5 ms·
A few passages from the article: > But the trouble is, they don’t appear to be helpful. At best, travel restrictions, and even airport screenings, delay the sp
by CamelCaseName 7y ago
A few passages from the article:
> But the trouble is, they don’t appear to be helpful. At best, travel restrictions, and even airport screenings, delay the spread of disease but don’t impact the number of people who eventually get sick. Instead, they make it harder for international aid and experts to reach communities affected by disease. They are also expensive, resource-intensive, and potentially harmful to the economies of cities and countries involved.
On the H1N1 travel bans:
> Again, reduced travel delayed (by three days!) but didn’t stop disease spread. The authors wrote, “No containment was achieved by such restrictions and the virus was able to reach pandemic proportions in a short time.”
So, why?
> It’s expensive and nearly impossible to seal off the borders of a country, the authors of the paper wrote. People will inevitably move — even indirectly from the countries that are quarantined.
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The article gives a number of examples as well.
- staticautomatic 7y agoHow can a ban only on nonessential travel affect aid workers and experts, who are clearly essential?
- throwanem 7y agoHave you never seen a bureaucracy in a hurry? It is not, to borrow a word, agile.
- staticautomatic 7y agoI don't understand what your point is. Are you saying the bans are not limited to non-essential travel? Because everything I've read about them thus far has said they are.
- topmonk 7y agoHow about in a nearly empty airport?
- diffeomorphism 7y agoBecause now they have to go through all the paperwork, waiting and hassle to document that they "clearly" are essential... several times. Bureaucracy is never, ever frictionless.
- staticautomatic 7y agoThat may well be the case. I don't have any firsthand knowledge of the process. Do you?
- throwanem 7y agoDo you have a strong prior for large bureaucracies, especially at their interfaces with one another, not being sluggish? If so, how do you come by it? If not, whence comes the doubt whose benefit you seem so anxious to give?
- staticautomatic 7y agoMy comment is rooted in a general reluctance to make assumptions about things that have empirical or theoretically provable answers, particularly ones that could be obtained without much effort. Some people call it "science."
- throwanem 7y agoOh, well. Shouldn't you be citing me into silence, then? This mere unsupported assertion ill befits a man of science, after all.
- diffeomorphism 7y agoYes, I have lots of knowledge of bureaucracy. Do you have any firsthand knowledge to expect that this one specifically will be entirely unlike any other bureaucracy in existence?
- SamReidHughes 7y agoThe article is innumerate, conflating "doesn't stop" with "doesn't mitigate." The reason is, epidemics don't play out in a manner such that everybody gets exposed with the same severity or to an identical strain of the virus. That's why staying home from work when sick actually helps.