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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

#331

Post by pedrosorio »

guerrilla wrote: post #237
dcolkitt wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, Americans have much larger and more comfortable homes than Europeans. Americans have big garages to stockpile supplies, which means less trips to the store. Very few people use public transportation regularly. Most people have private back yards. Many more meals are take-out or drive-thru. More Americans use e-commerce for shopping than Europeans. In Europe by contrast, much more of life revolves a…

It sounds like you've never been outside of a city in Europe and never been to a city in the US? Urban population in the EU in 2018 is 76% while 82% for the same year in the US according to The World Bank.

> and never been to a city in the US?

Have you? Most of the US urban population in the US fits the points of the OP:

- Very few people use public transportation regularly (they use cars, in the cities, yes)

- Most people have private back yards (the infamous "American suburbs", where 50% of Americans live, count towards the urban population you mention)

- Many more meals are take-out or drive-thru

- More Americans use e-commerce for shopping than Europeans

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

#332

Post by nomel »

endorphone wrote: post #210
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…

I think elementary/high schools are how this will spread through communities with the most efficiency. Collect a person from each family, mix them together with the poorest respect for hygiene, then send them home, 5 times a week.

Here's the perspective of a San Jose public high school [1] proving that containment isn't a concern:

> Oak Grove High School officials said they were not considering school closures because “children have not been shown to be a high-risk group for serious illness from this virus.” The Centers for Disease Control said last week that limited reports showed child COVID-19 patients in China had generally presented with mild symptoms.

> “As much as possible, children should be allowed to carry on with their education and normal activities,” school officials said.

Related, a family member received a "exposure notice" from her child's school that one of the students tested positive. No closure.

There's no attempt for containment in the US. My hunch is that it's not needed as much as is being suggested by some. I guess we'll see.

[1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/08/oak-grove-high-school...

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

#333

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

ska wrote: post #316
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That doesn't answer the "significant" part, I think. It's an easy decision for the reasons you mention, but that doesn't mean it has a significant impact.

Depending on how spread goes, it would be easier to ban internal travel after banning international travel than going 0 to 100% ban in one swoop. Don’t underestimate that the damage of social unrest can easily surpass the potential damage of the virus. Remember public policies deal with people with emotions, not robots.

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

#334

Post by vanattab »

scurvy wrote: post #303
thedance wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stonks already hit the downside circuit breakers.

Not sure what you're looking at, but the S&P500 e-mini futures are still trading. No breakers were hit.

He is referring to the other day when trading was stop for 15 mins

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

#335

Post by yellowapple »

knzhou wrote: post #180
ajross wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the right time to ban travel from Europe (including the UK) was last week. The US had active uncontained clusters, and was known to have them, two weeks ago. Once that's true, there's no way that mere travel numbers are going to move that needles significantly. Again: we banned travel from China and it was too late already . This does not work. And I'm horrified at the number of people on this site that don't see t…

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.

> it just lowers the initial caseload

If it's done in time to prevent the bulk of that initial caseload, which is almost certainly not the case here.

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

#336

Post by lordlic »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #304
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…

Also, do they mean SS and Medicare contributions in the payroll taxes, or just unemployment insurance? Like if we have a health crisis that disproportionately affects people who rely on Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security, taking away funding for it isn't bonkers. It's batshit insane! We should be doubling, tripling taxes in the short term on those that can pay it to make up the funding gap for testing, treatment,…

I'm all for expanding Medicare and Social Security, but to be fair the government is perfectly able to continue funding these things on a temporary basis without payroll tax receipts. Presumably a bill to freeze FICA taxes would also contain a provision for funding the expected shortfall with a transfer from the general fund or new federal debt issuance.

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

#338

Post by chrisco255 »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #302
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…

Banning public gatherings is really something that should be done on the municipal level, maybe the state level. The federal government should not have the power to disrupt every day life from thousands of miles away.

Exactly. And blanket policies are almost always terrible. Local communities have different constraints and different environments. There's no reason to believe that Fargo, North Dakota should have to respond to this in the same way that New York City does.

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

#339

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

scottLobster wrote: post #6
cj wrote: post #4

I see in some places it says this includes cargo / shipping. Is that true?

Watched the broadcast live, yes it includes cargo shipments. Something tells me the markets are going to react badly to that one

Futures are already way down. I am almost debating staying home tomorrow just to trade. But as other posters pointed out, he seems to have mispoken.

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

#340

Post by defined »

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…

Death is not the only thing that coronavirus can do to you.

You can spend weeks or months in therapy before you are recovered, or you can get scarring in your lungs - or worse - that leaves you with a permanent disability. Not to mention damage to other organs.

I think many are discounting, or are unaware of, these other nasty possibilities. We don’t know enough yet of the prevalence of these effects, but we do know they happen.

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