Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country • Hacker News Board

Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country

#41

Post by dehrmann » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 11:14 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #4

Lots of countries have. I was on one of the last flights to transit through Taiwan. Here in the UK, the government have been talking about a program to get brits back from Australia because many of the places you have to stop and refuel are closed even to transiting passengers. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-travel-re... https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/australia/return-to...

> get brits back from Australia

There is/was a commercial non-stop from Perth to Heathrow, and with how many people they'd be flying, you could also use a half-filled 787.

Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country

#42

Post by spindle » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 11:16 PM UTC

lolc wrote: post #24

Is it reasonable to assume, at this point, that international travel is still a relevant contributor to the spread of the virus? Apart from reducing travel overall, I don't see how the ban could have an impact once the virus is distributed. Especially since domestic flights seem to continue. Initially, yes. It could have changed things. But this action now feels way too late. Like two months late. It feels like a nat…

I believe there are at least three issues:

1. My guess is that you're right, the main reason this is happening is a nationalistic wish to blame others for the spread.

But also:

2. As other commentators have noticed, it's difficult to socially distance in an airport. On the plane itself, there is extremely good ventilation and what limited evidence I've seen suggests that transmission is low, but in airports that might not be the case (I'm not sure).

3. Air crew may refuse to fly. Of course there are many other service professions in which enormous numbers of staff are being asked to expose themselves to a high risk of infection ... but almost all of those staff are (sadly) easy to replace if they refuse, whereas pilots are not.

Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country

#43

Post by spindle » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 11:21 PM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #41

LatteLazy wrote: post #4

Lots of countries have. I was on one of the last flights to transit through Taiwan. Here in the UK, the government have been talking about a program to get brits back from Australia because many of the places you have to stop and refuel are closed even to transiting passengers. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-travel-re... https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/australia/return-to...

> get brits back from Australia There is/was a commercial non-stop from Perth to Heathrow, and with how many people they'd be flying, you could also use a half-filled 787.

Right, Qantas was getting people across via Perth (and also, briefly, Darwin) until recently, but now Qantas has stopped flying, and I don't think those routes are available to other airlines.

Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country

#44

Post by jariel » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 11:26 PM UTC

lolc wrote: post #24

Is it reasonable to assume, at this point, that international travel is still a relevant contributor to the spread of the virus? Apart from reducing travel overall, I don't see how the ban could have an impact once the virus is distributed. Especially since domestic flights seem to continue. Initially, yes. It could have changed things. But this action now feels way too late. Like two months late. It feels like a nat…

Hugely. Taiwan is an 'isolated island' with no outbreak i.e. no community spread. They have the 300 cases there nailed down. So anyone coming in the country is a source of contamination.

Otherwise - this is still a problem.

In my little regional city in Canada - cases are small and they've already peaked. Case load is small enough that we are now a 'landlocked' island. Within days we could feasibly 'go back to work' were we to be sure nobody is 'entering the bubble'. That won't be the case, but you see what I mean.

I think borders are a pretty big deal in terms of being able to contain this problem.

I suggest that in order to travel internationally in the next little while, it might be required to have a 'test card' indicating you're clean from COVID within the last x number of days for example.

Either that or everyone coming into a country has to isolate for x days.

Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country

#45

Post by starik36 » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 11:32 PM UTC

freefal wrote: post #11

I thought this happened a week ago when they suspended the Candidates chess tournament.

It was announced during the tournament with a grace period, which has now expired. I feel bad for Rajubov who actually predicted this happening and they kicked him out of the tournament.

Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country

#46

Post by Jedd » Sat, Apr 04, 2020, 11:53 PM UTC

lolc wrote: post #24

Is it reasonable to assume, at this point, that international travel is still a relevant contributor to the spread of the virus? Apart from reducing travel overall, I don't see how the ban could have an impact once the virus is distributed. Especially since domestic flights seem to continue. Initially, yes. It could have changed things. But this action now feels way too late. Like two months late. It feels like a nat…

Yes, it's reasonable to assume it's a contributor to the spread -- but I'm not sure what you mean by 'relevant'. Significant? (un)controllable? Worth bothering with?

I can't find the article now, but a week or two ago Singapore and South Korea (IIRC) were claiming most of their new cases were imports, as they'd been approaching some level of control (via tracking & testing) within their borders.

Because different countries have wildly different attitudes, policies, and procedures - the best place to enforce domestic controls are at your own border.

As you say, domestic travel can and will also spread the virus, but that doesn't mean you throw arms in the air and accept all travellers from everywhere.

Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country

#47

Post by tomp » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 12:03 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #12

jessaustin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Democracy"? Is that what we're talking about? Read the transcript: "We're gonna, you know, choose our standard bearer, and we're gonna follow these general rules of the road, which we are voluntarily deciding, we could have -- and we could have voluntarily decided that, Look, we're gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way. That's not the way it was done. But they co…

I'm not, but do you have some concrete plan for when the polls should have been rescheduled to? A democratic country can't indefinitely postpone elections, no matter what the costs of holding them are.

It's not the country's elections, it's a political party's. And last time, the result was decided in advance, so not actually that democratic...

Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country

#48

Post by tomp » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 12:04 AM UTC

krasin wrote: post #8

heurifk wrote: post #6

I suspect this is to deter Russians from coming home for the Orthodox Easter which is way more important than in the West.

I am a Russian living abroad. I know literally no one coming back to Russia for Easter. It's the first time I even heard of this idea. Summer or New Year are the times when Russians are more likely to go to visit their relatives and friends.

The only reason I got home to Slovenia for Easter is, it's a 4-day-weekend in the UK.

Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country

#49

Post by mirimir » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 12:04 AM UTC

Huh. I live in a rural area. Tourism (hunting, fishing, etc) is the main driver for visitors. Now many locals do not want visitors, notwithstanding the money that they spend.

Re: Russia has halted all flights into and out of the country

#50

Post by creato » Sun, Apr 05, 2020, 12:05 AM UTC

spindle wrote: post #42

lolc wrote: post #24

Is it reasonable to assume, at this point, that international travel is still a relevant contributor to the spread of the virus? Apart from reducing travel overall, I don't see how the ban could have an impact once the virus is distributed. Especially since domestic flights seem to continue. Initially, yes. It could have changed things. But this action now feels way too late. Like two months late. It feels like a nat…

I believe there are at least three issues: 1. My guess is that you're right, the main reason this is happening is a nationalistic wish to blame others for the spread. But also: 2. As other commentators have noticed, it's difficult to socially distance in an airport. On the plane itself, there is extremely good ventilation and what limited evidence I've seen suggests that transmission is low, but in airports that migh…

> 1. My guess is that you're right, the main reason this is happening is a nationalistic wish to blame others for the spread.

More than half of the world's population is under lockdown within their countries, and you still think that shutting down air travel is a nationalistic wish?