before removing the suits following the flight.

Chuvash

Hi, posting for in-laws who are being told by MU staff in Cebu that the 14day LAX quarantine for US Citizens has been extended to all passengers arriving from mainland not just those who’ve been in Hebei

has anyone heard something similar? It’s apparently come through in the last hour

thanks

paperwastage

if you're interested, this is the relevant section

https://www.whitehouse.gov/president...l-coronavirus/

bobbytables

This sort of thing does give me pause about the real motivation for the travel bans. They seem political rather than medical. Hardly a surprise in the current climate that the US might take advantage of the situation to put the squeeze on China...

jiejie

I disagree with your assessment. I believe the actions being taken by the USA are medical, not political. Hardly a surprise that the US and other countries might decide to put their own welfare above that of the Chinese, whose situation was caused by the screwups by Chinese leadership in not dealing with this publicly and forcefully back in December, when they still had a decent shot at containing the virus spread. If China gets "squeezed" they have nobody to blame but themselves. They didn't learn a lot from their actions during SARS, apparently.

bobbytables

If medical, it would certainly be good to understand the medical reasoning for the seemingly arbitrary exceptions that allow various classes of potentially-infected people to bypass quarantine.

chipmaster

Things are changing by the day, anyone traveling, the only reference would be your destination country policy on the day of travel, and has the rules changed in the past few days or not? We can only speculate and hope for the best but prepa for the worse!

And of course there is what will Chinese do? I recalled with little notice they shut down Wuhan, which made sense.

STS-134

While all of that is true, I disagree with the US policy of only allowing citizens and LPRs and a few other narrow categories of people in. It shouldn't matter who you are or what citizenship you hold. If you don't have the virus, you should be allowed in. If you do, then you get held until you are well. If they're not sure, then they hold you until they can be 100% sure you don't have it. If you're not a citizen, then you can pay the US government for your quarantine.

If there's one group of people who should be blanket banned from entering the US, it is the Chinese leadership, for the debacle of a manner in which they handled this. No need to punish the entire population for what the government did. The WHO should also write a strongly worded statement condemning the Chinese leadership's handling of the situation, in both Chinese and English, so that all of the people in China can read it. Then let the Chinese people figure out what to do about it.

jiejie

At this point, the only way the world is ever going to break the chain of transmission is for everybody to essentially stop traveling and hold in place until authorities everywhere can get the infected, identified and separated from the uninfected. Otherwise, health officials and governments are forever going to be chasing their tales, since this virus can be carried asymptomatically and as long as people keep moving around, control is a problem. Why would the USA (and other countries) NOT want to cut down on numbers by limiting the inbound movement of people across their borders? It DOES matter what citizenship you hold. Citizens and LPR's belong. Everybody else is here on grace. No different from any other country's policy. It's common sense to minimize the size of the potential reservoir of virus carriers to those whom you must grant admittance. With our current understanding, basically anybody coming from China is at some level of risk for being a carrier, even if not showing obvious symptoms. Besides, the US is not closing its borders to all foreigners, just those who have been in China in the last 14 days and are not immediate family members of a US citizen. As to non-citizens paying back the USG for their quarantine.....exactly how would that happen? Answer: it wouldn't, and the US taxpayer would be picking up the tab.

Yes, the entire population is suffering the consequences of Chinese local, provincial, and central government policies and decisions. It's not "punishment" since there's no inherent right of Chinese to gain admittance to another country, just because they want it. It is "consequences". Good luck on that WHO statement, they are currently in the pockets of the Chinese....but they have always been a useless organization that cannot be trusted.

Visconti

Right on point, in my view. There's a potential threat now. It's real, and it's here. It may become a global pandemic or it may turn out to be relatively minor; but, irrespective of whatever it is, until we have this threat under control, let's put a lid on all that social empathy stuff. Once this thing is under control, then we can revisit all the social wrongs and how America is mean, or whatever...

jiejie

And while the mean ol' US may be the social justice warriors' favorite punching bag, note that Australia and Singapore are putting pretty much identical policies in place: No foreigner (Chinese or otherwise) who has been in China in the last 14 days gets admitted unless spouse/dependent or permanent resident. Expect more of the same to follow shortly from other countries.

1readyset2go

I was not worried about getting sick at our upcoming visit to HKG on Feb 7th which was the first half of our trip. Now I am scared I will not be allowed entry in MNL which was our 2nd stop on the way to Amanpulo! I have no idea what to do? Should I just call CX (if i can get them on the phone)? Oh and then these are OW award TX in J. LAX-HKG and then 5 days later HKG-MNL and the same return. Please give me some advice.

jiejie

The first death from coronavirus outside China has just been reported from the Philippines. 44-year old man from China, the partner of a woman who has been hospitalized with confirmed virus. Apparently he came down with it after her. I believe they did come from Wuhan.

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south...l-ban-visitors

I think this could definitely affect the ability of the above poster to reach his destination.

STS-134

Very simple. Money up front, paid to the US government prior to departure of flight, or no permission to board.

Although, there IS something to be said about not allowing wealthy Chinese to buy their way out of this one like they can so many other things back home. So this could be seen as their penalty for keeping these idiots (in my personal opinion, and especially in regards to how they've handled this outbreak) in power. If they don't like it, they're the ones who can make changes.

Visconti

At this point, I'm no longer concerned about their failures, only how to try and bring this under control. Towards that end, whatever the PRC has to do however draconian to put a lid on this, they had better do it, and pull out all the stops.