narvik

We should be looking at countries where COVID-19 spread has been slowed to a near halt, and try and copy whatever they did.
(I can't recall hearing anything from China where thousands flocked to the beach, for instance.)

SpinOn2

First off if you trust China and their numbers.... well I don't think I need to say more.

Secondly, not all countries are the same. We have 328million people here. Not to mention what is good for some places may not be same for others. NYC cannot be treated like Billings, Montana.

Also the supposed near halt can be misleading. How many tests have been done? I'm sure if we didn't test anyone in the US we could make the numbers look better too.

ajf87

I work in healthcare and have to travel semi-regularly.

trouble747

I'm curious why you're not simply content to say "I disagree with the overwhelming consensus of epidemiologists and public health experts," but instead feel you must dramatically proclaim that anyone who does agree with that consensus to be fearful, or scared, or hiding? Why isn't it enough to say "I disagree with the recommendations of experts and won't be following them"?

It's not even particularly logical. Epidemiologists, public health authorities--these aren't people 'hiding' in their homes. They're on the front lines.

SpinOn2

The epidemiologists and public health experts don't even come close to universally agree. Sure the fear mongering of CNN guests strike terror 24/7. There have been many medical doctors and the like who do not agree that it's as bad as they say too.

It's not that I don't believe its bad or anything is going on. However, it's clear we do not know a lot about it still, the one thing rings clear, the projections were soo critically off base it's not even funny. The mortality rate is very low, the risk to people who are not elder or suffer co-morbidities is low... and bascially 1/3 of the US deaths is from NY, mostly from NYC.

The more testing comes out the more we realize people have it, but we also realize people are not dying nearly at the rate they expected.

AND to me, the collapsing economy and fallout of things like depression, suicide, missed health screenings (like cancer) which will cause an uptick of death, as well as domestic violence.... that to me is far far worse nationally and globally that covid-19

jah718

I always see people assuming everyone posting here is in the US. People saying that it is not forbidden to fly. It is different in every country and some countries have banned travel. For example, in Malaysia, citizens have been prohibited from leaving Malaysia during their movement control order.

If there are people doing mileage runs during this time, they are idiots.

ajf87

7.0.1

A month ago the Trump administration forecast 60k deaths. We reached that milestone last week. They've since revised their estimated death toll to 135,000 people, which is also a huge underestimate, since we'll be hitting over 3,000 deaths per day by June. This is due in no small part to states deciding that it's not really that bad and it's more important that we go to Applebee's and get our nails done, and the "protests" that have taken place in the last couple of weeks.

expert7700

Ironic that American residents have to give a reason # from a list to travel to Cuba, but not to buy or board a domestic flight in the current situation.

Several competing forces at work: Government paying airlines not furlough staff and to maintain service to every single city. Then, mostly empty flights / lack of demand then causes much lower ticket pricing. At least one state require at home quarantine if you arrive on a flight, or merely connect through Chicago (and possibly New York State as well).

ashill

In general, the level of restrictions should be tied to the status of the disease in a given jurisdiction. Any significant amount of travel undermines the ability of local officials and health experts to match the level of local restrictions to the local reality of the disease. We could allow widespread travel, but then we'd essentially all have to have the restrictions appropriate for the place with the worst outbreak.

I think that the public health response here in BC has been excellent and a model for how things should be done (with a handful of exceptions). The economy was never fully shut down, with takeout/delivery meals and many retailers remaining open with sharply limited capacity and curbside delivery. The provincial health officer who is in charge encourages us all to spend time outside while maintaining physical distance; I'm out of the house every day for extended periods but only outside (except when there is a specific need to go into a store or something; then, with a mask) and without any conversations with others from within 2 metres. Employers that can are closing in-office work. In general, the approach that is highly focused on maintaining distance. Anyone arriving in BC from outside of Canada and many travellers from outside the province are required to self-quarantine (no leaving the house even for groceries) for 14 days (with waivers for essential travel), so no travel for non-essential purposes unless you're willing to do the 14 day quarantine.

Loosening of restrictions are closely tied to epidemiological modelling instead of a political desire to say we're opening the economy or respecting individuals' right to do whatever they please and undermine the public health efforts. Specifically, the goal is to keep contacts at a level where R < 1, ie the average infected person infects less than one other person, which leads to a decrease in the prevalence of the disease. The modeling in BC indicates that something like 60% of normal physical contacts with others will enable that, so they're opening activities to allow physical contacts to increase from the current ~30% to ~60%. So the bottom line is there is a clearly articulated strategy that is grounded in modelling that is the best the epidemiologists can do, and being willing to adapt as the data tell us to (while erring on the restrictive side to prevent an explosion that overwhelms hospitals, as BC has successfully done). And any significant fraction of the public travelling undermines the ability for these measures to work.

So winding long-windedly back to the topic, until there are clear data that show that R is well below 1 at both ends of any given trip, people should avoid non-essential travel, where essential is carefully defined (as governments generally have in a fairly clear way). And I think it is highly impractical to enforce restrictions on travel between two relatively clean regions when there is so much variation in how severe the outbreak is. And it is equally difficult to trust individuals engaged in non-essential travel to actually understand the risk not to themselves but to the communities they're traveling between and through. So travel should be limited really to just a very small handful of narrowly-defined essential purposes where the benefits to society of the travel outweigh the risks to society. The aim in every measure is to reduce the probability of transmission; reducing the number of people traveling helps enormously, and the only vaguely reasonable way I can think of to do that is limiting it to essential travel, with some willingness to expand the definition of "essential" as the disease gets more under control (a state that the United States as a whole is not close to). And any lack of risk to the traveling individual is basically immaterial; it is the attitude that "I'm willing to take the risk and should be allowed to" or "there isn't much risk to me" that I find especially dangerous and irresponsible.

And no, we don't need a vaccine before significant loosening of restrictions. We need to keep R < 1. Widespread testing (both accurate antigen and live infection testing) and contact tracing of course helps a ton; you can allow much more physical contact and possibly travel if those are in place everywhere.

JetAway

Stay in your home-you'll be safe. Someone else flying, driving, walking is not going to affect you in any way. Lockdowns will stop the spread only as long as there are lockdowns. Unless you are proposing a perpetual lockdown, a vaccine is the only thing that will give you the virus-free world you seem to seek.

JNelson113

I would agree, and let's take it a step further . . someone else flying, driving, walking, as long as that person is being responsible by masking/washing hands/maintaining social distance, can affect us all in a positive way by helping to prevent the complete collapse of the economy. That will lead to social disruption along the lines of suicide, domestic violence, child abuse, increased crime, and other ills that will eventually spread to worldwide issues such as famines and wars. Those of us who are healthy, at low risk, and behaving responsibly should have no judgments from others in carrying on with our lives.

NewbieRunner

This thread has been moved from the AA forum to the dedicated Coronavirus and Travel forum. Please observe the posting guidelines which may be found near the top of the forum. Please note in particular that this is not the place for political discussion.

You will also find there are existing threads on Coronavirus and various aspects of travel. Please try and post in one of the existing threads whenever possible. Any posts which are off-topic for the thread may be deleted without warning.


NewbieRunner
Co-moderator

azepine00

Ha!

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/06/a...&utm_term=link

littlefish

I challenge the part I've bolded; but maybe someone can clearly explain ...
If the model is about having safe contacts then presumably this is a certain level of social distancing together with a high expectation for wearing of Face Masks and a high expectation that the population are educated in and practicing good anti Covid-19 hygiene.

So given those factors why is traveling an issue? Surely its contacts which is the issue?

Maintaining the required contact disciplines (+ Masks + Hygiene) while traveling shouldn't adversely impact the local R, surely?

ashill

The economy is not returning to anything close to normal until the disease is pretty well under control, no matter what restrictions are in place. But restrictions can be lifted in a controlled way that keeps the disease under control if people don't undermine them by pretending that they're some kind of hero for "carrying on with their lives".

That said, as I described in egregious detail above, I am fortunate to live in a jurisdiction in which we have stayed much closer to a normal life state than much of North America by closely following medical guidelines. I haven't been to my workplace since March 13, and current guidelines from management are that September is optimistic (with even intra-provincial travel probably further in the future), but I do get out of the house every day and go to hardware stores and the like when needed. So there's certainly a semantic element to this; what exactly does "carrying on with your life" and "reopen the economy" mean? But a key piece of that is virtually no travel (my local airport is completely shut down now). Travel is important to a fully functioning economy, but travel will do absolutely nothing to help the broader economy when it remains in this medically-induced coma. We need to get the local outbreaks under control and the local economies safely reopened before non-essential travel does anything to help the economy. Now, any significant non-essential travel just delays that reopening.

Is anyone traveling to not interact with anyone?

Really, there isn't one outbreak in countries the size of the US or Canada (or China). There is a series of local outbreaks, the first of them seeded by travel many months ago (as early as December in the US, it now appears) before the strong travel restrictions went into place. However, if lots of people travel, we risk returning to having one big national or global outbreak. In the US, the outbreak in Washington state is well past the peak, and the outbreak in New York is getting past the peak. The outbreaks in many other places, especially rural areas (which others in this thread have incorrectly said are less susceptible; in fact, they're just delayed, and in many ways more vulnerable because they don't have the hospital infrastructure of major cities and often have older populations), are just getting started. So the containment measures are different in all of those places.

If you can really be assured that all travellers are following the required protocols, then great, they're fine. But you can't. It's easier to ensure/expect that essential travellers are following the protocols (both because there are few of them and because a relatively high fraction of essential travellers are [I would guess] in health-related fields and therefore better aware of both the dangers and the protocols), and the protocols are drastically easier to follow with less crowded airports and airplanes.

Of course, it's hard enough to ensure that people who don't travel follow the protocols. But compounding it by bringing in non-essential travellers is needlessly pouring gasoline on the fire.