electronicmaji

I have a flight to Colombia on Monday from Miami. I'm just hoping airlines are still flying at that point in time with how things are accelerating.

Return is booked on May 15th. Hope that flight still exists in some form at that point too.

travelinmanS

I think the individualism of the USA and to some extent Western Europe is great for a lot of things, including encouraging innovation and taking economic risks that lead to great discoveries. I think it is terrible for stopping the spread of a virus as is quite obvious by many of the “damn the torpedos” posters here.

The more collective based cultures in the Far East, like China and Korea, have had a better time of getting cooperation from society to stop the virus spreading.

At least that’s how it looks like it will play out at the moment.

HKTraveler

I find those low number of cases incredulous too but let's not forget, the situation in China is clearly not worsening and has improved from a total crisis before. Just look at the fact that they are able to close all the temporary hospitals in Wuhan. Even if those numbers are off by a factor of 10 or 50, the number of new cases is still low compared to other countries like Italy or Korea.

HKTraveler

As many others have pointed out, the problem is not about protecting you or how you want to lead your life. It is about protecting other people that you come into contact with and can potentially infect. When your freedom encroach on other's right to live or not to get sick, then it need to be curtailed. No different than drunk driving or requiring a driver's license before you can operate a vehicle. Travel ban is designed exactly for these irresponsible and ignorant behaviors.

Sandeep1

They can't ban travel within the USA. It simply isn't feasible unless martial law is imposed.

username

Let's hope we don't get to that point in the US. If things get ugly in the US, for example, food shortages, I can see the government implement drastic measures to maintain order. Would it have a choice?

It won't be country-wide because the country is so big. However, if that is the only way to maintain order and keep people safe, I don't see why the government won't/shouldn't do it.

We live in interesting times.

Sandeep1

What do you mean by "drastic measures?" Are you suggesting martial law? You know Trump would be out of a job quite fast if he did that so we know he won't do it.

username

I don't know - keep an open mind. If things get really bad and the government needs to get things under control, then they will have to do whatever it takes. Hopefully we don't get to that point but we are in uncharted territory already.

Sandeep1

Do you live in the U.S.? There is an election in November. I'm telling you, no matter how bad things get, Trump will NOT impose martial law. It's not going to happen.

username

You are the one who keeps saying martial law. I don't even know what that means in practice in the US.

Would he be reelected if things get out of control? I don't even know if he wants to continue to be the president if this thing does not get better soon.

Sandeep1

Well you said drastic measures and I don't know what that means other than martial law. I asked you to clarify and you said you don't know. I've never seen martial law so who knows what that would mean in practice but I assume the national guard would be deployed to prevent people from moving from Point A to Point B. That's not going to go over well here. Remember, we are a country of guns. So, people may just decide to overthrow the government if something like this were to play out.

username

I didn't want to bring guns into the conversation as that is a sensitive subject in the US. Before 9/11, almost nobody would have thought people would fly planes into buildings. So, who knows what will happen next.

All we can do is to prepare somewhat (have food/medicine/supplies at home in case things get worse but don't go overboard), stay healthy and help reduce the chance of transmission by limiting our travels and interactions.

What frustrated a lot of people the last few weeks is that US (the government and the people) did not take this seriously. Even now, we have people who say "I am young and healthy, life is short and I will do what I want". Whatever you follow - science, math, Trump, God (whatever religion), sports, movie stars, money - all signs are telling us to do what we can to slow this down.

TravelingZoomer

Just once, I wish my fellow country people would think about the collective good instead of themselves. Right now is not the time to travel.

And if your individual liberties trump the collective good, even if you probably won’t die, getting sick with the thing cannot be fun.

Lussac

At the end of this month we come to the end of a 5 month trip and will be returning to the UK. We are presently in NZ and go from here to Singapore, Zurich, Stockholm and then London all ticketed on SQ and because SQ hasn't restricted travel to any of those destinations there's not much we can do but go through with it. I did ask if we could change routes and go directly to Stockholm but the change fees were very expensive so decided to leave it all unchanged.

Jeremiasz777

in some places we can hear also good news, people return to work and things go back to normal