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The US has two huge land borders that people regularly commute and trade across (not to mention cross illegally). The only success stories with this strategy

The US has two huge land borders that people regularly commute and trade across (not to mention cross illegally). The only success stories with this strategy are Australia and New Zealand, which are island nations completely isolated from anywhere else. Even single breaches of their 100% quarantine of all arrivals caused outbreaks, and they also closed state borders. This requirement begins to make sense now there is a vaccine, as within the US the curve should bend down vs the rest of the world, without the vaccine it wouldn't have achieved anything.

k0stas 6y ago
> The only success stories with this strategy are Australia and New Zealand, which are island nations completely isolated from anywhere else. I don't know why it is ignored, but Vietnam (population 90M) is a large country with many land borders, including a border with China, and it has done spectacularly well containing the coronavirus. Not to take anything away from the island countries but having no land borders makes limiting the influx of Covid much simpler. I don't know much about Vietnam's borders and how much crossing there was in pre-Covid times but perhaps it should be the Covid success model that all non-island nations emulate.
kbar13 6y ago
you can close land borders just as you can close air borders. the threat model is average joe unknowningly carrying the coronavirus on their vacation / business commute, not some special op team sneaking into the country.
ceejayoz 6y ago
> The only success stories with this strategy are Australia and New Zealand, which are island nations completely isolated from anywhere else. Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam have all had good overall success. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/16/thailand-cambodia-covid-19-cases-deaths-low https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/16/thailand-cambo...
cmrdporcupine 6y ago
The land border with Canada has been closed (at the Canadian government's request) since March. Only trade is allowed, no personal travel at all. So, no, I don't think it's impractical at all. Trump did complain a lot about us closing it, though. Air travel, however, has been permitted all along, and mostly from what I can tell because of the fact that the airline industry would go bankrupt otherwise. So there's still people coming into Canada from the US constantly by air, and likely breaking their 14 day quarantine period, too. I know of some personally. International travel is still being promoted heavily by airlines, despite governments giving official guidance to not go. Big scandals here in the last couple weeks about politicians taking off for tropical vacations, after instating tough lockdown rules and telling the public not to travel. Canada also instituted the negative test on arrival rule in the last week or so. The caterwauling from our airlines was just ridiculous. The federal governments in both Canada and the United States failed to make moves against travel early on, and they just let it coast for months, as if this virus was just going to go away on its own, because they were afraid of bankrupting the airlines.
- sonotmyname 6y ago
  > Canada also instituted the negative test on arrival rule in the last week or so. The caterwauling from our airlines was just ridiculous. The negative test requirement is only for air travel, and in spite of your assertion, there is (limited) non-trade travel allowed across the border. I'm driving across the border in a few weeks, and for some reason don't need a test that I'd need if I flew.
zkms 6y ago
> The only success stories with this strategy are Australia and New Zealand, which are island nations completely isolated from anywhere else. Taiwan is another such success story (7 deaths total, zero domestic cases for over 200 days) and it's not exactly that isolated from, well, the place where the pandemic started.

k0stas 6y ago

> The only success stories with this strategy are Australia and New Zealand, which are island nations completely isolated from anywhere else. I don't know why it is ignored, but Vietnam (population 90M) is a large country with many land borders, including a border with China, and it has done spectacularly well containing the coronavirus. Not to take anything away from the island countries but having no land borders makes limiting the influx of Covid much simpler. I don't know much about Vietnam's borders and how much crossing there was in pre-Covid times but perhaps it should be the Covid success model that all non-island nations emulate.

kbar13 6y ago

you can close land borders just as you can close air borders. the threat model is average joe unknowningly carrying the coronavirus on their vacation / business commute, not some special op team sneaking into the country.

ceejayoz 6y ago

> The only success stories with this strategy are Australia and New Zealand, which are island nations completely isolated from anywhere else. Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam have all had good overall success. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/16/thailand-cambodia-covid-19-cases-deaths-low https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/16/thailand-cambo...

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

The land border with Canada has been closed (at the Canadian government's request) since March. Only trade is allowed, no personal travel at all. So, no, I don't think it's impractical at all. Trump did complain a lot about us closing it, though. Air travel, however, has been permitted all along, and mostly from what I can tell because of the fact that the airline industry would go bankrupt otherwise. So there's still people coming into Canada from the US constantly by air, and likely breaking their 14 day quarantine period, too. I know of some personally. International travel is still being promoted heavily by airlines, despite governments giving official guidance to not go. Big scandals here in the last couple weeks about politicians taking off for tropical vacations, after instating tough lockdown rules and telling the public not to travel. Canada also instituted the negative test on arrival rule in the last week or so. The caterwauling from our airlines was just ridiculous. The federal governments in both Canada and the United States failed to make moves against travel early on, and they just let it coast for months, as if this virus was just going to go away on its own, because they were afraid of bankrupting the airlines.

sonotmyname 6y ago
> Canada also instituted the negative test on arrival rule in the last week or so. The caterwauling from our airlines was just ridiculous. The negative test requirement is only for air travel, and in spite of your assertion, there is (limited) non-trade travel allowed across the border. I'm driving across the border in a few weeks, and for some reason don't need a test that I'd need if I flew.

zkms 6y ago

> The only success stories with this strategy are Australia and New Zealand, which are island nations completely isolated from anywhere else. Taiwan is another such success story (7 deaths total, zero domestic cases for over 200 days) and it's not exactly that isolated from, well, the place where the pandemic started.