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

nbcnews.com

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

#291

Post by tunesmith »

scarmig wrote: post #260
jki275 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No we're not. That's absolutely absurd to claim. It might -- MIGHT -- kill 2-3% of people who are highly susceptible to it, people who are in their 70s+, people with cardiac and respiratory disease. Maybe. We don't even know that will happen, because we can probably save a huge percentage of that population as well. You're fearmongering, and it's bullshit.

You're... reverse fearmongering? Downplaying? Additionally, for someone calling others' claims bullshit, your numbers have no correspondence to reality. In Wuhan, the 3% number was for the general population; for the 70+ age range, it was ~20%.

3% of the infected, not 3% of everyone. You can't compare it to WW2 unless you assume everyone will be infected.

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

#292

Post by scarmig »

zbraniecki wrote: post #67
refurb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all about flattening the curve at this point. You can do your best to identify those infected and have them self-quarantine, but if the gates are open and infected people are streaming into your country, you're not going to get far.

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…

> Ugh, USA is at the moment likely on level with Europe.

Probably not true, as we don't have 1000 deaths yet. Though, give it two weeks, and we'll easily have caught up (to where Europe is today).

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

#293

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

ska wrote: post #252
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is external travel a significant input of new vectors compared to internal travel?

It certainly helps, it’s easier to control, and has a smaller impact on most people’s lives so more easily accepted. It’s not the most effective but other factors have to be considered, including social unrest. It seems a sensible decision IMO

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

#294

Post by Retric »

KarlKemp wrote: post #235
rsj_hn wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

OP's point wasn't "this is only going to have very limited effect", to which your reply "better than nothing" would be appropriate. Their point is that there's absolutely no effect of banning travel between two areas with similar prevalence, based on rather simple logic. Take two bags with mostly white and a similar number of red balls in them. Then, twenty times, grab one hand from each bag and empty it in the other…

First infections are not uniformly distributed. Second, by the nature of travel people get into close contact with more and more importantly different people than usual. 200 people sitting in an aircraft for 2 hours is inherently more risky than 200 people sitting in a theater for 2 hours as aircraft mix people from wider geographic areas. So, regardless of infection rates, this is beneficial for both Europe and the US at the same time.

Multiple cities with hundreds of thousands of people in both the US and Europe are infection free right now. Extending that for even a few weeks is very useful.

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

#295

Post by dlp211 »

mrtksn wrote: post #123
allovernow wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think some moron bumbled his way into the most powerful office in the world? Have you stopped to think about how unlikely something like that is? You may not agree with his style (I don't) or his personality (hate it) but the guy has to be minimally intelligent to make it as far as he has. At the very least he knows how to work a crowd and spot opportunity.

Elections are popularity contests. There are no qualification requirements for the job.

Which he didn't even win and is only there because of an anarchism in our government.

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

#296

Post by CydeWeys »

T-hawk wrote: post #264
KarlKemp wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP's point wasn't "this is only going to have very limited effect", to which your reply "better than nothing" would be appropriate. Their point is that there's absolutely no effect of banning travel between two areas with similar prevalence, based on rather simple logic. Take two bags with mostly white and a similar number of red balls in them. Then, twenty times, grab one hand from each bag and empty it in the other…

There is an effect, because traveling itself creates chances for exposure. Anyone traveling on an airplane or train in close quarters, or passing through an airport or transit facility, can pick up or pass on an infection. By your last analogy, the red balls would have paint rubbed off them in the exchanges.

Yes, but then we should be canceling all flights in the US (we should be). Only canceling flights to Europe is a tiny fraction of what's actually necessary here.

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

#297

Post by [deleted] »

corel_ wrote: post #80
nugget wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The situation in Europe will be much worse a month from now than it is today, unfortunately. I'd bet on this ban lasting closer to 90 days than 30.

I'm not sure where this level of panic is coming from. Numbers are about to spike everywhere pretty much no matter what anybody does, because better testing and funding has become available. Quarantining an entire continent, and even worse than this badly doing it, seems to be an astonishing overreaction. The average age of death for coronavirus victims is 83. The mortality rate seems to be as low as 0.6% in South Ko…

[deleted]

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

#298

Post by hnick »

KarlKemp wrote: post #235
rsj_hn wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

OP's point wasn't "this is only going to have very limited effect", to which your reply "better than nothing" would be appropriate. Their point is that there's absolutely no effect of banning travel between two areas with similar prevalence, based on rather simple logic. Take two bags with mostly white and a similar number of red balls in them. Then, twenty times, grab one hand from each bag and empty it in the other…

Apart from the other two replies, the corollary of your point is that travel from a lower incidence area to a higher incidence area actually reduces the risk in the latter.

But this is clearly false because population density is another important factor for contact between people.

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

#299

Post by Jommi »

jessriedel wrote: post #289
Jommi wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully it was just a small error... Also looks like it won't affect outbound flights either?

Outbound flights are going to get a hell of a lot more expensive if all the planes have to return to the US empty.

Would assume that any flights booked in under 30 days before travel will be expensive no matter what the situation.

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

#300

Post by knzhou »

ska wrote: post #246
knzhou wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning travel isn't a magic cure-all that guarantees zero cases, it just lowers the initial caseload. That's extremely important because exponential growth is extremely slow in the beginning -- it takes as long to go from 1 to 100 as 100 to 10,000. If banning travel reduces 100 starter cases to 1, you double the time you have.

Problem being, best information is there is no solid numbers on initial case load in the US, for structural reasons. So while your argument may be correct, it may be too late for this to make a difference (perhaps with equal likelihood, but we don't know.)

Yeah, I'd agree with that. At this point it would help a tiny bit, but only because it slightly decreases links between people, like a social distancing measure does.
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