It sounds like a "soft ban" - few are going to jump through these hoops unless they absolutely have to be there. Then they can be poked and prodded for 8 hours in a show of health security theatre.

I'm hearing that some people have figured out ways to temporarily lower their temperature (popping a bunch of pills, for example) so they pass the thermometer test.

Based on that, I suspect the eight-hour reporting period was created to discourage or prevent people slipping past the checks.

But are they not allowing people to carry tablets in their hand luggage .

What's preventing people from popping pills sometime before the 8 hour window and then again later.

These meds can be used every 6 hours or so anyway and can keep the temperature normal in most cases..

This makes me sad. The sheer selfishness of this is staggering. I say shut down the flights if even one person is caught doing this.

I booked our EK flights online, not through a travel agent. Uk- Australia with a 3 day stopover in Singapore on the return flight. Now, we have concerns about Singapore. Both of us have compromised immune systems so feel it could be risky. I would be prepared to forgo the stopover but where would we stand re changing the flights? I realise that uk government has not advised against travel and to be honest, as a retired nurse would not be generally worried about this virus, but I take immunosuppressant drugs and my OH has heart problems caused by a previous viral infection, hence my concern.

AFAIK EK has not issued any waivers yet for any other locations other than mainland china (save Beijing, as above), so you'd be up against change fees and fare difference. But definitely call and at least ask, YMMV

Thanks may do that, especially in view of the latest information that the latest UK case was infected in Singapore. At the end of the day, I would be prepared to soak up the fees than take any risks. My OH ended up having open heart surgery and it left him with long term heart damage. Nothing is worth that risk. Think I may also call our insurance company

The hysteria over this virus really is hilarious.

I think that will be Impossible unless they prevent everyone from carrying all medication.

I have to agree. The denominator part of the death rate calculation is poorly captured with potentially so many infected people not included in the numbers in China in particular.

Even so, with the official figures for only the registered infections, nCOV has a significantly lower mortality rate than SARS and MERS (35% and 25% respectively if my memory serves me correctly).

This is not to say we should not be concerned, but from a mortality perspective, the hype is certainly overblown.

Why the heck don’t they cancel Beijing. Those passengers could be going on to any other country changing planes in Dubai. We have
a flight from South Africa to Dubai to SFO in 10 days. Tried to cancel and even though first class is non refundable and they said no, they
were on,y refunding Beijing and previously canceled China flights. We don’t want to rebook on Emirates we want to fly home, we want to switch to
BA or Lufthansa that are not flying to China. Very frustrating and yes, as one poster stated, very selfish.

They wont cancel PEK because flights are full.

I applaud EK for not cancelling.

BA & LH are still flying to HKG. People can still get to HKG from mainland China. So, you've as much chance of catching the corona virus on those airlines.

really? Can’t understand why you applaud.

Because this "epidemic" really isnt one. The media is blowing this completely out of proportion. Also, by now the virus has already spread throughout the world - it is just the number of reported cases you hear about. So why stop flying now? Especially since the flights are full, there is money to be made.