Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days

nbcnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 919 posts

Re: U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days

#201

Post by willj »

suchire wrote: post #181
brianpgordon wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. From the CDC: > It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads. > In general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from food products or packaging that are shipp…

Not sure the CDC is the most credible source at this point

Not sure why I can’t reply to the commenter below. Anyway, here’s a link backing up the parent’s claim, contrary to whatever CDC is saying: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v...

Re: U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days

#202

Post by enraged_camel »

lordlic wrote: post #173

The payroll tax holiday idea is bonkers. The people most in need of help here are hourly or gig workers who are told to stay home from work or who get sick and can't work. Paying less taxes on nonexistent wages doesn't help. It seems like the administration is more interested in propping up the markets than actually addressing the health crisis and its human costs. Also, eliminating copays on coronavirus treatment is…

They aren't eliminating copays on treatment. Only testing.

https://twitter.com/owermohle/status/1237922717699014658

Re: U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days

#204

Post by KarlKemp »

refurb wrote: post #162
zbraniecki wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh, USA is at the moment likely on level with Europe. The idea that this will prevent "infected people streaming into USA" is uninformed. This step limits transfer both ways, between two regions that both have similar level of infection spread. It may help both sides contain the virus, but it won't limit the amount of infected people in the USA on its own. Please, be careful about the language you use, the way you w…

but it won't limit the amount of infected people in the USA on its own I never said it would. By stopping flights, you're removing one potential source of new infections.

You're also eliminating one potential source of infected people leaving the country before symptoms show. Assuming prevalence is equal in the US and Europe, you gain exactly nothing.

(Op already said as much. Your answer reminds me of my Grandmother: "I know God doesn't exist, but it can't hurt to go to church.")

Re: U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days

#205

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

jmull wrote: post #91

(In the USA) Is this going to accomplish anything? The virus is already here and has been spreading out-of-control for quite a while now. The only reason the numbers are still so low here is the incredibly low number of tests being done.

It stops new vectors. At this point the world is not trying to stop it spreading anymore, but slowing the rate of spread to not overwhelm healthcare.

Re: U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days

#206

Post by rsj_hn »

Frost1x wrote: post #109
unlinked_dll wrote: post #30

Regardless of the ability of people to travel to the UK or Canada and get here (which people have done for a long time with other nations we don't take kindly to) it's absolutely going to reduce the number of people who will travel across the pond. Which is the goal, reduce infection rates. My concern is how economies are going to respond to the US being cut off from Continental ports for a month, which as far as I c…

>Which is the goal, reduce infection rates. Based on the localized infection cases I see across the US and have been watching as well as the characteristics of the virus (life outside host/on surfaces, in air, the degree of asymptomatic transference, etc.), it's well beyond containment IMHO. Travel isn't going to do too much to reduce infection rates alone. We need significant cultural changes to reduce infection rat…

My 2 cents.

All reductions in (non-essential) travel are good in a pandemic. That doesn't mean it's sufficient, but it's something positive.

I think we would all like to see stronger social distancing rules domestically (in the US), but here the US has a problem as it granted the President broad discretionary powers to suspend international travel but not domestic gatherings, which can't be banned via executive order and even if congress were to pass a law banning such gatherings, there would be first amendment implications as well as federalism issues.

It's not easy to pass a law giving the President this type of power and I suspect many in congress already rue passing the laws that gave the president power to suspend international travel. That's one of the prices of living in a federal government with separation of powers and a bill of rights guaranteeing right to assembly rather than in a place like China.

For example, the CDC has issued social distancing guidelines but they are only guidelines not laws: Santa Clara county has said "no thank you we'll follow our own guidelines" instead, when the CDC asked to ban meetings of more than 250 but Santa Clara banned meetings of more than 1000, and just refused to change their target to the CDC recommendation.

So the US simply lacks the tools that would allow the President to go on the air and announce "I'm declaring that the MLB season needs to be delayed and Disneyland must close." He can try to exert pressure, or rather have the CDC exert pressure, but these types of declarations are not going to happen in America.

Re: U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days

#207

Post by nerfhammer »

rubicon33 wrote: post #99
Scoundreller wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can anyone comment on supply chains that rely on Europe to source goods? I know medical grade steel comes from over there, but I don't know what else. I don't see why commercial sea-shipping would be restricted. Mariners may not be allowed to leave their ship while in port though.

Because the virus can spread on surfaces I think. As well as food, and organic matter.

standard procedure is to just have cargo sit in quarantine for 14 days or whatever. it's a lot less of a hassle than trying to quarantine people

Re: U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days

#209

Post by knzhou »

Proziam wrote: post #187
knzhou wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He lowered it from 40-70% to 20-60%, hardly a qualitative change. The fact is that under essentially any epidemiological model, if you have R0 > 1 and no countermeasures, it's going to hit a sizable fraction of the world population, because the exponential growth only gets stopped by running out of victims.

Please read the entire source. > Summary: Should have said 40-70% of adults in a situation without effective controls . There's an enormous difference between 40-70% of everyone and 20-60% of adults - specifically if no countermeasures are deployed .

But the point of this thread is discussing why countermeasures are justified. I'm saying that you should expect a disaster if no countermeasures are deployed -- which is exactly what you're saying too.

Re: U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days

#210

Post by endorphone »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #30

Regardless of the ability of people to travel to the UK or Canada and get here (which people have done for a long time with other nations we don't take kindly to) it's absolutely going to reduce the number of people who will travel across the pond. Which is the goal, reduce infection rates. My concern is how economies are going to respond to the US being cut off from Continental ports for a month, which as far as I c…

To reiterate what others said, it is long past containment in the United States. In Canada early on the cases were people who came from known hot spots. Now it is almost entirely people coming from the United States, from places with no known cases.

Clearly there are clusters throughout the United States. Unconfirmed, unrecognized clusters. And with the adversity of many to utilizing health care, it seems impossible to deal with now.

It's also worth noting that this flight ban applies only to non-Americans, just as the Wuhan restriction before did. During the prior travel restriction dozens of flights a day were going to and from Wuhan -- they just had Americans on them, who apparently aren't susceptible to the foreign virus. This new restriction is identical, allowing Americans to march the globe with their COVID-19, but at least they kept out the foreigners.

Instead of any actual efforts it is again mere security theater. And again Trump will pat himself on the back for his very-close-to-useless theatrics.

Post reply on HN