U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days | Hacker News Reader

U.S. will suspend all travel from Europe for 30 days

nbcnews.com

920 pointssahin866 comments

Regardless of the ability of people to travel to the UK or Canada and get here (which people have done for a long time with other nations we don't take kindly to) it's absolutely going to reduce the number of people who will travel across the pond. Which is the goal, reduce infection rates.

My concern is how economies are going to respond to the US being cut off from Continental ports for a month, which as far as I can tell hasn't happened since U boats were in open waters.

Can anyone comment on supply chains that rely on Europe to source goods? I know medical grade steel comes from over there, but I don't know what else.

Edit: apparently the president misspoke.

>Which is the goal, reduce infection rates.

Based on the localized infection cases I see across the US and have been watching as well as the characteristics of the virus (life outside host/on surfaces, in air, the degree of asymptomatic transference, etc.), it's well beyond containment IMHO.

Travel isn't going to do too much to reduce infection rates alone. We need significant cultural changes to reduce infection rates, but I don't see that happening for a variety of reasons. This country isn't about proactive action and is all about reactionary action though, so we're just waiting for that reactionary threshold. Some preventative measures have been pushed but they're no where near aggressive enough at this point.

It will be interesting how this is handled in our modern cultural, current political and work culture, etc. I suspect it's going to be fairly nasty but certainly hope not. I've been advising my parents to stock up and minimize any outside interactions for awhile.

My 2 cents.

All reductions in (non-essential) travel are good in a pandemic. That doesn't mean it's sufficient, but it's something positive.

I think we would all like to see stronger social distancing rules domestically (in the US), but here the US has a problem as it granted the President broad discretionary powers to suspend international travel but not domestic gatherings, which can't be banned via executive order and even if congress were to pass a law banning such gatherings, there would be first amendment implications as well as federalism issues.

It's not easy to pass a law giving the President this type of power and I suspect many in congress already rue passing the laws that gave the president power to suspend international travel. That's one of the prices of living in a federal government with separation of powers and a bill of rights guaranteeing right to assembly rather than in a place like China.

For example, the CDC has issued social distancing guidelines but they are only guidelines not laws: Santa Clara county has said "no thank you we'll follow our own guidelines" instead, when the CDC asked to ban meetings of more than 250 but Santa Clara banned meetings of more than 1000, and just refused to change their target to the CDC recommendation.

So the US simply lacks the tools that would allow the President to go on the air and announce "I'm declaring that the MLB season needs to be delayed and Disneyland must close." He can try to exert pressure, or rather have the CDC exert pressure, but these types of declarations are not going to happen in America.

It's not just about containment, which signs point to being past us. If we slow the infection and spread it out over time, we do a couple things. Slowing it gives us time to develop tests and treatment and processes and systems to deal with it. Spreading it out over time means that at any given moment fewer people need medical care. Like, if everyone needs care tomorrow, obviously the system can't handle it, but if a few people need it tomorrow, and a few the day after and so on, spreading it out over time, the system can handle a few at a time.

https://www.flattenthecurve.com/

There were just 2 cases detected at the gym down the street from me. I'm in a medium town of about 40k in upstate NY. Not podunk, but hardly bustling.

I'm considering the USA fully seeded at this point.

It'd be pretty sweet if it took a pandemic for the government to solidify sick day laws.

Too bad money making is somehow above preventing others getting sick. People wouldnt show up to work if they didn't have to worry about their wages. I'm sorry but 3 sick days is garbage and requiring doctors notes is asine when your healthcare plan is shite. Not to mention wasting a day in a hospital. Companies can afford this stuff. It's not often and it's minimal to say the least. But God forbid a small business can't have someone for 80 hours a week at minimum wage!

In Boston, at least, I'm seeing significant cultural changes. It's gotten much, much quieter, and meetings are all going online.

I'm seeing more indications of people taking things seriously. The first cases were announced in my state (Michigan) today, and already most universities have cancelled in-person learning, various gatherings are being cancelled, etc. It sounds like my church—on the west side of the state (the two confirmed cases are on the east side)—will be altering plans, perhaps even cancelling services as early as this Sunday. The concept of "social distancing" is rapidly gaining steam.

"it's well beyond containment IMHO"

This depends on how you're defining containment. Grounding aircraft may not decrease the current case count, you're right, but it may help not adding to it, or adding as much, or as fast. Because of this, it may still be worth doing.

The notion that we're going to abandon containment measures in favor of mitigation, which I've seen in many places (not in your comment though of course), is wrong. We're going to be doing both.

As someone posted on FB, the infection rate spikes a lot more with no measures, and flattens with more preventative measures. So while the same number of people may be infected overall, it lessens stress on the healthcare system when it is more spread out.

Which democratic(* - I was going to use Western) nations do though? Seriously the freedom enjoyed by those in these nations and the significant time any global conflict or pandemic have pretty much restricted the ability of leadership in those countries from taking action that would have any true effect short of trying to implement martial law, which in most countries would be met with protests and in some with courts being tied up.

Now I will not attempt to speak for Europe but the US government could certainly push short public advisories and messages to adults and children through broadcast TV and even get the cooperation of streaming services as well. Short thirty to ninety second spots that give helpful non panic information.

The US President is hamstrung by both political disagreement and the law. There were articles he is loathe to declare any national emergency declaration until approached by the governors of many of the states. If he did without states approaching him and asking you can damn well guarantee there were would be Democrats out there claiming he was trying to be a Dictator and comparing him to Putin. The same article concerning the declaration also reveals all the behind the scenes work going on with Congress to get funds in place before any message is put forth so that the government as a whole looks to be cooperating as well as acting appropriately.

The current administration in the US has been more proactive than any previous administration during any previous outbreak, despite the deluge of criticisms that were surprisingly absent during said previous outbreaks. The measures that have been taken thus far are more than aggressive enough, based on the information we currently have. We're just a few steps away from shutting everything down completely, which wouldn't be good for anything at this point. It doesn't get much more proactive than that.

To reiterate what others said, it is long past containment in the United States. In Canada early on the cases were people who came from known hot spots. Now it is almost entirely people coming from the United States, from places with no known cases.

Clearly there are clusters throughout the United States. Unconfirmed, unrecognized clusters. And with the adversity of many to utilizing health care, it seems impossible to deal with now.

It's also worth noting that this flight ban applies only to non-Americans, just as the Wuhan restriction before did. During the prior travel restriction dozens of flights a day were going to and from Wuhan -- they just had Americans on them, who apparently aren't susceptible to the foreign virus. This new restriction is identical, allowing Americans to march the globe with their COVID-19, but at least they kept out the foreigners.

Instead of any actual efforts it is again mere security theater. And again Trump will pat himself on the back for his very-close-to-useless theatrics.

I think elementary/high schools are how this will spread through communities with the most efficiency. Collect a person from each family, mix them together with the poorest respect for hygiene, then send them home, 5 times a week.

Here's the perspective of a San Jose public high school [1] proving that containment isn't a concern:

> Oak Grove High School officials said they were not considering school closures because “children have not been shown to be a high-risk group for serious illness from this virus.” The Centers for Disease Control said last week that limited reports showed child COVID-19 patients in China had generally presented with mild symptoms.

> “As much as possible, children should be allowed to carry on with their education and normal activities,” school officials said.

Related, a family member received a "exposure notice" from her child's school that one of the students tested positive. No closure.

There's no attempt for containment in the US. My hunch is that it's not needed as much as is being suggested by some. I guess we'll see.

[1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/08/oak-grove-high-school...

> It's also worth noting that this flight ban applies only to non-Americans, just as the Wuhan restriction before did. During the prior travel restriction dozens of flights a day were going to and from Wuhan -- they just had Americans on them, who apparently aren't susceptible to the foreign virus. This new restriction is identical, allowing Americans to march the globe with their COVID-19, but at least they kept out the foreigners.

Well presumably they'll always allow non-Americans to leave. As for americans, they would still have to wade through quarantine or whatever restrictions the other country requires.

For entry into the US, does the govt even has the power to keep americans and permanent residents from entering? Seems like every country will at worst only quarantine its own people.

> Can anyone comment on supply chains that rely on Europe to source goods? I know medical grade steel comes from over there, but I don't know what else.

I don't see why commercial sea-shipping would be restricted.

Mariners may not be allowed to leave their ship while in port though.

Because the President said so during his address, which is why I commented. Apparently he misspoke when he said cargo would be included.

I don't see why commercial sea-shipping would be restricted.

Me either, but Trump did seem to say that. Vaguely. Stand by for "clarification".

Because the virus can spread on surfaces I think. As well as food, and organic matter.

The situation in Europe will be much worse a month from now than it is today, unfortunately. I'd bet on this ban lasting closer to 90 days than 30.

The situation here will be much worse in 30 days, too.

I'm not sure where this level of panic is coming from.

Numbers are about to spike everywhere pretty much no matter what anybody does, because better testing and funding has become available.

Quarantining an entire continent, and even worse than this badly doing it, seems to be an astonishing overreaction. The average age of death for coronavirus victims is 83. The mortality rate seems to be as low as 0.6% in South Korea or as high as 5% in Italy. Italy is especially vulnerable because it has the oldest population in Europe which is one of the factors that is leading to the 5% figure from there. It is not an End of Days zombie apocalypse.

I recently watched a speech by a US mayor which essentially said that the panic over Corona is going to do much more damage to people than the actual virus and I tend to agree. Simple quarantining measures mixed with best practices for infection control until we have more information about the virus seems perfectly fine. Blowing up the global economy is complete overkill and is a typical move from an administration whose response to topics are either to ignore them or sledgehammer them.

I suspect improvement when the weather warms. There is little community spreading in the summer countries of Africa and southern hemisphere.

The President, for want of a better term is an idiot. When there is plenty of time to act he does nothing, and when the crisis is in full swing he makes symbolic gestures that have but one goal: to increase his chances of re-election. This has absolutely nothing to do with public health.

I couldn't agree more. In the next week, we'll see flights canceled to and from most countries in Europe anyway, so this is a cheap attempt to point the finger at Europe, and away at this administration.

Air freight rates skyrocketed due to fewer passenger flights between US and China. Presumably there will be similar impact to air freight rates between US and Europe https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-airlin...

edit: air cargo flights between US and Europe also suspended

> Can anyone comment on supply chains that rely on Europe to source goods?

You know all of the stuff that's made in China? The machines that make that stuff are made in Europe. Well, not literally the ones that make the stuff in China, but the ones that US companies would buy if they were trying to manufacture more stuff domestically to replace the stuff they can no longer buy from China.

It will get interessting. because of the huge container backlog / production backlog in China Europe is facing a serious container shortage right now. Until this is figured out and solved, supply chain management will be a very interesting job.

But by no means end-of-world serious, all life critical things are still getting through. also money buys a lot, even cargo space on ships and planes.

I think yes, literally, European machinery exported to China.

It's a massive export sector for the EU (€127bn), and a chunk of that is to China, but the easily-available statistics lump machinery and vehicles, so I don't have a source.

Trade should not be affected. According to the BBC: The US president said his travel ban did not include Americans who had undergone appropriate screenings - or "the tremendous amount of trade and cargo".

> Which is the goal, reduce infection rates.

There are tens of thousands of incubating cases in the United States already. How exactly is a few dozen sick passengers per day going to affect that at all? You'd have to literally be picking up and flying in planes full of active cases to even match what we have here already.

This is insanity. No one with any expertise at all recommended it. No one serious thinks this is a good idea. It's not going to do anything useful at all.

It's security theater, just like airport security screening. The politicians need to be seen doing something.

This will still definitely slow down the total amount of infections.

>You'd have to literally be picking up and flying in planes full of active cases to even match what we have here already

Even one person with corona can do a lot of damage.

For example, a singular person boarded Diamond Princess. The ship had 696 confirmed positive cases and 7 deaths from 1 person who had the virus.

Any restriction in travel will help to slow the spread of the virus. If you look at Europe, a sizeable number of cases outside of Italy are still travel related. Stopping all travel is one of the key measures to keep infections local.

I'm not saying the measure suffices. Obviously domestic travel is also a big issue, as is travel from outside the Schengen area. But being one of the people affected (currently in Schengen), I still believe this is a right step. It might not slow infections down enough but it will certainly prevent many cases. Also, it will remind people how serious the situation is.

There was an AMA on Reddit, yesterday I think, with a guy whose employer is manufacturing the tests. He said one of the challenges was some of the materials had to come from Belgium and it was taking much longer to get the supplies in the needed quantities. I'd assume such materials would be exempt if his statement is correct.

You can't get around it by going through the UK. It applies whether you've been to the countries affected at any point in the last 14 days, even if it's not your immediate origin port.

I would imagine anyone who can answer that question comprehensively is filling their boots on some options dealer page right now, in between sips of champagne.

I don't know about the actual economy but finance seems to hate this. Most open market indicators dropped by like 3%...

Equities markets don't like it.

The last couple of weeks have been very profitable for "finance".

Uncertainty is the worst for financial markets. And we currently have extreme levels of uncertainty. Economically, it seems likely that we'll see a global recession in the first half of the year. Simply because many companies can't produce as much with travel restrictions in place. If governments step in to help this could recover quite quickly for the second half or latest next year. But no one knows how hard it will hit companies and how quick recovery will be. And until we get first indications, markets will continue to panic.

On the other hand, for long-term investors it doesn't seem like a terrible time to get into the market.

The S&P futures dropped by 5% so far.

Oil and other commodities also took a dump.

https://m.investing.com/indices/indices-futures

https://m.investing.com/commodities/

After dropping almost 5% today. Yikes.

Important updates:

a) This does not apply to US citizens or their family members[1].

b) This does not apply to cargo[2].

It appears that the President misspoke regarding point 2.

[1] https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/03/11/homeland-security-acting....

[2] https://twitter.com/AnaSwanson/status/1237921160500830208

a) is because as I understand it it's /very/ hard to legally refuse to readmit a US citizen. You can seize all their stuff at the border but besides arresting them for a crime you can't really keep them from coming home.

You can't refuse to readmit a US citizen (as in a person that can prove that they're readily a US citizen). They can force you into quarantine and take all your stuff, but you have a right to be in the country.

> a) is because as I understand it it's /very/ hard to legally refuse to readmit a US citizen. You can seize all their stuff at the border but besides arresting them for a crime you can't really keep them from coming home.

The trick is to get the airline to be your police and refuse them boarding. Then your only choice is to get to a Port of Entry via Canada, Mexico, private jet or chartered boat.

Doesn’t matter if there’s no flights or boats.

As a US citizen currently on a business trip out of the country, that's really good to know!

immigration law does not apply to citizens, basically at all. customs does, but immigration does not.

a) is not only citizens but also permanent residents, which I believe do not have the same legal protections

It also does not apply to Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs) AKA Greencard Holders

Thankfully it was just a small error... Also looks like it won't affect outbound flights either?

Outbound flights are going to get a hell of a lot more expensive if all the planes have to return to the US empty.

He made several errors. He also said Europe minus the UK was banned, but it's actually the Schengen Area.

Crew are also exempt.

Does it apply to H1B holders? (Are they “US residents”?)

I don't know for sure but my assumption is that H1B holders (and potentially green card holders, which are "permanent residents") are not excluded from this ban. As many others have mentioned here it's not easy to prevent a citizen from returning; permanent residents and visa holders can be refused entry much more easily.

I didn't write this rule though so I don't know if this interpretation is correct.

This applies to H1B holders. Basically if you have a non-immigrant visa, you can assume this rule applies to you.

The rule only excludes US citizens, green card holders and their immediate families.

What about connecting flights with layover in Frankfurt?

Misspoke? It was a prepared statement read off a teleprompter. Please don't excuse it like a slip of the tongue.

Are you saying it is more accurate to call it a lie?

Here is the paragraph from the transcript (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-pres...)

> There will be exemptions for Americans who have undergone appropriate screenings, and these prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo, but various other things as we get approval. Anything coming from Europe to the United States is what we are discussing. These restrictions will also not apply to the United Kingdom.

It reads a whole lot cleaner, i.e. like you would expect from a speech, if the statement about cargo was intended to say it was not prohibited.

My best guess is honestly that it was meant to be "these prohibitions will not apply to the" instead of "these prohibitions will not only apply to the". Inserting an extra "only" is a pretty easy mistake to make when reading text out loud.

In regular conversation, would you call cargo shipments “travel”? Probably not. Commerce, trade, or shipments would probably be used.

I didn't hear his exact words, but even with a teleprompter, I wouldn't be surprised if he misspoke.

He misread it, watch the video.

[EDIT] Since the downvotes have started pouring in, I have to ask. Do you really attribute to this error to malice rather than stupidity? Given that the administration immediately (within minutes? edit: [0]yes, within minutes) made a correction I find it difficult to believe it was deliberate misinformation.

I mean, miscommunication happens. Trump didn't invent the plan, he was advised by others and gave the go-ahead. Then, his advisors drafted all of the details of the plan (probably in very short order). And of course, he didn't write the speech, someone prepared it for him. Afterward, the speech changed hands numerous times until some staff member loaded it into the prompter.

Someone definitely messed up, but it's hard for me to see how anyone could blame the speaker for this one. Assuming there's no partisanship, of course.

[0]https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/11/trum...

Another theory: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/what-if-donald-t...

An executive order is not in effect until published in the federal register. Whatever is published there is what actually matters.

As of now this executive order has not been published.

You can check here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/search?conditions%...

I assume the following [1] will be filed in the Federal Register beginning with this paragraph that starts with:

  NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States

and then starting with the words

  by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America

[1]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation...

Here is the full text that will likely be published in the Federal Register. Double-check when it has been published.

> by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, hereby find that the unrestricted entry into the United States of persons described in section 1 of this proclamation would, except as provided for in section 2 of this proclamation, be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and that their entry should be subject to certain restrictions, limitations, and exceptions. I therefore hereby proclaim the following:

> Section 1. Suspension and Limitation on Entry. The entry into the United States, as immigrants or nonimmigrants, of all aliens who were physically present within the Schengen Area during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the United States is hereby suspended and limited subject to section 2 of this proclamation.

> Sec. 2. Scope of Suspension and Limitation on Entry.

> (a) Section 1 of this proclamation shall not apply to:

> (i) any lawful permanent resident of the United States;

> (ii) any alien who is the spouse of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident;

> (iii) any alien who is the parent or legal guardian of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, provided that the U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident is unmarried and under the age of 21;

> (iv) any alien who is the sibling of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, provided that both are unmarried and under the age of 21;

> (v) any alien who is the child, foster child, or ward of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, or who is a prospective adoptee seeking to enter the United States pursuant to the IR-4 or IH-4 visa classifications;

> (vi) any alien traveling at the invitation of the United States Government for a purpose related to containment or mitigation of the virus;

> (vii) any alien traveling as a nonimmigrant pursuant to a C-1, D, or C-1/D nonimmigrant visa as a crewmember or any alien otherwise traveling to the United States as air or sea crew;

> (viii) any alien

> (A) seeking entry into or transiting the United States pursuant to one of the following visas: A-1, A-2, C-2, C-3 (as a foreign government official or immediate family member of an official), E-1 (as an employee of TECRO or TECO or the employee’s immediate family members), G-1, G-2, G-3, G-4, NATO-1 through NATO-4, or NATO-6 (or seeking to enter as a nonimmigrant in one of those NATO categories); or

> (B) whose travel falls within the scope of section 11 of the United Nations Headquarters Agreement;

> (ix) any alien whose entry would not pose a significant risk of introducing, transmitting, or spreading the virus, as determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, through the CDC Director or his designee;

> (x) any alien whose entry would further important United States law enforcement objectives, as determined by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or their respective designees, based on a recommendation of the Attorney General or his designee;

> (xi) any alien whose entry would be in the national interest, as determined by the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or their designees; or

> (xii) members of the U.S. Armed Forces and spouses and children of members of the U.S. Armed Forces.

> (b) Nothing in this proclamation shall be construed to affect any individual’s eligibility for asylum, withholding of removal, or protection under the regulations issued pursuant to the legislation implementing the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, consistent with the laws and regulations of the United States.

> Sec. 3. Implementation and Enforcement. (a) The Secretary of State shall implement this proclamation as it applies to visas pursuant to such procedures as the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, may establish. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall implement this proclamation as it applies to the entry of aliens pursuant to such procedures as the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, may establish.

> (b) Consistent with applicable law, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Transportation, and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall ensure that any alien subject to this proclamation does not board an aircraft traveling to the United States.

> (c) The Secretary of Homeland Security may establish standards and procedures to ensure the application of this proclamation at and between all United States ports of entry.

> (d) An alien who circumvents the application of this proclamation through fraud, willful misrepresentation of a material fact, or illegal entry shall be a priority for removal by the Department of Homeland Security.

> Sec. 4. Termination. This proclamation shall remain in effect until terminated by the President. The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall recommend that the President continue, modify, or terminate this proclamation as described in section 5 of Proclamation 9984, as amended.

> Sec. 5. Effective Date. This proclamation is effective at 11:59 p.m. eastern daylight time on March 13, 2020. This proclamation does not apply to persons aboard a flight scheduled to arrive in the United States that departed prior to 11:59 p.m. eastern daylight time on March 13, 2020.

> Sec. 6. Severability. It is the policy of the United States to enforce this proclamation to the maximum extent possible to advance the national security, public safety, and foreign policy interests of the United States. Accordingly:

> (a) if any provision of this proclamation, or the application of any provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of this proclamation and the application of its provisions to any other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby; and

> (b) if any provision of this proclamation, or the application of any provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid because of the lack of certain procedural requirements, the relevant executive branch officials shall implement those procedural requirements to conform with existing law and with any applicable court orders.

> Sec. 7. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this proclamation shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

> (i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

> (ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

> (b) This proclamation shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

> (c) This proclamation is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

> IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eleventh day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fourth.

> DONALD J. TRUMP

Underrated comment ^^

I get that they excluded the UK for diplomatic reasons, but it's literally only a few days behind the rest of Europe in terms of infection count, which means this will have almost no effect.

I actually think banning travel from China months ago was a good call, but by analogous reasoning, the right time to ban travel from Europe (including the UK) was last week.

>I get that they excluded the UK for diplomatic reasons

No, Ireland is also exempt. In other words, the US is banning travel from the Schengen Zone.

> it's literally only a few days behind the rest of Europe in terms of infection count

And it's ahead of some Schengen countries.

Besides that, it is the 'per capita' part that matters and there are great differences between the various countries as to how many tests have been administered, leading to severe discrepancies in the relative pictures between countries.

"I get that they excluded the UK for diplomatic reasons"

Like extraditing Julian Assange while the world is looking elsewhere.

> the right time to ban travel from Europe (including the UK) was last week.

The US had active uncontained clusters, and was known to have them, two weeks ago. Once that's true, there's no way that mere travel numbers are going to move that needles significantly.

Again: we banned travel from China and it was too late already. This does not work. And I'm horrified at the number of people on this site that don't see that.

The reason the UK is behind continental Europe is the lack of testing. Their numbers are no worse than continental Europe (excluding Italy, of course). The US, on the other hand, are lightyears behind Europe on testing, the real number of infections is closer to 5000 than to 1250, again bringing it in line with the rest of Europe.

Is there anywhere in the US where we are doing random testing of residents to determine what the real infection rate is here? From all I can see we're currently just adding up the number of people who have come in with symptoms and tested positive instead of getting a real handle on what percentage of the population is infected. The CDC website right now says that there are 938 total cases.[1] That's laughable. At this point I'd sooner believe 93,800 or 938,000 than 938. Oh wait: "Now that states are testing and reporting their own results, CDC’s numbers are not representative of all testing being done nationwide." OK, so nobody's keeping up with the totals? Is that what I'm reading?

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html

The CDC gave local labs the go-ahead to develop their own tests, but that was very recently and it seems very likely that the CDC doesn't have a centralized reporting system in place.

I really doubt there's capacity to do random tests for scientific field study, considering there's a large backlog of people with symptoms or suspected contact w/ infected that are waiting to be tested.

For example, here's aerial footage of the lines in Denver for a drive-thru clinic restricted to patients with "a doctor's order confirming they meet requirements": https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1237869000169644032

It's tragic that a lack of test kits is costing us the ability to accurately track the spread of this disease and its true mortality rate. If right now there are 100,000 (actual) positive and 50 deaths, that's a whole different situation than 1000 (reported) positive and 50 deaths.

Johns Hopkins is keeping up with the totals.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu

Thanks for that link, very helpful.

I've been using this Live Science web page which appears to be fairly regularly updated and sources States data and news reports: https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-updates-united-state...

It's been pretty much on the ball.

I've been maintaining a spreadsheet with States-level department of health Covid-19 situation page data and the totals roughly tally.

As of 13:00 GMT March 12: 1,300+ positive cases, 38 deaths. You could multiply the positive number by factor of 10 say to get a rough estimate of the total number of persons tested to this point (~13,000 let's say) that individual states, private labs, and the CDC have checked. (Hard to say though as only about 1/3 to 1/2 of states release full data and some are under-reporting (Nebraska and Texas afaict)) Another niggle is that it can (does?) take more than one "test" to perform a test.

I would think we be able to estimate fairly correctly. I assume pretty much everyone who dies from it would end up in a hospital and counted. And since we know the death rate, we know for every 1 death there were x who have it and will/have recovered.

Except the death rate is determined by deaths/cases, which relies on counting the cases.

There have already been missed deaths that were later attributed to Covid-19 in the US. Since the fatality profile of Covid-19 closely matches the fatality profile you expect anyway (people are more likely to die when they are old or have preconditions), it is actually a problem to get reliable death counts. Fatalities must have been tested, or tested retroactively, for correct attribution, and since the US currently isn't even close to doing proper testing of living patients, you can probably add two and two together by yourself.

The death rate is likely to vary depending on the strain and on the ability to treat effectively, both of which may change over time.

NBA season suspended after an Utah Jazz player, Rudy Golbert, preliminarily tests positive.

This shortly following Golbert jokingly (ugh) rubbing all of the mics at an interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qxtxIVtOZE

That guy did a little joke which turned into shutting down the whole league. What the hell

I was expecting the Curb Your Enthusiasm credits by the end there.

Meanwhile, the US Dept of State's Travel Advisories haven't really been recommending any restrictions on travel to Europe.

France is the 2nd most impacted country in Europe, and the DoS' last update was 11 months ago where their primary concern was terrorism.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/...

Only Italy is currently at "Reconsider Travel" or "Do Not Travel" for the Northern regions.

At least they are consistent. Following at a far enough distance gives you 20/20 hindsight for those you follow, but only if you can internalize the lesson fast enough. Otherwise you just slo-mo replicate their same mistakes.

This is insane. I haven’t been really scared of the pandemic yet, but if this is the response, now, I’m terrified.

Changing the number of infected people entering the community does nothing when we already have transmission happening within the community at some fixed rate which is determined by the community.

“Flattening the curve” of an exponential function means changing the rate of growth, not the fucking constant offset.

It’s basic math. Innocent people will die off this incompetence. I’m a little lost for words.

Who's going to die because they can't fly between the US and Europe?

People dying isn't the only consideration; public policy isn't made with the assumption "save human life at all costs", otherwise e.g. private cars (which kill 1-2 million people per year and injure tens of millions more) would be banned by now.

If healthcare capacity in the US becomes overwhelmed by an exponential function, every moment wasted by officials now, while the numbers are still low enough to do something real about, will turn out to have been a moment responsible for many thousands of needless deaths.

I hope your flippancy turns out to be warranted. I just can’t get there.

I really lost heart when Trump addressed the cruise ship incident with "I don't want my numbers to go up." Just manipulation of the numbers to reduce fear/keep stocks up. But if the virus is a threat, it will become undeniable.

I don't normally say this, but I hope Trump's right about the whole thing. Wash your hands and you'll be fine, right? We'll see in a month. Maybe a week.

But even the tinest of improvements is better than no improvements, because we all know the most important thing when making decisions is to only consider the possible benefits and never consider the cost!

One thing though; which airline will fly only american citizen back from europe? will they fill a plane with those customers only? I think my main concern is that most if not all major European airlines will cancel all flights, regardless if there are a couple of US citizen on the flights. Meaning it's probably still going to be somewhat problematic to get back (if not from London then of course)

I'm trying to find more information about this, as I'm a tourist visiting the US flying back on Sunday. Does anyone know how this will play out, will they keep flying FROM the US to Europe?

If they cancel flights, you'll have to route via the UK.

I suggest getting back to wherever it is you want to spend the next couple months asap.

I'd advise flying back ASAP, you don't want to risk being stuck in the US during a medical emergency.

You will want to move while you can. I got caught out due to the 9/11 flight ban and that really wrecked my life for a while.

The levenshtein distance between tourist and terrorist is only 4, so my prognosis looks bleak.

But fun aside, I think you are still fine. To my knowledge no flights from the US seem to be cancelled so far. If they really do cancel flights, you could try to use another route trough another EU country. But I think that is still unlikely to be required. That might change though, but probably not until Sunday.

They might lose landing rights. That's often enough reason to keep flying, even with empty planes.

And that's what has been going on for a few days inside Europe now. Airlines flying empty or near empty planes to keep their slots. The European Commission was meant to make a move about that, I don't know if that's been done already or not.

They had no screening for incoming travelers at airports just a couple of days ago - no health questions or temperature checks, nothing. And now a 30 day ban? This won't solve the problem, but it will vastly exacerbate the economic disruption.

It won't solve the problem, but it might be big enough a move that people realize now is the time to minimize contact as much as possible.

Can we do better than link to the front page of a news site?

Here is the official proclamation: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/coronavirus-trump-suspends-a...

Better link: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-make-pri...

NYTimes has removed paywall for coronavirus stories: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/world/coronavirus-news.ht...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcsZjfs2cB4

This awfully sounds like politically motivated than medically motivated.

Edit: Apparently it’s limited to Schengen Zone: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/03/11/homeland-security-acting...

How so? This will undoubtedly push the world into recession, how does that help Trump?

The restrictions are simultaneously overly broad and yet narrowly tailored. I can't find any sensible justification for it.

If you're trying to draw a cordon sanitaire, then why leave out the busiest hub in the region? I don't see any indication that there's any intention to prevent people from the Europe getting to the US via indirect means (which includes Canada, Iceland, and it seems even the Azores).

And if you're not trying to draw a cordon sanitaire, why go to such an extreme measure? Banning entry of people who have visited afflicted regions in the recent past (as was done for China) is possible, so why not do that instead? Why ban cargo in addition, given that the coronavirus is thought to be unable to survive the week-long voyage without live hosts?

Furthermore, why include Ireland (an island nation so far relatively unaffected by coronavirus) in the ban, but not the UK (an island nation with greater connections to continental Europe, including a connecting tunnel, that is more heavily affected)?

Just because he can’t anticipate the repercussions doesn’t mean it wasn’t politically motivated

Short term pain may lead to long term political gains. This all plays into the narrative, the story that certain political fractions push.

It’s not like it will change too much anyway(EU and USA will be like Italy in few weeks, they already have the infection spreading). Besides, it was “just a flu” few days ago according to him.

Perhaps certain people want to buy stocks cheaply ...

I just did some back-of-the-sleeve calculations on the incidence of Corona-infections in the US which make me wonder which continent is protected against which by this travel ban. My source of information is the video reporting by Dr. John Campbell [1] who thus far has been one of the more level-headed sources on the ongoing pandemic. Here goes:

The official number of cases in the US as reported by Campbell is 1084, with 33 dead. This number roughly tallied with what I see on the CDC site (they report 938 cases, 28 dead) [2].

The major of Seattle estimates there around 1100 infections in this city (source: Campbell's video), a number which could grow to about 70.000 in 6 weeks (source: Campbell's video, most likely based on the spread in Wuhan)

Seattle has a population of around 750.000 people, i.e. 0.146% of the population carries the infection.

The total population of the USA is around 328 million. 95% of the USA land mass consists of rural area with a total population of around 60 million (~20%), the other 80% of the population lives in metropolitan areas (source: Wikipedia).

If the infection rate of Seattle is used as a guide for the infection rate for the entire metropolitan population in the USA there are about 390.000 infected people in the country at the moment. While it is unlikely that this infection rate goes for the entire metropolitan population it is not out of the question given the high mobility of people in the USA. Even if actual the infection rate is a tenth of that in Seattle there are still around 38.000 infected people in the country.

Who is being protected against whom by this travel ban?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzXQ6Bu9JVI

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html

https://twitter.com/DHS_Wolf/status/1237915985476227078

Note that this technically covers "having been in Europe in the last 14 days", not merely "coming directly from Europe". Enforcement of the latter is much easier, of course, and I'm sure some people will manage to sneak through by lying or customs not asking.

Also note that it's the Schengen zone, thus excluding both UK and Ireland.

Finally, it only excludes foreign nationals. US citizens should be able to return, but there's nothing stopping them from being tested and/or quarantined on return.

This is late, but still necessary. But still not enough. Travel WITHIN the US must be restricted as well. Overly strict measures now can still help bend the curve -- the economy will recover.

Seems like this is too little too late, cats already out of the bag in the US.

It's all about flattening the curve at this point.

You can do your best to identify those infected and have them self-quarantine, but if the gates are open and infected people are streaming into your country, you're not going to get far.

You’re describing the opposite of flattening the curve. Closing the gates now does nothing.

I do not mean to be patronizing, but this is literally life or death and the math is very simple.

Today there are k infected people. Tomorrow there will be kn people.

If n is unsustainable, any positive value for k is equivalent. Arbitrarily large changes to k today make an arbitrarily small contribution to the final doubling.

“Infected people streaming in” means k becomes k+c. How much does reducing c flatten the curve? How much does it increase the time span of the critical last few doublings?

It doesn’t. That’s only dependent on n.

Ok, we can’t “flatten” the curve, but we can move the peak, right? How much does reducing c move the peak?

Well, every day we prevent k additional people from entering buys us one day. Remember, tomorrow that’s kn. Act fast.

If we could, this week alone, prevent a quantity of infected Europeans equal to the infected population already within the US from entering, that buys us one single doubling period before the collapse of healthcare. Maybe a week if we got lucky.

I will guesstimate that that is not a realistic target in fact. The actual benefit scales proportionally.

And next week it’s the same work for half the benefit.

What are you talking about.

But doesn't that require the notion that infection rates are higher in the excluded place? Given the US's incredible failure to test widely, I am not seeing why flights from Sweden or Ireland are any more dangerous than flights from Seattle at this point.

Ugh, USA is at the moment likely on level with Europe.

The idea that this will prevent "infected people streaming into USA" is uninformed. This step limits transfer both ways, between two regions that both have similar level of infection spread.

It may help both sides contain the virus, but it won't limit the amount of infected people in the USA on its own.

Please, be careful about the language you use, the way you wrote the sentence promotes FUD.

It's more about slowing the progress to spread out the number of infected over time.

As others have commented the goal at this point is curve flattening.

What is "flattening" in this case? it's attempting to limit the peak concurrent cases. There will likely not be a hugely significant reduction in total cases, but that isn't the goal.

The reason this is important is because no matter where you are, healthcare systems have a finite limit to the number of people they can treat at once, and if you exceed that you'll get a massive increase in mortality - both due to "survivable". cases not being treated, as well as unrelated medical events that don't get treated because there isn't capacity, e.g. you have a stroke, but there's no ED or ICU beds available.

The signaling serves a purpose though.

All those panicking on the account of economic downturn need to remember that the US need not run faster than the bear, economically, it only needs to run faster than the other guy. Which it will. For starters, the US has 16% of population over the age of 65, compared to e.g. 21% in Germany, 22% in Italy and 20% in France. Population density is much lower here. There are 2.5x ICU beds per capita as well, and more diagnostic equipment, too. A lot fewer people use public transport. Strong containment measures were also taken _earlier_ in the infection cycle than e.g. in Italy.

I mean, sure there's some well publicized incompetence at CDC and FDA, that happens, but to say that the US is _more fucked_ than e.g. continental Europe is just not in alignment with reality.

Later this week the improved test kits should arrive en masse, and then we'll see how bad the situation is. Right now it's just pure conjecture and panic.

I am beginning to strongly suspect that supply chain disruption caused by government decisions is going to cause way more damage to the world than this virus ever could have on its own. I think more people making these decisions could benefit from a good deep reading of Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations".

Don't underestimate how costly it is to society to have a bunch of people die. Not taking this seriously will kill a lot more people than taking it seriously.

The worst case of the virus is around 2% of people die, mostly elderly. The worst case of "taking it seriously" is an economic collapse in which a double-digit percentage of people die because global supply chains have fallen apart and there is no longer enough food to feed everybody.

It seems most of the analysis of these decisions is only looking at the benefits and not the costs; it's impossible to make rational decisions that way.

I'm certain most government knows the economic consequences will be pretty severe. However, given the panic this has already created in public, and much higher mortality rate than seasonal flu, they cannot simply ride it out.

I'm sure they have weighed their options, and have opted to take more certain shorter term hit vs gamble with uncertain longer term hit.

immunesystem can also kill. in fact, one of the ways covid19 kills is through cytokine storm, a immune overreaction.

I don't understand why people seem so sure this is not a case of social immune overreaction.

Unfortunately, too little, too late, indeed. Too late for obvious reasons - handling a crisis in a reactive way and with a serious delay is levels of magnitude more difficult than to prevent one in the first place. Too little, because IMO travel restrictions should have been set up much earlier and, more importantly, much wider than China and Europe (i.e., Schengen Area - BTW, excluding UK is ridiculous: viruses don't care about politics, do they?). By the time people realized all seriousness of the situation, there have been 100s and even 1000s of known cases in countries like Japan and South Korea. As far as I know, travel from those areas has not been restricted at the time. I certainly understand that all that implies a huge global economic and mobility impact. However, I believe that people's health and well-being is incomparably much more important than any potential economic, lifestyle and other adverse effects from making such hard decisions. Having enough information, advice and warnings from health professionals and scientists at the time, not limiting international travel (as the very major channel of this viral transmission) early enough and comprehensively enough is extremely irresponsible, whereas doing so would have been an act of true leadership.

I see loads of people saying that we're beyond containment, and they're correct. However, it does slow infection rates to some degree. That allows us the time to try to learn more about how it behaves, how repeated cases impact people who aren't currently affected as much, and find ways to combat it. That's a positive.

Does this mean with a round trip, you could be allowed to fly to Europe and be trapped there?

Edit: apparently not, looks like it just applies to foreign nationals https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/03/11/homeland-security-acting...

In my experience, airports have been pretty good about checking for potential issues like that and warning passengers at check-in.

That experience doesn't include American airports though, so YMMV.

I see in some places it says this includes cargo / shipping. Is that true?

Watched the broadcast live, yes it includes cargo shipments. Something tells me the markets are going to react badly to that one

Including cargo doesn't make much sense to me. Did they include a justification for this?

In contrast, the CDC's take is that "in general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient temperatures." -- https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/faq.html

They walked back the cargo restrictions: https://twitter.com/AnaSwanson/status/1237921160500830208

Forget markets: we make drugs here they need there and vice versa.

Ports are basically already at a standstill.

I personally feel this policy will get altered as the markets tank further.

yea I'm guessing the market will be all red again tomorrow.

Futures are already way down. I am almost debating staying home tomorrow just to trade. But as other posters pointed out, he seems to have mispoken.

Honestly given how long a cargo ship takes from the EU to the USA and given that the crew of ships has basically no contact with the cargo crates this makes no sense at all...

The only think I can come up with is that this will allow Trump to show how bad it is that the USA is so much international dependent for certain goods and use that then to push through regulations to enforce more local production. But if it's really that it's quite crazy.

A normal travel ban on the other side will slow/reduce/eliminate cross infection between the EU and the USA which can be helpful to slow the spread. But then from all what I can tell it might be at a point where the slowing of the spread caused by EU/USA cross infection doesn't matter due to many more local sources of infection... Well we will see. At least during the ban he can't really put the blame of any increase onto the EU anymore as travel was cut.

S&P 500 Futures are already down 3%

Looks like they backtracked on that one https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12379246581854699...

This isn't just about COVID-19. This is economic warfare.

Yes, it's strange that a lot of articles don't seem to be mentioning that. Here's the relevant section of the address: https://youtu.be/pdO2HEtv92c?t=105

> And these prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo, but various other things as we get approval. Anything coming from Europe to the United States is what we are discussing.

That seems to be the news.

I suspect that Monday will shortly be the second largest drop in absolute terms after tomorrow. We might even see tomorrow crack the top 10 in percentage terms.

Trump said "these restrictions will not only apply to the tremendous amounts of cargo..."

but DHS is now clarifying that it doesn't apply to cargo, and the order itself doesn't mention cargo[1].

So who knows?

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation...

It's pretty clear that Trump misread his statement. In more ways than just that one.

Canada will go $$$!

yes just heard that on CNN

Joe Rogan has a guess on his podcast recently that is an expert. This virus spreads through air very easily. Huge numbers of the virus develop in the throat before symptoms appear. A person sitting at the front of the bus, can infect people many rows back.

The takeaway. Avoid all crowded places. Buses, Stores, Metro. And places that recirculate air, such as cruise ships, airplanes.

It will come like a wave, many many people will get infected at once, quickly. 1-3% will die. Eventually virus will run out of people not already immune to it, and the spread will subside.

Too little, too late.

Most of Australia's external cases seem to be coming from the US (e.g. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson), which indicates tens of thousands of undiagnosed incidences there (even accounting for selection bias).

Urgent social distancing seems to be the best approach to maintaining a functional health system now.

Why is the U.K. not included? This is so weird; it's such a mess in the UK too.

Excluding the UK hints that this is, at least in part, politically motivated. In terms of risk the UK is no different to other European countries. We are certainly not immune to coronavirus, and there are currently no restrictions on travel between the UK and the continent.

UK (and Ireland) are outside Schengen.

Even if they don't restrict it to British passport holders travelling to the USA, it's still arguably easier to screen for the virus through one departure point than, say, 30.

There are many more flights terminating in the UK than any other European country. Plus, American students studying abroad in the UK have yet to return home.

https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1237941455693533184

The travel restriction applies to foreign nationals who have been in 26 European countries with open borders agreements, in the last 14 days.

UK is not included because it has never been a part of Schengen ("26 European countries"), which is targeted for refusal to impose travel restrictions.

That is bizarre. As of today, the UK has 459 cases and the US has 1311. The UK population is approximately 20% of the US population so on a per capita basis coronavirus is more prevalent in the UK than in the US. The optics on this are horrible and will be construed as showing more of a concern with political theater than evidence based decision making.

I wonder. UK has Assange and 5G cards to play. I am willing to agree that move was more political than virus-based.

Trump likes Boris Johnson.

I’m honestly not sure there’s anything more to it than that.

Wouldn't that make UK the next hotspot? People will travel to and from UK to get to USA. Unless UK restricts travel from the rest of Europe.

Not that this ban makes a lot of sense, but not including the UK makes even less sense, considering they've already reported 400 cases (compared to the ~1,200 in the U.S.)

edit: to be fair, maybe the administration would've preferred to just ban travel from Italy. But I'm guessing it's not possible to restrict travel from just one member of the EU.

Also doesn't make considering that Heathrow is a major hub for Europeans to travel to Europe.

Only reasoning I can see is political - UK did Brexit. For limiting the spreading this seems like a weird exception.

And the UK is already the most popular destination in Europe for Americans. ~50% greater than #2 France.

I've no idea why other than language.

https://www.statista.com/chart/18742/most-popular-destinatio...

I'm sure it has nothing to do with Trump owning golf courses in the UK.

The ban is for people who have been in the Schengen zone within the last 14 days, not just for direct arrivals from those states.

UK is already a hotspot. 100 confirmed cases in London (as of 11 Mar) means we should expect 10x that in practice. They just started later than some other countries.

Closing the gate after the cows have already gotten out.

Generally it is about slowing the cows.

More like closing the gate so the coyotes don't keep attacking your cows.

Except there are already dozens of coyotes inside the fence.

Are we calling disease victims coyotes now?

Containment has already failed. That's why COVID-19 was declared pandemic.

Governments, and their public health employees in particular, should be switching to management, mitigation, triage, and treatment now. The assumption is that everybody will get it. The goal now is to ensure that a person occupying an ICU beds will be treated and recovered by the time the next patient needs to be admitted into it.

Issuing more extensive travel bans now are driving in the rear-view mirror instead of keeping eyes on the road ahead. It's already here, and spreading in the community.

First priority is viable testing. You can't manage what you can't detect.

Then it's like controlling a nuclear chain reaction with irregularly-shaped fuel in a randomly-configured reactor. You want to eventually consume all the dangerously radioactive fuel, but you don't want a runaway reaction and core meltdown either. So you stick control rods and moderator fluids and neutron reflectors in as needed to control the rate of the reaction, based on your monitoring, and just keep doing it until all the unreacted fuel is gone. And the whole time, people are dropping dead from the radiation. But then the reaction finally burns itself out, and you can breathe easy again, then reflect upon your failures to revise your plans for the next one.

The federal response has already failed. Now is the time for lots of smart people, who can adapt quickly, to implement ad hoc measures at the local level, based on local conditions, and draw on their public health emergency budgets, that hopefully weren't cut or raided already, and their preparedness efforts, that hopefully actually exist.

Honest question, is the government allowed to prevent US citizens from returning to the US?

No, and they're not. It applies to foreign nationals (i.e. non citizens). They can, however, enforce a quarantine when citizen returns.

I don't think so, for reasons of both national and international law.

However, the US is not necessarily obliged to allow any particular vessel into the country.

Generally speaking, no. But there are edge cases.

Kinda useless as people can fly to Mexico sneak in thru San Diego. I can't believe in 2020 we still don't have a simple and effective reusable respirator, which evaporates all aerosols and turns them into safe to breathe vapors. I also think the ban now is good, but 30 days will not be enough as things are exponentially getting worse. Even if we reach the infliction point, this is not gonna end in 30, 60, or even 90 days.

The link should be changed to: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/03/11/homeland-security-acting...

..for official government info, and not a speech by an orange dude or news sites hungry for clicks.

Official proclamation here https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation...

unpopular opinion: personally I'm not optimistic that any good lesson will come out of covid19 outbreak.

every recent viral outbreak seem to have generated more and more overreaction that will not only seriously bring in the economic crash that so many have been asking for but also generate resistance to actually serious future outbreaks.

India has suspended all casual travel (based on type of visa) to India from all countries.

One of the latest positive cases was an individual who traveled from USA. He might now have spread it to a cab driver, his family and now their circles (school, offices) have possible exposure. :/

Given that he is one of the people who was not tested in the USA, and he has to be isolated here now, how many people like him might be spreading it far and wide in the USA? :(

hey mods, the link should be changed to the white house proclamation, news sites are having some trouble with accuracy.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation...

This is insane. What are the chances of this happening for Asia? I'm currently in Asia and it would be unfortunate to not be able to return home.

We're okay for now. Im in SE asia and i think im in an okay place to wait things out if necessary.

I don't see them restricting the rest of asia specifically unless they close it ALL down.

I could see them closing the borders completely if things continue to progress.

US is closer in blood to Europe and it shut down travel form Europe. Asia would be an easy/quick call for this administration.

Why haven't they done it in Asia yet then since Coronavirus originated from and is more severe there?

What's the endgame for the pandemic? Assume all governments act more-or-less correctly; people self quarantine, companies switch to remote work, etc. When does the world get back to normal? In two years after a vaccine is developed? This summer? Ever?

If it doesn't have the power to re-infect (which isn't known yet), then once herd immunity is achieved, things should return somewhat to normal.

1. Limit the infection rate as much as possible for the next 1-2 years.

2. Develop a cure (vaccine or therapy).

3. Return to our normal way of life.

4. Massively revamp our preparations for the next one.

The UK exemption is logical. The UK immigration systems are linked and accessible by the US. This is why the trusted-traveller program could be extended to cover the UK with an additional registration.

So the US immigration side knows all details of people connecting via the UK to the US so their pre-screening is effective. This includes how they got to the UK.

From what I read in WSJ, it's not a ban on travel by anyone, only on Europeans (whatever that comes to be defined as). Anyone found any more clarification? In one case that might mean the cessation of flights altogether, in the other case some flights still might fly?

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/03/11/homeland-security-acting...

(In the USA) Is this going to accomplish anything?

The virus is already here and has been spreading out-of-control for quite a while now. The only reason the numbers are still so low here is the incredibly low number of tests being done.

It stops new vectors. At this point the world is not trying to stop it spreading anymore, but slowing the rate of spread to not overwhelm healthcare.

Is external travel a significant input of new vectors compared to internal travel?

A little, not a lot. On the very pessimistic side, it will at least convince all the casual travelers who go "ooo look at the cheap airfare! I'm sure I'll be fine" from booking/traveling. Overall this will have a very chilling effect on travel, even to non-targeted regions.

However, we do already have the virus in the USA. So it's not suddenly going to go away because of this proclamation.

it will at least convince all the casual travelers who go "ooo look at the cheap airfare! I'm sure I'll be fine" from booking/traveling

I don't think it'll have such an effect on Americans since they are exempt from the ban. But now they're guaranteed to have more room to stretch out on the plane.

But you know what would have such an effect? If the government just came out and said "We strongly recommend that you cease all non-essential overseas air travel, including vacations"

No! This will do nothing. How are people on HN asking this? You all know math, right?!

The healthcare system is at risk of being overwhelmed by an exponential function. That means, to a first approximation, nothing matters except the last doubling.

Discussion questions: How does this policy, implemented now, affect the time span of the last doubling of COVID cases in the US? Does it do fuck all? Why, or why not?

Deaths are also much lower in the US.

Only vs. China, Iran and Italy. We're within a factor of two (that is, about 5-6 days) of everyone else. A 5-6 day head start is not enough window to save ourselves with a travel ban.

And just like Italy went from "contained" to a country-wide lockdown in the space of a week, so will we at this point. Those tens of thousands of cases are incubating right now and will emerge in the coming days.

This travel ban does nothing.

The lack of testing must be depressing the death numbers here too.

No. We need internal controls and a national emergency declared.

It was refreshing in Feb to visit a National Park without have 5 Chinese buses pull along side you.

Sorry I just had a good laugh at this. Pretty dark humor in these times... but that just sounds great.

Does anybody know how temporary work visas are handled? I’m on an L1-B and thankfully rebooked my flights 2 weeks ago when in a business trip to Germany (in anticipation of something like this).

Edit: I’m back in the US with my wife and kids, wasn’t clear enough above.

People from the UK who have holidays planned in the US would be better of with the UK being included in the ban, because they would then be able to get refunds for their flights etc.

Why is none of this mentioned on travel.state.gov ?

Is none of this official yet?

All travel to Europe’s Schengen area according to Homeland’s announcement.

You can still fly from the UK, Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia.

This might hit those airlines the greatest, we might see some of them file for bankruptcy besides flybe

How is this going to help? They can get in from Africa, Canada, Mexico, India? Ban them all later???

The ban is on those who have traveled to Europe in the past 14 days.

Unilateral amateurism is not how things should be done.

Look at Singapore for how things _should_ be done.

My brother is stuck in Europe

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22552902

I know people will try to come up with all sorts of edge cases to figure out how to get from Europe to the US, but the fact is if you lie about where you’ve been you will likely end up in federal prison. Don’t try it, wait 30 days.

Chances of Europe reciprocating?

Like a, “You can’t fire me because I quit,” situation?

Social distancing may be effective

How many stocks (and which) did the Trump-Kushner Crime family have time to short in prep for this?

The UK exception seems weird. Is Trump really playing geopolitical / diplomacy games in this situation?

From the NYT article:

"He [Trump] said he would instruct the Treasury Department to “defer tax payments without interest or penalties for certain individuals and businesses negatively impacted.”

Why deferments for businesses? Don't they only pay tax on profits?

Probably is targeted more at small businesses who might have trouble getting all of their bookkeeping and records in order in time to file in a few weeks. If this somehow benefits large corporations, they will no doubt take full advantage of the situation.

On last year/quarter's profits, which they might need for opex now.

It’s an interest free loan without the hassle of doing much paperwork.

I feel like there are some particular cultural attributes in the United States that make this useless at this point.

The United States has a very individualistic attitude. Sure, we can pause travel from Europe, but the current administration is very anti-europe. Can we pause travel in the US? I strongly doubt that we can effectively given the strong anti-expertise attitudes as well.

My guess is that the United States will become a more major hot spot for the virus than other locales. It will spread rapidly and the supply hoarding and sad state of our medical system will mean that in a few months, other nations will be rejecting flights from the US.

It's a prediction, a guess, but there are aspects of our culture that just makes it seem very likely. I'm not going to make any more predictions than the idea that we'll have more cases per capita than any other developed nation.

It's be interesting when I'm proven incorrect over time.

On the other hand, Americans have much larger and more comfortable homes than Europeans. Americans have big garages to stockpile supplies, which means less trips to the store. Very few people use public transportation regularly. Most people have private back yards. Many more meals are take-out or drive-thru. More Americans use e-commerce for shopping than Europeans.

In Europe by contrast, much more of life revolves around public spaces, like the park, cafes, the city square, and public transport. Americans tend to spend little time in restaurants, whereas Europeans relax and enjoy the meal, thus increasing their exposure time.

Think of the areas in the US that seen the worst outbreaks. Seattle, the Bay Area, New York, Boston. These are the metros, where the average resident is least likely to live a typical middle-American lifestyle. San Francisco in many ways is closer to Copenhagen than it is to Jacksonville.

Overall, social distancing is probably easier for Americans because our way of life already involves a good deal of social distance to begin with.

Only time will tell, but fairly aggressive measures are already being taken in California and Washington where the cases are only in the hundreds, and many other states are following close behind when they have few to no cases. One thing even many Americans don’t properly appreciate is the degree to which most things are actually run at the state and local level. So far the federal dysfunction has not stopped the states and cities from moving. If that stays the case, the US may be okay.

One other factor in the US favor, it’s extremely low population density compared to the rest of the world. The US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are all similarly low density and in this specific case likely to benefit from that.

Europe is a huge place and it's hard to pin it down to a single culture. The collectivism is mainly seen in northern Europe and Scandinavian countries. If you've ever been to Napoli or Sicily you wouldn't feel the same way. Feels more like Morocco sometimes.

Many parts are really not as collectivist as people seem to think. Not as collectivist as Asia at least, not even close. Individualistic tendencies are strong over there, although not as strong as in the US.

Just yesterday I listened to an interview with a medical expert, and the host asked him if he should cancel his domestic holiday plans. The host assured him that was premature.

And yet here we are the next day. The situation is evolving rapidly.

Even India is pausing all travel from Europe for next one month. It's not about US/India, Europe got lot of exposed cases and currently it's the best way to prevent further spreading.

There are lots of individualists that will flout advice, but there's also lots of people that will isolate themselves in quite a paranoid fashion.

I think there's more of the latter.

Trying hard not to be political. But POTUS speech seems to make things lot worse than better along anything.

The efficacy of this travel ban is questionable (given all these exceptions such as one for UK. Can people coming from other parts just have a layover in UK and be get permission to enter the US?). But lets give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they did so in good faith.

It is what's not in the speech that was very very concerning. - No mention of how / when / if people can get tested. - No mention of any plan to handle the economic situation. What happens when businesses in Tourism and restaurants run out of their runway and have to layoff people? What happens to hourly workers who get sick? - No assurance to encourage undocumented residents to go for testing if they experience symptoms. - No mention of large public events. Many local governments and private organizations are doing so in an ad-hoc ways. A consistent voice would literally save lives here.

Their team seems to be singularly focused on 'winning the narrative' or 'spinning' properly than anything else... Well, I guess this is just my opinion.

> What happens when businesses in Tourism and restaurants run out of their runway and have to layoff people? What happens to hourly workers who get sick?

Well they should have accounted for this! They should work hard to get through this, not expect handouts! /s

As sad as the outcome might be death-wise, I hope this pandemic ripping through the US makes us realize how broken our systems are and how instead of spending trillions on military we should be spending money on our collective wellbeing.

> Can people coming from other parts just have a layover in UK and be get permission to enter the US?

I believe anyone who's been to the Schengen Area in the past x days faces the ban. Excluding the UK and Ireland surely had political reasons (the UK now also has >400 cases) but it's hard to define Europe if you don't use either Schengen or EU (both of which the UK isn't a part of).

these containment measures are important but considering that there are no numbers on tests it really is just a distraction from the fact that no tests are being done in the US.

It makes him look like a "strong leader" in front of his base and lends an appearance of "we don't stop from drastic measures even it hurts the economy" (which he was accused of before).

Any time a talking-head goes in front of a camera, the only question that should be asked is "how many tests did we do today, yesterday? ... where is the data for it?". Without the transparency for the numbers of tests all other measures are just a distraction. Anyone who speaks about stuff before these numbers are public knowledge needs to be kicked off the air and down the street (metaphorically).

Also reporters who engage them and do not insist on extracting the numbers before continuing the conversation are complicit.

No need to apologise for being political. This is clearly in the realm of politics.

a lot of people who criticize the ban says its arbitrary, etc etc. go to the site below. you can also sort by total cases / 1m pop. US stopped travel to China while the EU did not, and you can see that in the numbers. Right now, the US has one of the lowest rates in the world: 4 per million.

If you want to call Trump for a mistake, it was not banning travel from EU sooner, when they themselves didn't ban travel to China.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

The payroll tax holiday idea is bonkers. The people most in need of help here are hourly or gig workers who are told to stay home from work or who get sick and can't work. Paying less taxes on nonexistent wages doesn't help. It seems like the administration is more interested in propping up the markets than actually addressing the health crisis and its human costs.

Also, eliminating copays on coronavirus treatment is nice, but it's hard not to notice the glaring omission of anything to help the 9% of Americans who are uninsured.

Also, do they mean SS and Medicare contributions in the payroll taxes, or just unemployment insurance?

Like if we have a health crisis that disproportionately affects people who rely on Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security, taking away funding for it isn't bonkers. It's batshit insane! We should be doubling, tripling taxes in the short term on those that can pay it to make up the funding gap for testing, treatment, and surge capacity. And who better than the largest medical provider in the country, with contacts and infrastructure for directing funds to every medical provider in the country?

Are they going to cut off the water to the block when the house is burning down?

They aren't eliminating copays on treatment. Only testing.

https://twitter.com/owermohle/status/1237922717699014658

> It seems like the administration is more interested in propping up the markets than actually addressing the health crisis and its human costs.

Pretty much. Trump is openly obsessed with the Dow.

And then we have the CDC, saying they're being told to wait on Jared Kushner "doing some research".

As far as I can tell the only research he could or would be realistically doing is determining which companies stand most to profit from measures, and make sure that family and friends positions in those companies are thoroughly set up.

Just de-boarded and re-boarded an aircraft going to Europe from NY because of this „small“ missing „detail“ in the initial announcement. 4h delay and the people who de-boarded the plane initially, are not re-boarding because they probably left the airport by now, not knowing they had wrong information. Ouch.

The most important detail that was missed, it seems, is that this doesn't go into effect until midnight on Friday 03/13.

4h delay and the people who de-boarded the plane initially, are not re-boarding because they probably left the airport by now, not knowing they had wrong information.

For those that live in the US and de-boarded because of this "missing detail", I wouldn't be surprised if in a week or two they don't feel like they dodged a massive bullet.

(This subthread was originally in reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22552902)

It's so dumb, immediate family members not applicable -- so check-in agents are now going to be in the business of examining birth certificates?

The people who went home just won the lottery ticket.

Let me just explain this to my broker, see if they will unwind after my stops hit...

Stonks already hit the downside circuit breakers.

that’s right - don't ban the uk where many people have traveled from italy and the rest of the world unhindered. because the virus cares about politics and trump’s shenanigans. folks in the us - i really hope everyone poor and rich gets treatment when necessary, for free.

Does this mean return flights too?

Or just travel originating from Europe and going inbound to USA?

Couldnt you just travel to Canada and get to U.S through there? I get that it will reduce the number of people somewhat but it might

Is there a point to this? The virus is already everywhere.

Yes. The point is to flatten the curve. https://www.flattenthecurve.com/

That has nothing to do with the question.

Travel to and from doesn't lower the number of infections in the US, assuming prevalence is about equal on the two continents.

Depends on how imaginative/paranoid you are. It sure seems odd that this week has included an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, a pandemic declaration, and now the biggest disruption of international travel/commerce since WW2. https://twitter.com/RusEmbUSA/status/1237048071223160833

If I would have my tin foiled hat on I would say something else is going.

He’s dead Jim.

Captain, it appears the containment has failed. What are your next orders?

What if.. You travel to UK by land and take a plane to the USA?

Haven't seen any official details yet so just speculating at this point, but the China travel ban applies to "any foreign national who was in China during the last 14 days" (except green card holders/diplomats). It'll likely be a similar definition with the EU.

Edit: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/03/11/homeland-security-acting... confirmed this (countries in Schengen area)

This is possible. But less likely.

The point of travel restrictions is not to be 100% effective, but instead to reduce the number that travel.

How are you planning to travel to UK by land? It's an island!

The UK is in Europe.

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