E.U. Plans to Bar Most U.S. Travelers When Bloc Reopens | Hacker News Reader

E.U. Plans to Bar Most U.S. Travelers When Bloc Reopens

nytimes.com

27 pointsdanhak43 comments

It is astonishing that some commenters here are trying to argue that the US is experiencing anything other than an accelerating disaster right now. We are going to witness what the unrestricted spread of this virus can do to a developed nation. This is due in no small part to those who would vocally downplay the effects of the virus, its penetration into the population, and/or the necessity for drastic public health measures.

The EU makes cold hard calculations on matters such as this - I am glad they have my back.

Strange message. The actual data: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases-50-states does not show any kind of "accelerating disaster".

Instead it shows that some states have completed their infection curve, and other are just starting it.

Not a single state is showing a downward trajectory that then reverses and climbs upward.

So what is your basis for saying that?

> The EU makes cold hard calculations on matters such as this - I am glad they have my back.

You do know that the EU has more deaths than the US, yes? It's possible that could change, since it's not over yet in the US. But as of right now I see zero indication "they have your back" in any special way. Their situation is more or less the same as the US.

This is just the absurdity of constant cheering of American Exceptionalism, something that has been deteriorating for a while and took a nosedive in the last 4 years.

America will be a great lesson for other democracies of how electing a stupid leader can regress the country so rapidly.

Many governments (including the one that occupies my country Switzerland) drove economies into the ditch. These governments won't admit that this was wrong from the start. Now they have to pretend the USA is too dangerous.

People from high-occurrence areas are a risk to people from low-occurrence areas.

That said, it's possible that both approaches were poor.

We'll only understand the cost of lockdown in hindsight: increased poverty, increase joblessness, increased mental health issues, etc.

Some problems don't have any good-looking solutions.

Article is unclear if it's passport based or based on where you've been the last 14 days. The latter approach is more sensible and the former seems punitive and retaliatory more than anything.

I really wish this would get cleared up in the media. Surely this has to be based on recent travel history and not the passport, but that's not how it's being reported.

A few weeks ago there was news that Greece would open to tourists from China on July 1, but now they're (justifiably) saying there ought to be reciprocal opening as a prerequisite. Meanwhile no airlines are flying direct flights so it's not clear how tourists would get between the countries anyway. It's leaving travelers in really awkward situations because we can't really plan for anything.

I think the truth is most countries haven't finalized their policies yet, and that's why the reporting is so fuzzy. I suspect a lot of countries don't want to be the first to take the plunge.

In my opinion we should just reopen all the borders and enforce quarantine as the default case. For countries who want a fast track lane, they can keep waffling about how to do that, but just reopening everywhere with quarantines would at least get the travel industry moving again and give the world a framework to get things back to normal.

My guess is that there is a huge opportunity for some private entity to do Abbot-style 15 minute tests on arriving passengers (like global entry). Pay $100, check out negative, good to go. Maybe the airlines themselves could do it, seeing that people usually show up 2h in advance on intl flights.

Probably want to do the check at departure, so you’re not stuck with the cost of 14 days of quarantine at the destination or repatriation.

Yup, the private entity would have to make a deal with the EU to only send OKed passengers on a plane (and crew, too).

It's not that hard. And while tests are not foolproof, it's probably "safe enough". I wonder why this hasn't been done already.

Heck I'd pay this just so I could travel domestically to visit my parents and four-month-old nephew.

I've been seeing more and more talk of how global opinions of the US have really taken a hit in the last year. With that in mind, do y'all think as quickly as it went down it can recover?

Maybe is different for countries, but in general reputation is slowly gained but quickly lost.

It can recover fast, but it will take a long time to recover fully. Even if the next administration is more...sane and stable, when you go back to the negotiating table around the world the other parties will be wary of future US administrations that are as bad or worse than Trump's. Why trust your word on things, why even trust any new legally binding international obligations, when they may just get trampled in the next few years? I think this will be lessened if Trump only has a single term ("oh, they recognized the mistake and corrected") vs a second term ("oh no, there is wide spread support for his behaviour and future administrations can tap into that sentiment to gain power") will dictate how America is viewed by other governments and who is willing to still play ball instead of starting a new game without you.

As a western European, most of it is associated with the current president and administration. Almost every European liked Obama and supported his international leadership.

"Almost every European liked Obama and supported his international leadership."

You are making some strong statements.

Here is brief Pew Research article that backs up the statement: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/08/how-people-...

I think it's fair to say that Obama was much more trusted in Europe than either Bush or Trump. When you break it down by country the story is more complex, but the poster did admit to being western European.

My own experience is that nobody cared about Obama (and the ones that came before him) but the media are trying their hardest to report any negative news about Trump.

Yes. The US has always been a little 'special' in the club ob western nations, in many respects. That was always cause for a certain level of mistrust, which is actually healthy. But in the broad, I would say the general perception amoung the other western nations was still overall positive. Now some (by far not all) aspects on the 'plus' side have been put in question, while on the 'minus' side, not a lot improved. But I don't see it so black and white. Another leader or even Trump himself could turn it around, if they were interested.

The breakdown of the (hidden) alliance the US media had with American politics to now open hostility could make that harder, because it is visible worldwide. Again, the media could turn it around, if it wanted to. But it feels unlikely, they will with Trump. So the best chance for reconciliation between the fourth power and the government is a democratic win in the upcoming election.

Fair or not fair, it seems from an outside perspective that if Trump wins again, all hell could break lose in the US. There could be a civil war anarchy vs. authority.

I think there are some things amoung Trumps policies, that if people were a little more honest have been attractive even to the left of some or even most of the other western nations, like putting more value on local labor.

The problem is less about opinions and more a concern that a 'lapse' on US part to care for democracy and freedom worldwide (even if it might not always have been genuine in the past either), openly speaking more positive about some more authoritarian leaders than democratic leaders, etc. could have the more long lasting negative effect on the world.

A new President would go a very long way.

Ultimately everything is about results. World leaders would be happy to ignore Trumps behavior if everything was under control. Unfortunately everything clearly is not under control.

Even better would be for News to stop competing for clicks by finding the most inflammatory, worst possible things, and reporting only on them.

If you listened to the media the US has the worst virus response in the world. Obviously that's not true: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

But you would not know it by reading the news.

Realistically, the US should not be debating whether its response was the worst in the world, or merely e.g. the 10th worst in the world. Both are shocking outcomes for such a highly-developed economy.

The US has, for the most part, extensive resources with which a global pandemic can be managed. It has money, people, manufacturing capability, research centres, and medical facilities. But the country has catastrophically mismanaged this challenge, and this is almost entirely for political reasons. Over 100k people are dead – it's a bad outcome, and we should be looking at why that bad outcome happened and what can be done to fix it.

I live in the UK – another country which has also badly mismanaged this pandemic. The reasons are a little bit different, but it does seem pretty startlingly obvious to be that the underlying problem is the same – you cannot solve a real-world problem by pretending it does not exist. The UK failed its response because it spent too much time on political management and lying to itself, and not enough time on dealing with problems and being honest about them. The same applies to the US, and it's honestly absolutely breathtaking the number of perspectives I have seen that want to apologise for this.

The U.S. currently ranks #12 out of 200 in terms of infections per capita, far higher than any western democracy--even those that have done significantly more testing per capita. Yes, it is pretty close to the worst response in the world: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Countries with more deaths per capita than the US, in order:

Belgium, UK, Spain, Italy, Sweden, France

At the rate we're going, that may change eventually, but when you compare the general discussion of, say, the US vs. Sweden, it's obvious there is an absurd amount of bias, both from the US domestic media and others.

Most folks I know think Sweden totally messed up for political reasons, same as the US (but for different political reasons).

I think people are too judgmental. My point is just that people are biased about the facts, not that I accept the underlying belief that a lower death rate means virtue or intelligence.

Infection numbers are too easy to fake. Look at mortality rate, that's what actually counts.

This is 95% the media, and 5% actual change. And 50% trump saying stupid things.

Basically: The US has not actually changed, but the Media really really really hates Trump, and Trump really knows how to say stupid things, which gives them lots of ammo.

They would do well to ignore most of what he says, but they can't help it: He sells lots of clicks.

Out here in the real world the US is not actually doing bad, the US response to the virus is not actually really bad (it's inline with other countries see: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality ).

This is basically just media desperate for clicks to sell ads. And they don't care about the collateral damage. (See my other post in this thread for more details about how this NYT article is a perfect example of the media badly representing things.)

Only 8 countries in the world have a worse value than the US for per capita deaths. That's the data you're providing to support your statement that we're not doing badly? Should a country this rich be ranked at the bottom of the world in mortality?

This line: "that the United States, which has reported more coronavirus deaths and infections than any other country"

Is so misleading that it borders on an outright lie. Per capita the US is middle of the pack, not especially great, not terrible either.

See: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

I also hate seeing stuff like:

"The conundrum is in some ways similar to a decision this week by New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to impose mandatory quarantines on travelers from other states where the virus is flaring, like Florida and Texas."

New York was, by far, the worst hit state. And now they are getting better. That have no place to criticize other states who are no worse than them, they are just on a later timetable.

It's identical to Europe: Europe was hit hard, and is now better. The US is simply lagging behind, but no it's "a stinging rebuke to the Trump administration’s management of the coronavirus scourge."

I fully support the ban!!! Just not the language used to describe it.

This is why people say "Fake News", it's not outright fake, it's just very slanted.

If you want to talk about misleading, you are the one who just changed goalposts from "most infections" to "mortality per capita." I would hope the healthcare system of the most advanced economy on earth would fare better than "middle of the pack" when it comes to mortality.

If you're arguing that figures should be adjusted for population then fine. Let's look at infections per capita, where U.S. is currently 12 out of 200--significantly higher than any other western democracy, even those that have done more testing per capita. Hardly middle of the pack: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

> Let's look at infections per capita, where U.S. is currently 12 out of 215--significantly higher than any other western democracy, even those that have done more testing per capita.

Sure, but according to that source it's also among the middle of the pack of developed countries in the mortality rate, and considering the relatively high testing rate in the US compared to other developed countries the mortality rate seems like a slightly better first approximation. It seems like you considered the high infection rate but didn't adjust for the high testing rate besides noting that some of the countries with more testing have a lower infection rate. This ignores the countries with a lower rating rate and similar or higher mortality.

I don't like to use infection as a standard because that depends 100% on how much testing you do. So it's easy to fake by just doing less testing.

Deaths is much harder to fake, and if you checked you would see there isn't any actual medical treatment, mortality rates aren't going to change much given basic care, so it's an excellent way to compare countries (except maybe those that are too poor to even have the basics).

> I don't like to use infection as a standard because that depends 100% on how much testing you do

As I pointed out, our infection rate is higher than European countries that have a testing rate >= ours. So that is a fair comparison. I.E. our positivity rate is higher.

Source please for testing rate? Both for the European countries, and for the individual US states (looking at the US as one lumped whole will give misleading results because different states are at different points in their infection, some are ending like NY, and some are starting like CA).

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

You can click through to get more granular on the country, state, and county levels.

> I would hope the healthcare system of the most advanced economy on earth would fare better than "middle of the pack" when it comes to mortality.

But this is the healthcare system widely derided as the _worst_ in the developed world. Methinks if we were dead last in deaths per capita you’d be saying you aren’t terribly surprised either.

> New York was, by far, the worst hit state. And now they are getting better. That have no place to criticize other states who are no worse than them, they are just on a later timetable.

Don’t forget that Cuomo absolutely lost his shit a few months ago when Rhode Island’s governor proposed banning /quarantining New Yorkers.

It's not only lagging behind. The US numbers are not showing that the pendemic is under control in a lot of states. Hell, some states like Florida are not under lockdown anymore but still have an increasing number of daily cases.

In contract, all EU countries managed to control the pendemic and are now fighting against local clusters.

We might’ve fared better if tens of thousands of people didn’t think nonstop protesting was a great idea. You can check the graphs, the spike coincides with the start of the protests. HMM. And spare me the “everyone was wearing masks” argument. That assumes several things:

1. That every single person was wearing a mask.

2. That every single person was wearing an N95 or better mask.

3. That they all wore those masks properly (I.e., none of the failing to wear it over the nose or taking it off when you’re speaking nonsense).

4. Most importantly, that masks are perfectly effective in halting the spread of the virus.

If the spike corresponds with the start of the protests, this is evidence that it's unrelated – because we'd expect a substantial lag.

> is under control in a lot of states.

Disagree. See: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases-50-states

I see no states with a "second wave". I see states that are just starting their cases (like Florida and California and Texas), and states where it's basically over (like NY).

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