'Sea Prison': Covid-19 has left hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded

Post by s_Hogg » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 5:28 AM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #37

ForHackernews wrote: post #10

I don't see how they can justify keeping these people trapped on ships while plenty of business and leisure travellers jet back and forth around the world. I'd understand if we were actually enforcing a real quarantine with closed borders, but we're not. What makes these maritime workers such a greater risk? Is it just that they're not wealthy citizens of western nations?

> plenty of business and leisure travellers jet back and forth around the world. Not any more, the last few weeks have seen several countries completely prevent people setting off for leisure travel, closing their borders not just to entry but to exit. Australia did it already early last year. The argument is that those travelers will return at some point and bring new COVID strains back, but I’m uncomfortable with c…

Post by s_Hogg » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 8:21 AM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #53

s_Hogg wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australian here. Our rules allow you to leave if you've got a reason to be gone longer than 3 months. My sister lives overseas and has come back twice and been allowed to leave each time (at great expense). The rule is specifically about leisure travellers and business trips that could be done with zoom. If you've got a funeral to go to you get an exemption as well, for example.

> Our rules allow you to leave if you've got a reason to be gone longer than 3 months. What happens if an Aussie simply says "There are some countries out there that are relatively unconcerned with COVID right now, I would rather be traveling them for the indefinite future instead of staying home"? Would the state still prevent him or her from leaving?

Post by closeparen » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

lambda_obrien wrote: post #14

msandford wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the huge risk is that it takes days or weeks to travel between ports thus giving the virus time to incubate and show itself unlike flyers. We can't have people who mostly aren't a threat causing problems! Seriously these people present less of a threat than jet travel but they are decidedly blue collar. Maybe that's the distinction?

It's even easier than that: quarantine any ship that has made port in the last 2 weeks and the crew was allowed to disembark and let any ship with no sign of disease where the crew has been onboard for 2 weeks to disembark. Then, the crews can disembark at least every 2 weeks, and it's pretty simple to verify whether a ship has allowed it's crew to disembark; check their port logs.

Post by ehnto » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 5:45 AM UTC

vulcan01 wrote: post #57

ehnto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Zealand is a state of Australia according to the Australian constitution. It's just that New Zealand thought that was a bit silly and never paid it any attention, and Australia thought that was fair enough.

Holy crap, this is actually true. I thought it was a joke. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2017/12/revealed-...

Post by deathlight » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 11:06 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #13

ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.4 million is an exceptionally small number of people compared to the size of the oceans. You could fit all 7+ billion humans in New Zealand if we all lived as densely as Manhattan. [1] So 1.4 million people on the oceans is still virtually empty overall. Think about it this way. There are 3.2 million Mongolians and Mongolia is quite large -- thus, Mongolia is extremely empty. There are less than half as many seafar…

I'm just trying to imagine a city the size of New Zealand, Australia devoted to agriculture and the rest of the planet devoted to nature. That would be quite a statement with respect to stewardship of the planet.