6 ms·

What's unsensible or civically irresponsible about moving yourself and your family to a more sparsely populated location or increasing interpersonal distance wi

What's unsensible or civically irresponsible about moving yourself and your family to a more sparsely populated location or increasing interpersonal distance within your own household ?

barbegal 7y ago
I think the main reason is because rural areas have surplus housing stock but don't have similar surpluses in other resources such as supermarkets, internet connectivity, hospitals, pharmacies etc. One family has no impact but millions of people all moving from cities into the countryside will cause harm.
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Well, unless you're going to live in a tent, there's not a lot of surplus housing out here in the country. Certainly not 1% what it would take to take in refugees from populous cities.
lidHanteyk 7y ago
It's not sheltering in place, it's sheltering somewhere else. That's the entire difference. And since this is a group responsibility, that we as a society all must bear, it is civically irresponsible to not shelter in place.
- seemslegit 7y ago
  If you treat this as an obidience exercise then maybe, but the goal is to reduce covid19 transmission - so by all means anyone who can move themselves to the country side and spend their days roaming alone or with people they live with anyway should be free to do so.
  - cameronfraser 7y ago
    Traveling is literally one of the worst things you can do in trying to reduce transmission, especially with what we know about people being asymptomatic. These small towns would be otherwise shielded from the virus if it wasn't for people from large cities trying to escape there. They also don't have the infrastructure to support the influx of people.
    - seemslegit 7y ago
      If you travel by train or other form of public transport then yeah but not if you take your own car, given that half the airbnb checkins I did before the pandemic involved zero human interaction arranging this shouldn't be too difficult. I'm assuming that people moving in to shelter from covid19 are doing just that - rent for a month and longer and keep the same precautions as they would in a city , wear a mask and gloves to the stores and keep 2m+ distance. Obviously if somebody takes it as a good time to do Hadrian's wall trail with a different Airbnb every night it's a bad idea. > These small towns would be otherwise shielded from the virus if it wasn't for people from large cities trying to escape there. This is a terrible assumption to make in the first place and I hope nobody in decision-making capacity in those towns is in fact making it, the added risk to town people should be minimal because no additional interaction should be taking place. And if the town wanted to otherwise avoid lockdown or keep its pub open but won't because of airbnb-ers then it's probably a net win for the town. And how many vacant houses does an average country town have anyway so that airbnbs are a risk of stressing the infrastructure ?
      - cameronfraser 7y ago
        > but not if you take your own car Do you not stop to get gas? What if you yourself are asymptomatic and spreading it every time you stop. > the added risk to town people should be minimal because no additional interaction should be taking place except people need to go to grocery stores still, the amount of food going into local stores is meant to sustain the current population
        seemslegit 7y ago
        > Do you not stop to get gas? What if you yourself are asymptomatic and spreading it every time you stop. You wear a mask and disposable gloves which you replace after pumping gas, exchanging cash etc - just like you're supposed to be doing in the city or a suburb. > except people need to go to grocery stores still, the amount of food going into local stores is meant to sustain the current population Mask, gloves, 2m+ distance, again just like in the city. The amount of food going into local stores adjusts itself with demand, this is a crisis but still not ww2.
seemslegit 7y ago
barbegal, JoeAltmaier - kindly make up your mind on whether there's a large enough housing surplus in the country so that AirBnb tennants will create an undue burden on community resources or not enough of it so as to be equitably accessible to a large proportion of the population.
scarecrowbob 7y ago
You might look at why Moab is "Closed" and San Juan county in CO is "locals only". Those places don't have a medical system in place to work with this pandemic, and adding people-- especially people who have been traveling-- puts stress on a small and possibly fragile system. That seems slightly irresponsible to me. Among several other reasons, that's why I'm locked down in Texas with a friend instead of returning to Durango and the apartment I've been renting for the last year.
duxup 7y ago
A lot of rural medical systems (especially in the US) are hardly capable of caring for their own, have few if any intensive care beds, etc.
Threeve303 7y ago
I was in the process of moving when all of this happened and without airbnb "retreats", I would've had to risk getting on a plane to fly home. Otherwise, not sure where I would've ended up. Just a different perspective.
merightno 7y ago
A family from NYC has a much higher risk of having COVID-19 due to being from the city where people are on top of each other than a family from the country, and the level of this risk is roughly represented by the hospital facilities available to each area. So if people who have a high chance of being sick come to rural America, some of them will actually be sick with COVID-19 weather they know it or not and they will overwhelm the limited facilities there, not to mention possibly infect others and make the situation worse.
- seemslegit 7y ago
  If they come for the isolation they should isolate themselves in rural America just like they would in the Urban one, re. hospital capacity - if the amount of refugees will be so significant so as to overwhelm rural hospitals by itself then the urban hospitals would already be over capacity so the overall population risk should still be reduced. The rural environment is more protective to the extent it reduces density and contact, its hospital capacity is not inherently reserved for the local population any more than the city hospitals are reserved for the city residents and if other arrangements are in place incoming people should be advised and take it into their calculations. Combined with the general effort to bend the curve the ability to wear- level geographically is a plus not a minus. Frankly I'm surprised there aren't massive medical airtrains being planned to carry patients from overwhelmed hospitals to more coping ones.

What's unsensible or civically irresponsible about moving yourself and your family to a more sparsely populated location or increasing interpersonal distance within your own household ?

barbegal 7y ago

I think the main reason is because rural areas have surplus housing stock but don't have similar surpluses in other resources such as supermarkets, internet connectivity, hospitals, pharmacies etc. One family has no impact but millions of people all moving from cities into the countryside will cause harm.

JoeAltmaier 7y ago

Well, unless you're going to live in a tent, there's not a lot of surplus housing out here in the country. Certainly not 1% what it would take to take in refugees from populous cities.

lidHanteyk 7y ago

It's not sheltering in place, it's sheltering somewhere else. That's the entire difference. And since this is a group responsibility, that we as a society all must bear, it is civically irresponsible to not shelter in place.

seemslegit 7y ago
If you treat this as an obidience exercise then maybe, but the goal is to reduce covid19 transmission - so by all means anyone who can move themselves to the country side and spend their days roaming alone or with people they live with anyway should be free to do so.
- cameronfraser 7y ago
  Traveling is literally one of the worst things you can do in trying to reduce transmission, especially with what we know about people being asymptomatic. These small towns would be otherwise shielded from the virus if it wasn't for people from large cities trying to escape there. They also don't have the infrastructure to support the influx of people.
  - seemslegit 7y ago
    If you travel by train or other form of public transport then yeah but not if you take your own car, given that half the airbnb checkins I did before the pandemic involved zero human interaction arranging this shouldn't be too difficult. I'm assuming that people moving in to shelter from covid19 are doing just that - rent for a month and longer and keep the same precautions as they would in a city , wear a mask and gloves to the stores and keep 2m+ distance. Obviously if somebody takes it as a good time to do Hadrian's wall trail with a different Airbnb every night it's a bad idea. > These small towns would be otherwise shielded from the virus if it wasn't for people from large cities trying to escape there. This is a terrible assumption to make in the first place and I hope nobody in decision-making capacity in those towns is in fact making it, the added risk to town people should be minimal because no additional interaction should be taking place. And if the town wanted to otherwise avoid lockdown or keep its pub open but won't because of airbnb-ers then it's probably a net win for the town. And how many vacant houses does an average country town have anyway so that airbnbs are a risk of stressing the infrastructure ?
    - cameronfraser 7y ago
      > but not if you take your own car Do you not stop to get gas? What if you yourself are asymptomatic and spreading it every time you stop. > the added risk to town people should be minimal because no additional interaction should be taking place except people need to go to grocery stores still, the amount of food going into local stores is meant to sustain the current population
      - seemslegit 7y ago
        > Do you not stop to get gas? What if you yourself are asymptomatic and spreading it every time you stop. You wear a mask and disposable gloves which you replace after pumping gas, exchanging cash etc - just like you're supposed to be doing in the city or a suburb. > except people need to go to grocery stores still, the amount of food going into local stores is meant to sustain the current population Mask, gloves, 2m+ distance, again just like in the city. The amount of food going into local stores adjusts itself with demand, this is a crisis but still not ww2.

seemslegit 7y ago

barbegal, JoeAltmaier - kindly make up your mind on whether there's a large enough housing surplus in the country so that AirBnb tennants will create an undue burden on community resources or not enough of it so as to be equitably accessible to a large proportion of the population.

scarecrowbob 7y ago

You might look at why Moab is "Closed" and San Juan county in CO is "locals only". Those places don't have a medical system in place to work with this pandemic, and adding people-- especially people who have been traveling-- puts stress on a small and possibly fragile system. That seems slightly irresponsible to me. Among several other reasons, that's why I'm locked down in Texas with a friend instead of returning to Durango and the apartment I've been renting for the last year.

duxup 7y ago

A lot of rural medical systems (especially in the US) are hardly capable of caring for their own, have few if any intensive care beds, etc.

Threeve303 7y ago

I was in the process of moving when all of this happened and without airbnb "retreats", I would've had to risk getting on a plane to fly home. Otherwise, not sure where I would've ended up. Just a different perspective.

merightno 7y ago

A family from NYC has a much higher risk of having COVID-19 due to being from the city where people are on top of each other than a family from the country, and the level of this risk is roughly represented by the hospital facilities available to each area. So if people who have a high chance of being sick come to rural America, some of them will actually be sick with COVID-19 weather they know it or not and they will overwhelm the limited facilities there, not to mention possibly infect others and make the situation worse.

seemslegit 7y ago
If they come for the isolation they should isolate themselves in rural America just like they would in the Urban one, re. hospital capacity - if the amount of refugees will be so significant so as to overwhelm rural hospitals by itself then the urban hospitals would already be over capacity so the overall population risk should still be reduced. The rural environment is more protective to the extent it reduces density and contact, its hospital capacity is not inherently reserved for the local population any more than the city hospitals are reserved for the city residents and if other arrangements are in place incoming people should be advised and take it into their calculations. Combined with the general effort to bend the curve the ability to wear- level geographically is a plus not a minus. Frankly I'm surprised there aren't massive medical airtrains being planned to carry patients from overwhelmed hospitals to more coping ones.