RobertS975

Just to out this in better perspective, there have been 8200 deaths from influenza this flu season in the USA. There have been 15 million cases, and 200,000 hospitalizations. But the trains and planes have not been shut down.

ethernal

The flu is an understated danger that people don't realize can kill and don't get vaccinated for when they should (strain lottery aside). But there is a massive difference between a virus that has a .05% fatality rate - almost entirely the elderly, infant, or immuno-compromised individuals - and a virus with perhaps a 5% mortality rate including healthy immuno-normal adults.

RobertS975

The assumption that the flu deaths are primarily the elderly or folks with underlying problems is incorrect. Look up the term "cytokine storm" where the immune response is so strong, it destroys normal lung tissue.

MSPeconomist

It's the Wuhan virus that appear to be more likely to kill the elderly and/or those with existing health problems. Depending on the strain and year, some flu strains are bad for the elderly and some for young and apparnetly healthy people.

ethernal

Cytokine storm strains are rare. The Spanish Flu was one of them. Typical flu strains do not create cytokine storms. Even for those that are linked to cyotkine storms (2009-2010 flu season was one of these), flu still kills far, far more young children and elderly than otherwise healthy adults.

In a typical year, well over 95% of flu deaths are from people over the age of 60, under the age of 12, or immuno-compromised.

A321neo

WillBarrett_68

~83% of flu deaths in the 2017-18 season were 65 or older, even though they were only ~13% of reported cases. "Primarily the elderly" seems like a perfectly cromulent description.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm

Halloweverybody

Imagine the flu, but it being 2x more infectious than it is now. Now imagine that it has a 12x higher fatality rate. and finally imagine it entering a population with no vaccines, and no natural immunity. These are very realistic and probable estimations based on very early studies. The only perspective your statement brings is that if CDC doesnt stop this from spreading in the US, traveling will probably be very different going forward.

press conference by Professor Gabriel Leung. He is the Dean of Medicine at Hong Kong University and led HK's efforts against H1N1 in 2009.

btonkid12345

The agents were not correct. What MSP says about the dates is also not quite correct - inbound or outbound doesn’t matter - as long as the date you are looking to travel is covered by the waiver (you have a flight scheduled on a waiver day, and the ticket issued before the issue deadline on the waiver), you’re good.

The quality of the DM line and the agents who answer, has dropped substantially. We have been talking about this for over a year, but I mean has dropped in the last month substantially again.

I’ve had a SUPERVISOR tell me that a three hour domestic flight on an A330 means it’s D1 which means no upgrades until 24 hours before. Completely wrong.

But if they are going to come up with all these rules and distinctions and expect customers to know, certainly their employees that answer their VIP line (DM line) should know it all perfectly too.

Point is - please complain. About these incompetent agents making stuff up and how it impacted your travel plans, or how they almost stole thousands from you.

It almost feels like they’ve replaced reservations agents this last month, with sales agents.

Melodsal

Travel waiver looks like it was updated until end of Feb as of today, which is more than what AA is currently offering but still less than United (until end of March).

navarre007

From what I'm reading, United's travel waiver only goes through Feb. 7, and rebooked travel must also take place before then.

flyerCO

There's two different waivers. One for Wuhan airport and one (the one you note) about the main Chinese hub airports.

Xcelus

The CDC just issued “Level 3“ travel warning today (Monday)

=inheritCDC recommends that travelers avoid all nonessential travel to China.https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices...onavirus-china

I have a 4 hour layover on my SEA-PVG-KUL flight next week. I’m not too worried, but my family is worried because everyday there seems to be more panic. Mongolia closed its border today with China and Malaysia has banned visitors from the Chinese Hubei Provence.
=inheritDelta is still selling tickets on that route, at what point would Delta start canceling flights? Does the safety of the flight crew’s layover influence flight cancellations?

Logic tells me to reschedule or reroute through ICN ASAP..

travelerjim

https://travel.state.gov/content/tra...-advisory.html

flyerCO

PVG is major hub for DL. Those flights arent going anywhere. If anything DL will start restricting tickets via ICN/PVG/NRT/HND that connect to/from the hot areas in China.