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

811–820 of 919 posts

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

#811

Post by dx034 »

jurgenaut23 wrote: post #706
dx034 wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The details are unclear anyway. What about Schengen citizens living in the UK? I can imagine they'll generally let people in from UK and Ireland but question them about travel history and maybe proof of residence. Lying to a border agent gets you banned for life, that should be a decent deterrent. In the end, it's not like a terrorism threat where the ones trying hardest are the ones you need to catch. Here, keeping…

You realize that the U.S. has probably many more infectious areas than Europe?

They certainly do have many but travelers from Europe could still introduce more infection clusters, especially in major cities.

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

#812

Post by dx034 »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #692
dx034 wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can people coming from other parts just have a layover in UK and be get permission to enter the US? I believe anyone who's been to the Schengen Area in the past x days faces the ban. Excluding the UK and Ireland surely had political reasons (the UK now also has >400 cases) but it's hard to define Europe if you don't use either Schengen or EU (both of which the UK isn't a part of).

>it's hard to define Europe if you don't use either Schengen or EU The mass of land resting North of the Mediterranean sea and West of the Ural mountains from which there is no land route to America.

So you'd include parts of Russia and Turkey but leave out others? That's gonna be hard to define at the border.

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

#813

Post by jacquesm »

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…

The President, for want of a better term is an idiot. When there is plenty of time to act he does nothing, and when the crisis is in full swing he makes symbolic gestures that have but one goal: to increase his chances of re-election. This has absolutely nothing to do with public health.

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

#814

Post by tluyben2 »

dx034 wrote: post #631
dboreham wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a non-expert on coughing dynamics, it seems incredible that one person can infect 50 others by this mechanism (reported New Rochelle transmission from one patient, confirmed by contact tracing and testing contacts).

At a carnival party in Germany with 350 guests, more than 40 were infected by a single guest. That gives an idea how well it spreads in enclosed spaces. You can assume there was somewhat close contact, but I've been to business meetings with also at least 5-10 people <6ft from me. That's how it can spread through a company within days.

I have not been to carnival parties for 20 odd years, but as I remember them (in NL/border with DE), everyone is drunk, hugging, kissing (often on the mouth with perfect strangers), vomiting, not washing hands after toilet (is there a toilet even??), falling over each other and also having sex. Maybe times have changed, but if it still is remotely like that I can definitely see someone infecting 40+ other people.

I mean, we have city parties here 'for all the family' which result in everyone touching each other (just as friends mostly of course but still touching hands, shoulders, neck, face, back), kissing (mostly on cheeks with strangers, but you mostly 'friendly' kiss everyone meet/talk/dance with and otherwise shake hands or even both) but all the other factors do apply as well; bad/no toilets, no soap/water, everyone drunk so who washes their hands anyway, vomiting and not being so careful with putting your sleeve in front of your face when you sneeze or cough... I only go during the day to such things if I go at all (when most people can still walk up straight) because it is rather disgusting after a while (I am old; I used to like that when I was young), but I can see a few people infecting basically everyone if they are popular/drunk enough.

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

#815

Post by jacquesm »

knzhou wrote: post #17

I get that they excluded the UK for diplomatic reasons, but it's literally only a few days behind the rest of Europe in terms of infection count, which means this will have almost no effect. I actually think banning travel from China months ago was a good call, but by analogous reasoning, the right time to ban travel from Europe (including the UK) was last week.

> it's literally only a few days behind the rest of Europe in terms of infection count

And it's ahead of some Schengen countries.

Besides that, it is the 'per capita' part that matters and there are great differences between the various countries as to how many tests have been administered, leading to severe discrepancies in the relative pictures between countries.

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

#816

Post by mantap »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #351
TMWNN wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I get that they excluded the UK for diplomatic reasons No, Ireland is also exempt. In other words, the US is banning travel from the Schengen Zone.

Doesn't mean it's not still partly political, to be clear.

It's rational. UK epidemic is not yet out of control. If you look at the region breakdown in UK the cases are very well geographically distributed, the highest concentration as of yesterday is Hertfordshire with only 13 cases, or London with 100 cases if you consider that one administrative unit. Some epidemics in Schengen are highly focused on specific areas which means the growth rate can be expected to be higher. It makes sense to consider Schengen as one unit as it has open borders. It would make little sense to ban travel from individual countries in Schengen.

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

#817

Post by jacquesm »

thyselius wrote: post #648
klintcho wrote: post #626

One thing though; which airline will fly only american citizen back from europe? will they fill a plane with those customers only? I think my main concern is that most if not all major European airlines will cancel all flights, regardless if there are a couple of US citizen on the flights. Meaning it's probably still going to be somewhat problematic to get back (if not from London then of course)

I'm trying to find more information about this, as I'm a tourist visiting the US flying back on Sunday. Does anyone know how this will play out, will they keep flying FROM the US to Europe?

You will want to move while you can. I got caught out due to the 9/11 flight ban and that really wrecked my life for a while.

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

#818

Post by SamReidHughes »

chimprich wrote: post #762
simonh wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s only a matter of time before it starts over there again, even if through back-propagation from other countries. Everyone’s talking as though China solved the problem. Incredible.

They don't need to solve the problem, just keep the infection rate slow enough to be controlled medically. And then keep everything locked down enough until we can get a vaccine produced. Admittedly, a gargantuan task, and I don't think it's going to happen anywhere else.

They don't need to do that either, they could just let more people die.

That's what you're proposing, if you don't realize it. If you get the growth rate below 1, you can wipe out the disease, instead of merely delaying it.

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

#819

Post by blaser-waffle »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #508
rsj_hn wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are valid points. As to the test kits, I keep hearing conflicting info -- e.g. that there was a shortage of ingredients, too much FDA red tape, etc. There will plenty of root cause analysis in the future, but I think we have to reshore critical infrastructure and there is lots of red tape to cut in both CDC and FDA.

My personal theory is that someone in the executive branch wanted to secure an exclusive contract for a personal friend. Something similar happened in the first few months of the Kuwait oil fires, with certain american fire fighting firms being given exclusive contracts to fight the fires, despite lacking the technology and expertise to extinguish them. But I'm just a cynical man. It could very well be something else…

Could be, think of Homeland Security and those new(er) airport scanners. Mike Chertoff, formerly Secretary of Homeland Security, was instrumental in making them happen. He also happened to own a huge stake in the company that made them, since acquired by BAE Systems (who later made him a Chairman).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff

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

#820

Post by toomuchtodo »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #791
squiggleblaz wrote: post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without a passport? If I rocked up to the border of my country without a passport I'm pretty sure I'd be thrown into a detention centre if I wasn't deported on the spot.

You can't fly to the US without a passport. They wouldn't let you board the plane without it.

You and OP are both right. No one will let you (as a US citizen) board an aircraft back to the US without a passport (so you'll have to head over to a local embassy to get a replacement if you don't have one on your person), but CBP must (not shall, must) allow you re-admittance at a land border without a passport (at which point they will verify your citizenship through a tedious process).
Post reply on HN