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Don't forget: "You can't ban travel from China, that's racist!" --> "You can't ban travel from China, it won't do anything anyway!" Then the rest of the plane

Don't forget: "You can't ban travel from China, that's racist!" --> "You can't ban travel from China, it won't do anything anyway!" Then the rest of the planet introduced travel bans, which are still in effect a year later -_-.

monksy 5y ago
The travel ban to China in the US mostly came from FAs blatantly refusing to fly to China. Also, yet we got EU flight bans nearly instantaneously. (Go figure)
chillwaves 5y ago
If you ban travel from China but not Chinese nationals, then what's the point? Nothing stops people from China from flying to Europe and then the US. Nothing. Yes, it was racism. Yes, it was pointless. Do you want to continue this discussion further?
- post_from_work 5y ago
  >>>Nothing stops people from China from flying to Europe and then the US. What portion of the traveling population is willing to take trans-continental detours like that? Some controls are better than NO controls. >>>Yes, it was racism. Yes, it was pointless. Are you saying that strict controls on population movements originating from the source geographic region of a virus should never be implemented as an early step to containment? Obama did it in 2014 in response to Ebola: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/21/us-limited-ebola-travel-restrictions-west-africa https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/21/us-limited-e... and Asia did it to varying degrees in response to SARS in 2003: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/12/news/battling-the-spread-of-sars-asian-nations-escalate-travel-restrictions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/12/news/battling-the-spread-...
  - chillwaves 5y ago
    I'm saying that calling it the "Chinese flu" and combining it with Trump's nationalist rhetoric and other outright racist remarks is racism, yes. And what is the point of stopping flights from China only? When there were global outbreaks? Make a justification for the act itself, in terms of public good. "Obama did it too" is not an argument.
    - post_from_work 5y ago
      >>>I'm saying that calling it the "Chinese flu" and combining it with Trump's nationalist rhetoric and other outright racist remarks is racism, yes. That's moving the goalposts. We were discussing the government act of implementing travel restrictions, as a policy. Rather than debate whether that is sound policy, you've retorted with "well he also said racist stuff...which is racist". This is why we can't make progress. Rather than address individual implementations on their own merits, all too often people are now lumping everything originating from the same decision-maker together and discarding the whole package. >>>And what is the point of stopping flights from China only? When there were global outbreaks? Because at the time (31 Jan 2020), ALL 210+ fatalities had travelled to China: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/01/31/trump-weighs-tighter-china-travel-restrictions-response-coronavirus/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/01/31/trump-we... There was no spontaneous, independent outbreak of COVID appearing contemporaneously in Italy or the UK. A complete international travel ban probably WOULD have been the best idea (along with 90 days of Wuhan-style internal lockdowns). Short of that, a ban on the source nation of (again, at that time) 100% of the fatal cases seems like an appropriate compromise to not completely collapse confidence in the steady trajectory of the US & global economy. >>>"Obama did it too" is not an argument. It establishes precedent. Both for the policy itself, and that the deafening lack of "Racism!" criticism as proof of the hypocrisy inherent in the accusers today.
      - chillwaves 5y ago
        That's not moving the goalposts. It's context. You want to ignore the fact that Trump was blaming China as a whole for coronavirus? It's racism to blame the coronavirus on Chinese people. So you want to tell me you are surprised when people see racism by the racist guy who does and says racist things pretty much constantly? I'm not going sit here and line by line debate you. I lived during it. I know what happened. It was a nonsense policy like basically the whole of the Trump administration's response. It was a complete joke. There was no federal response to the domestic crisis here. We had no supplies. We had no leadership. It's just a funny thing to point to this as some shining example of Trump doing the right thing when ever other indicator is saying otherwise.
vkou 5y ago
Suppose that: 1. The China travel ban started when China had very few COVID cases. 2. The China travel ban started when we already had untraceable domestic spread in the US. 3. The EU travel ban started when the EU had a lot of COVID cases. If those three things happened (#1 and #3 happened without a doubt, jury's still out on #2, because our contact tracing has been crap), it's possible for both of the statements you are quoting to be true. There's literally no point in banning travel from China, if Paris has 10x the prevalence of COVID, and you haven't banned travel from it. Considering that the first major outbreak in the US was caused by travelers from the EU, it seems pretty clear that banning travel form China, but not from Europe didn't do much to keep COVID out of the US. Why were European travelers being treated preferentially to Chinese ones, for over a month? I see a lot of people insisting that the travel ban wasn't racist, but I've never seen anyone explain this conundrum.
- post_from_work 5y ago
  >>>There's literally no point in banning travel from China, if Paris has 10x the prevalence of COVID, and you haven't banned travel from it. Was there ever an indication that Paris had 10x the COVID of Wuhan? If travel bans don't work, why did China implement them domestically, specifically with respect to Wuhan?[1] >>>Considering that the first major outbreak in the US was caused by travelers from the EU Citation please? Maybe my Google-Fu is weak, but I'm getting Washington State as the site of the first major US outbreak, and the first US case was a Wuhan traveler in Washington State.[2][3] >>>Why were European travelers being treated preferentially to Chinese ones, for over a month? Look at this map regarding the spread of SARS[4]. It reached the world fairly quickly. Yet we didn't implement a global travel shutdown. Travel bans were rather focused on Hong Kong and parts of China[5]. The cost-benefit analysis of implementing strict travel controls on countries other than the origin point are probably based on an assessment of the ability of secondary locations (in your example, Europe) to contain the spread from a small number of imported cases. This would provide the maximum benefit (spread reduction) at the lowest overall cost to quality of life and economic activity. If they had taken sensible measures, as they did with Ebola and SARS, maybe they could have. [1]https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/blogs/Whathappensif/how-china-locked-down-internally-for-covid-19-but-pushed-foreign-travel/ https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/blogs/Whathappensif/how... [2]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/coronavirus-in-washington-state.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/coronavirus-in-washing... (PAYWALLED) [3]https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191 [4]https://www.nsf.gov/about/history/globalhealth_impacts.jsp https://www.nsf.gov/about/history/globalhealth_impacts.jsp [5]https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/5/23/who-lifts-sars-travel-ban https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/5/23/who-lifts-sars-trav...

monksy 5y ago

The travel ban to China in the US mostly came from FAs blatantly refusing to fly to China. Also, yet we got EU flight bans nearly instantaneously. (Go figure)

chillwaves 5y ago

If you ban travel from China but not Chinese nationals, then what's the point? Nothing stops people from China from flying to Europe and then the US. Nothing. Yes, it was racism. Yes, it was pointless. Do you want to continue this discussion further?

post_from_work 5y ago
>>>Nothing stops people from China from flying to Europe and then the US. What portion of the traveling population is willing to take trans-continental detours like that? Some controls are better than NO controls. >>>Yes, it was racism. Yes, it was pointless. Are you saying that strict controls on population movements originating from the source geographic region of a virus should never be implemented as an early step to containment? Obama did it in 2014 in response to Ebola: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/21/us-limited-ebola-travel-restrictions-west-africa https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/21/us-limited-e... and Asia did it to varying degrees in response to SARS in 2003: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/12/news/battling-the-spread-of-sars-asian-nations-escalate-travel-restrictions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/12/news/battling-the-spread-...
- chillwaves 5y ago
  I'm saying that calling it the "Chinese flu" and combining it with Trump's nationalist rhetoric and other outright racist remarks is racism, yes. And what is the point of stopping flights from China only? When there were global outbreaks? Make a justification for the act itself, in terms of public good. "Obama did it too" is not an argument.
  - post_from_work 5y ago
    >>>I'm saying that calling it the "Chinese flu" and combining it with Trump's nationalist rhetoric and other outright racist remarks is racism, yes. That's moving the goalposts. We were discussing the government act of implementing travel restrictions, as a policy. Rather than debate whether that is sound policy, you've retorted with "well he also said racist stuff...which is racist". This is why we can't make progress. Rather than address individual implementations on their own merits, all too often people are now lumping everything originating from the same decision-maker together and discarding the whole package. >>>And what is the point of stopping flights from China only? When there were global outbreaks? Because at the time (31 Jan 2020), ALL 210+ fatalities had travelled to China: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/01/31/trump-weighs-tighter-china-travel-restrictions-response-coronavirus/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/01/31/trump-we... There was no spontaneous, independent outbreak of COVID appearing contemporaneously in Italy or the UK. A complete international travel ban probably WOULD have been the best idea (along with 90 days of Wuhan-style internal lockdowns). Short of that, a ban on the source nation of (again, at that time) 100% of the fatal cases seems like an appropriate compromise to not completely collapse confidence in the steady trajectory of the US & global economy. >>>"Obama did it too" is not an argument. It establishes precedent. Both for the policy itself, and that the deafening lack of "Racism!" criticism as proof of the hypocrisy inherent in the accusers today.
    - chillwaves 5y ago
      That's not moving the goalposts. It's context. You want to ignore the fact that Trump was blaming China as a whole for coronavirus? It's racism to blame the coronavirus on Chinese people. So you want to tell me you are surprised when people see racism by the racist guy who does and says racist things pretty much constantly? I'm not going sit here and line by line debate you. I lived during it. I know what happened. It was a nonsense policy like basically the whole of the Trump administration's response. It was a complete joke. There was no federal response to the domestic crisis here. We had no supplies. We had no leadership. It's just a funny thing to point to this as some shining example of Trump doing the right thing when ever other indicator is saying otherwise.

vkou 5y ago

Suppose that: 1. The China travel ban started when China had very few COVID cases. 2. The China travel ban started when we already had untraceable domestic spread in the US. 3. The EU travel ban started when the EU had a lot of COVID cases. If those three things happened (#1 and #3 happened without a doubt, jury's still out on #2, because our contact tracing has been crap), it's possible for both of the statements you are quoting to be true. There's literally no point in banning travel from China, if Paris has 10x the prevalence of COVID, and you haven't banned travel from it. Considering that the first major outbreak in the US was caused by travelers from the EU, it seems pretty clear that banning travel form China, but not from Europe didn't do much to keep COVID out of the US. Why were European travelers being treated preferentially to Chinese ones, for over a month? I see a lot of people insisting that the travel ban wasn't racist, but I've never seen anyone explain this conundrum.

post_from_work 5y ago
>>>There's literally no point in banning travel from China, if Paris has 10x the prevalence of COVID, and you haven't banned travel from it. Was there ever an indication that Paris had 10x the COVID of Wuhan? If travel bans don't work, why did China implement them domestically, specifically with respect to Wuhan?[1] >>>Considering that the first major outbreak in the US was caused by travelers from the EU Citation please? Maybe my Google-Fu is weak, but I'm getting Washington State as the site of the first major US outbreak, and the first US case was a Wuhan traveler in Washington State.[2][3] >>>Why were European travelers being treated preferentially to Chinese ones, for over a month? Look at this map regarding the spread of SARS[4]. It reached the world fairly quickly. Yet we didn't implement a global travel shutdown. Travel bans were rather focused on Hong Kong and parts of China[5]. The cost-benefit analysis of implementing strict travel controls on countries other than the origin point are probably based on an assessment of the ability of secondary locations (in your example, Europe) to contain the spread from a small number of imported cases. This would provide the maximum benefit (spread reduction) at the lowest overall cost to quality of life and economic activity. If they had taken sensible measures, as they did with Ebola and SARS, maybe they could have. [1]https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/blogs/Whathappensif/how-china-locked-down-internally-for-covid-19-but-pushed-foreign-travel/ https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/blogs/Whathappensif/how... [2]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/coronavirus-in-washington-state.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/coronavirus-in-washing... (PAYWALLED) [3]https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191 [4]https://www.nsf.gov/about/history/globalhealth_impacts.jsp https://www.nsf.gov/about/history/globalhealth_impacts.jsp [5]https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/5/23/who-lifts-sars-travel-ban https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/5/23/who-lifts-sars-trav...