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Old Mar 11, 2020, 10:13 am
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In order to reduce noise in the Coronavirus / Covid-19 : general fact-based reporting thread, and to create a central place to invite any member to ask a basic question about the impact of COVID-19 on travel, your moderators have decided to open this separate "lounge" thread for related discussion that isn't strictly fact-based reporting.
Any member who can provide a constructive, helpful answer to a question; or post constructively in reply to a member's point-of-view, is welcome to post.

All FT rules apply, including avoiding personalized, snarky, political, other off-topic, commercial, and repeatedly disruptive content.

Discussion of general economic impacts of Covid-19 belongs in the OMNI forum, not here.
Discussion and critique of political/government actions to aid the economy or which is far more political than related to COVID-19 is for the OMNI/PR forum, not here.

This is a protocol for posting adopted by the forum Moderator team:Please follow this protocol, based on FlyerTalk Rules and long-standing FlyerTalk best practices. Doing so will help keep the thread open, and allow our moderator team to aid members, rather than having to resort to discipline.

Constructive, respectful posts, views, opinions, questions, and replies, related to the topic are welcome. Avoid commenting on members personally, or posting off-topic or political messages.

While respectful disagreement of a posted view is allowed, dont call-out posters to prove their points. FlyerTalk has never required discussion standards at the level of a Ph.D. dissertation defense, or a trial court witness cross-examination.

After a reasonable exchange of views on a point, please yield the floor so that others may bring up different topics, questions or points.

Especially important in this time of pandemic, when normal life and travel have been upended: please take regular breaks from the thread.
Please stay healthy,

your FT Coronavirus and Travel Moderator Team.








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Old Mar 14, 2020, 4:06 pm
  #481  
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Originally Posted by karenkay

anyone taking bets as to how long before there's an italy/france/spain/greece style lockdown in the US?
I assume it will be state by state or even more granular, as all current policies and restrictions. Not sure that there is even the legal ability for the federal government to implement policies similar to Italy/France. I think the wiki requests this thread to be kept of speculation, though, so I will stop here.

Last edited by notquiteaff; Mar 14, 2020 at 4:12 pm
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Old Mar 14, 2020, 4:09 pm
  #482  
 
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Originally Posted by swampwiz
The airlines/agents are acting like the guy selling $100 gallon jugs of water after a hurricane.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/t...ban-paris.html
Just another hysterical click bait nyslimes headline with no relation to the actual story.
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Old Mar 14, 2020, 4:22 pm
  #483  
 
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Originally Posted by WestCoastPDX
I dont click on nytimes articles anymore. Too much hysteria.



That said, its interesting reaction.... If everyone is scared to death of this virus, why wouldnt you pay $20k to get home?
If its as bad as the media fears, wouldnt you trade anything in your life to get home?
(Presumably so you can die with dignity in your home of this super killer disease?)

When you are in a car crash, you dont ask how much the Ambulance ride is... you will pay whatever to get to the hospital.


Anyway, the fact that people are worrying about refunds and flight credits means, deep down, they all think they are going to survive.
Strange to note that....
Perhaps they are not worried about dying and more worried about stuck for 14 days in quarantine = missed income or important events at home
And it's not about dying or surviving. It's about whether you want to be sick with symptoms worse than the flu (affects about 20% of those that get COVID-19)
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Old Mar 14, 2020, 4:23 pm
  #484  
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Originally Posted by PanAmWT

This is the best article to articulate the situation I have seen so far.
It has received ~27 million views in the last 72h. 26 translations at bottom
Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coron...e-f4d3d9cd99ca
FWIW, lots of commenters calling that article out as a crock written by someone with no formal training in relevant disciplines.
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Old Mar 14, 2020, 4:28 pm
  #485  
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Originally Posted by ijgordon
FWIW, lots of commenters calling that article out as a crock written by someone with no formal training in relevant disciplines.
I don't click on links with unfamiliar URLs like that, and your comment explains why... they're usually garbage, clickbait, a crock.
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Old Mar 14, 2020, 4:59 pm
  #486  
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Originally Posted by notquiteaff
I assume it will be state by state or even more granular, as all current policies and restrictions. Not sure that there is even the legal ability for the federal government to implement policies similar to Italy/France. I think the wiki requests this thread to be kept of speculation, though, so I will stop here.
Things are just moving very fast, every day is a different world, and based on what we see in Europe and elsewhere major restrictions are coming in a matter of days (as they should).

Last edited by nk15; Mar 14, 2020 at 5:06 pm
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Old Mar 14, 2020, 5:12 pm
  #487  
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Look firstly at China, then Italy, then the rest of Europe.

It will soon be worldwide lockdown

60 days ago, no one in any prediction said that 140 million people in Europe ( France, Italy, Spain etc ) would be confined to their residences.

Border closures in peacetime ....

It is not going to go away soon, and it will be very costly in terms of jobs and industry.

There will be nationalisations of some industries, such as airlines and train operators - they are hemorrhaging money

Hotel groups will push the cost back to the franchisee, and a lot of chains will contract due to insolvency of individual hotels

sad times
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Old Mar 14, 2020, 5:15 pm
  #488  
 
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Originally Posted by zerolife
Perhaps they are not worried about dying and more worried about stuck for 14 days in quarantine = missed income or important events at home
And it's not about dying or surviving. It's about whether you want to be sick with symptoms worse than the flu (affects about 20% of those that get COVID-19)
No I would say it's more like a panicked amateur traveler. From the story at least as far as I understand it they are healthy and not in direct danger. They wanted to return sooner and the visible window was closing rapidly. In my view from 35000 and the information they had. They could / should have stood firm until they contacted their air carrier and gotten an update on their options. BUT that said they had the $$'s to get out and they can discuss refunds or credits from home.
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Old Mar 14, 2020, 5:17 pm
  #489  
 
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Are there any explanations why both the number of deaths and the number of serious/critical cases is so low in Germany? Germany only has 9 deaths and 9 serious cases (source). I cannot find a German source for the number of serious cases, but the number of deaths matches German official numbers.

Are doctors in Germany keeping hopeless patients in coma instead of switching off life support? Are serious cases being underreported? It's a little too good to be true, especially compared with France, which has a similar number of cases and a similar growth curve.

South Korea also has an abnormal low number of both deaths and serious cases, with both under 1%.
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Old Mar 14, 2020, 5:20 pm
  #490  
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And then there is this...This passes as entrepreneurship, but it should be a federal crime, hoarding critical supplies with intent of price gouging and profiteering, or something like that...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/he...e=BB11blvS_1|1
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Old Mar 14, 2020, 5:22 pm
  #491  
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Originally Posted by nk15
And then there is this...This passes as entrepreneurship, but it should be a federal crime, hoarding critical supplies with intent of price gauging and profiteering, or something like that...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/he...e=BB11blvS_1|1
Agreed - do it like Japan and impose up to 1 year jail on those trying to hoard & re-sell necessities for a profit during a national emergency.
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Old Mar 14, 2020, 5:24 pm
  #492  
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Originally Posted by ijgordon
FWIW, lots of commenters calling that article out as a crock written by someone with no formal training in relevant disciplines.
A lot of commenters (I didn’t count either group) disagree with the those assessment of the article by others. Some of the critical comments appear flawed themselves and by people who themselves have no formal training in relevant disciplines.

What did you think of the article?

I didn’t read every word. A lot of what I saw has been discussed here and elsewhere and also matches public assessments by subject matter experts. I don’t think the author is claiming that he did novel (pun intended) research in his post. It is an aggregation of information available elsewhere, presented in a relatively easy to understand format with lots of graphs and explanations. No doubt a detail here or there will be inaccurate. The general message of the post, however, seems accurate and sensible (unless, perhaps, one still subscribes to the “it’s just a bad flu” religion).

Another article that I think has a similar goal of educating the general public beyond the shallow depth of most news reports is

https://www.flattenthecurve.com

The qualifications of that page’s author:

“I have a masters degree in public health from the University of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as well as a background in infectious diseases and vaccine development. The impact of this pandemic will be needlessly amplified by misinformation, so be careful. I’ve endeavored to be as accurate as possible without causing panic. I have not been paid to write this post, but given my training I do feel like it is my responsibility. This is a volunteer effort that qualified people are welcome to help contribute to. Frankly the only reason it is not anonymous is because it would be less likely to be taken seriously, and we need all of the gravitas we can get right now.Full disclosure, I worked in the TB and HIV vaccine field from 2000-2010 but have since switched gears into rare disease genetics. I’m currently an assistant professor (senior research) at Oregon State University in the College of Public Health”
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Old Mar 14, 2020, 5:26 pm
  #493  
 
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Originally Posted by ijgordon
FWIW, lots of commenters calling that article out as a crock written by someone with no formal training in relevant disciplines.
It was not peer reviewed for sure. But it was very consistent with Scott Cook's note on UCSF's Bio-Hub panel discussion by researchers in infectious disease ([ost [URL=https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/usertag.php?do=list&action=hash&hash=3827]#3827 ). Which was also disliked by some commentators..

The "
formal training in relevant disciplines." weights little in my mind, In one of my interests (climate change) many PhDs with formal training in relevant disciplines should not have received their degree..

Could you please share some of the critical comments? I hope they have some valid specific points to weaken this article. Looking forward to whatever info you can provide. Thanks in advance

Last edited by PanAmWT; Mar 14, 2020 at 5:31 pm
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Old Mar 14, 2020, 5:28 pm
  #494  
 
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Originally Posted by nk15
And then there is this...This passes as entrepreneurship, but it should be a federal crime, hoarding critical supplies with intent of price gouging and profiteering, or something like that...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/he...e=BB11blvS_1|1
Hate these people. Hope he cant pay off his credit card bill and goes bankrupt. Or catch the COVID-19 for himself and die.
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Old Mar 14, 2020, 5:59 pm
  #495  
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Originally Posted by cockpitvisit
Are there any explanations why both the number of deaths and the number of serious/critical cases is so low in Germany? Germany only has 9 deaths and 9 serious cases (source). I cannot find a German source for the number of serious cases, but the number of deaths matches German official numbers.
That is odd. France reported this evening 300 serious cases, out of 4469 total.
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