5 ms·

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 over

by lolc 7y ago

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 nationalistic rally of blaming others for the spread.

Retric 7y ago
I suspect it’s the airports and aircraft themselves rather than the destination that’s at issue. Small isolated groups may become infected, but they are far less likely to infect others outside the group. Airports inherently mix people from large areas within a country together which crosses those boundaries.
chrisseaton 7y ago
How can you possibly fly while social-distancing? Even in first class.
spindle 7y ago
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.
- creato 7y ago
  > 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?
  - lolc 7y ago
    Isn't it curious that they make a distinction between international and domestic travel at this point? If air travel is spreading the disease, why not shut it all down?
    - Klinky 7y ago
      Because they are making the same short-sighted and overly-optimistic decisions practically every other country has made so far?
  - jcranmer 7y ago
    As others point out, by distinguishing domestic from international travel, you're implying that you believe your citizens are smart, intelligent, and know not to travel, but you can't trust other citizens to do that. That implication is what it makes it nationalistic. More practically, though, is that it's a measure that can only be effective if domestic transmission is not a major cause of new cases, which is true in only very few countries right now (and I believe none of those countries have banned visitors). Enacting such a policy at this late stage is a measure that looks like you're taking a strong stance while having virtually no effect at all, and could well be an attempt to distract from your own failures to contain it beforehand. Given the way Putin has governed in the past decade, I am rather more inclined to believe that the primary goal of this measure is in fact propaganda.
    - mopsi 7y ago
      > As others point out, by distinguishing domestic from international travel, you're implying that you believe your citizens are smart, intelligent, and know not to travel, but you can't trust other citizens to do that. That implication is what it makes it nationalistic. There is no need to make up conspiracy theories. Domestic flights are essential in a country the size of Russia, international flights are not. The same thing can be seen elsewhere. For example, TAP Portugal has grounded all flights except those between the mainland and Madeira / Azores.
- lolc 7y ago
  > 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). I doubt that airplanes are in any way safer than airports. In an airplane it's hard not to touch places other people's droplets have reached.
jariel 7y ago
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.
Jedd 7y ago
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.
- lolc 7y ago
  I meant significant. I don't think Russia is at a point that compares well with South Korea. For SK I can understand when they differentiate between domestic and international fights.
  - Jedd 7y ago
    Okay. I tend to side with the 'do everything we can' approach, on the assumption that'll save more suffering and lives, and with the anecdotal evidence coming in from regions that have not done everything they could, and with an optimistic expectation that it'll reduce the length of time it takes to bring it into manageable spread rate. It may not have a profound impact on the spread within (and indeed outside) Russia, but it almost definitely will have some impact, and at this point that's probably sufficient reason in itself.
refurb 7y ago
Take a look at Vietnam and Singapore. Both clamped down hard back in January. They were keeping their numbers quite low (<100), especially impressive considering Vietnam is 100M people. Once the virus spread to other countries and they started to shutdown, a lot of Singapore and Vietnamese nationals returned home. Contact tracing indicated that almost 100% of new cases were people returning from overseas. Last I checked Singapore has close to 1,000 cases and Vietnam almost 300. To answer your question, yes, stopping international travel can have a big impact on controlling the disease.
- colmvp 7y ago
  As a Canadian, I find it frustrating that for weeks, the Federal government was hesitant to halt air travel, citing the WHO who stated that closing borders showed little evidence on slowing the transmission of influenza (https://postmediaedmontonjournal2.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/who.policy.png https://postmediaedmontonjournal2.files.wordpress.com/2020/0...) And in the end, we ended up closing our borders except well beyond the time when it could've made a major difference.
- rfoo 7y ago
  It may help, but Italy (also shutdown flights to/from China in January) shows that the impact is not big enough.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    Italy has a lot of Chinese-staffed sweatshops. All it would take is one infectee to start their new job in December or January to start the steamroller going.
klenwell 7y ago
That would be my assumption as well. I would hypothesize that once the virus is well seeded within a country, the contribution by new travelers is dwarfed by internal propagation. Using the famous Washington Post simulation as a reference: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-si... I imagine it's like the second scenario in reverse. Rather than the wall opening, picture it closing after the virus is already spreading uncontained on either side. Of course, it could be a significant factor in keeping the outbreak initially contained. But that involves an even more fanciful assumption in my view: that you could impose and really tightly enforce a ban early enough to matter. The continued pressure from Trump and many of his political allies to "open the economy" -- and their resistance to "shutting it down" in the first place -- shows such a proposition, offered at a point it would have mattered (if that were even possible with the initial stonewalling by China on the severity of the outbreak) would almost certainly have been cried down as paranoia and overreaction by the kind of business and political interests who hold real influence over these matters.
8bitsrule 7y ago
Based on what I've read about how and where the outbreaks started, I'm pretty sure that when this is over and the analysis comes in, air-travel will get the blame for the early and rapid spread of this virus. It looks clear that Taiwan's robust success is the result of immediate quarantine of travelers. Two people recently flew into a Gwitchin community in the Yukon expecting to live off the land. They were quickly (and angrily) isolated and flown back to Whitehorse by the RCMP.

by lolc 7y ago

Retric 7y ago

I suspect it’s the airports and aircraft themselves rather than the destination that’s at issue. Small isolated groups may become infected, but they are far less likely to infect others outside the group. Airports inherently mix people from large areas within a country together which crosses those boundaries.

chrisseaton 7y ago

How can you possibly fly while social-distancing? Even in first class.

spindle 7y ago

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.

creato 7y ago
> 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?
- lolc 7y ago
  Isn't it curious that they make a distinction between international and domestic travel at this point? If air travel is spreading the disease, why not shut it all down?
  - Klinky 7y ago
    Because they are making the same short-sighted and overly-optimistic decisions practically every other country has made so far?
- jcranmer 7y ago
  As others point out, by distinguishing domestic from international travel, you're implying that you believe your citizens are smart, intelligent, and know not to travel, but you can't trust other citizens to do that. That implication is what it makes it nationalistic. More practically, though, is that it's a measure that can only be effective if domestic transmission is not a major cause of new cases, which is true in only very few countries right now (and I believe none of those countries have banned visitors). Enacting such a policy at this late stage is a measure that looks like you're taking a strong stance while having virtually no effect at all, and could well be an attempt to distract from your own failures to contain it beforehand. Given the way Putin has governed in the past decade, I am rather more inclined to believe that the primary goal of this measure is in fact propaganda.
  - mopsi 7y ago
    > As others point out, by distinguishing domestic from international travel, you're implying that you believe your citizens are smart, intelligent, and know not to travel, but you can't trust other citizens to do that. That implication is what it makes it nationalistic. There is no need to make up conspiracy theories. Domestic flights are essential in a country the size of Russia, international flights are not. The same thing can be seen elsewhere. For example, TAP Portugal has grounded all flights except those between the mainland and Madeira / Azores.
lolc 7y ago
> 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). I doubt that airplanes are in any way safer than airports. In an airplane it's hard not to touch places other people's droplets have reached.

jariel 7y ago

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.

Jedd 7y ago

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.

lolc 7y ago
I meant significant. I don't think Russia is at a point that compares well with South Korea. For SK I can understand when they differentiate between domestic and international fights.
- Jedd 7y ago
  Okay. I tend to side with the 'do everything we can' approach, on the assumption that'll save more suffering and lives, and with the anecdotal evidence coming in from regions that have not done everything they could, and with an optimistic expectation that it'll reduce the length of time it takes to bring it into manageable spread rate. It may not have a profound impact on the spread within (and indeed outside) Russia, but it almost definitely will have some impact, and at this point that's probably sufficient reason in itself.

refurb 7y ago

Take a look at Vietnam and Singapore. Both clamped down hard back in January. They were keeping their numbers quite low (<100), especially impressive considering Vietnam is 100M people. Once the virus spread to other countries and they started to shutdown, a lot of Singapore and Vietnamese nationals returned home. Contact tracing indicated that almost 100% of new cases were people returning from overseas. Last I checked Singapore has close to 1,000 cases and Vietnam almost 300. To answer your question, yes, stopping international travel can have a big impact on controlling the disease.

colmvp 7y ago
As a Canadian, I find it frustrating that for weeks, the Federal government was hesitant to halt air travel, citing the WHO who stated that closing borders showed little evidence on slowing the transmission of influenza (https://postmediaedmontonjournal2.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/who.policy.png https://postmediaedmontonjournal2.files.wordpress.com/2020/0...) And in the end, we ended up closing our borders except well beyond the time when it could've made a major difference.
rfoo 7y ago
It may help, but Italy (also shutdown flights to/from China in January) shows that the impact is not big enough.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  Italy has a lot of Chinese-staffed sweatshops. All it would take is one infectee to start their new job in December or January to start the steamroller going.

klenwell 7y ago

That would be my assumption as well. I would hypothesize that once the virus is well seeded within a country, the contribution by new travelers is dwarfed by internal propagation. Using the famous Washington Post simulation as a reference: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-si... I imagine it's like the second scenario in reverse. Rather than the wall opening, picture it closing after the virus is already spreading uncontained on either side. Of course, it could be a significant factor in keeping the outbreak initially contained. But that involves an even more fanciful assumption in my view: that you could impose and really tightly enforce a ban early enough to matter. The continued pressure from Trump and many of his political allies to "open the economy" -- and their resistance to "shutting it down" in the first place -- shows such a proposition, offered at a point it would have mattered (if that were even possible with the initial stonewalling by China on the severity of the outbreak) would almost certainly have been cried down as paranoia and overreaction by the kind of business and political interests who hold real influence over these matters.

8bitsrule 7y ago

Based on what I've read about how and where the outbreaks started, I'm pretty sure that when this is over and the analysis comes in, air-travel will get the blame for the early and rapid spread of this virus. It looks clear that Taiwan's robust success is the result of immediate quarantine of travelers. Two people recently flew into a Gwitchin community in the Yukon expecting to live off the land. They were quickly (and angrily) isolated and flown back to Whitehorse by the RCMP.