Coronavirus (COVID-19) Respiratory illness - Effect on Travel

[exceladdict]

I'm finding this digest of news particularly interesting: Coronavirus & Travel Industry: Breaking News & Impacts

 

[JessicaTam]

I wonder if UK is considered part of Europe now?

It always has been. Brexit doesn’t change geography.

 

[dajop]

It always has been. Brexit doesn’t change geography.

Britain has always been part of Europe. It's never been part of "Continental Europe". It seems many intepret Europe as "Continental Europe". A bit like Israel and Lebanon, geographically they are part of Asia. Even though they would be some of the last countries that come to mind when you think of Asia.

 

[I love to travel]

Virgin Australia crew member tests positive for virus

Virgin Australia has informed staff that a member of its cabin crew has tested positive for COVID-19 and that its medical team is working with commonwealth and state health authorities on the matter.

www.afr.com

How long before airlines are totally grounded due to OHS concerns?

 

[moa999]

Interesting statement from Norwegian government.

The most obvious candidate Norwegian Air has lost 85% of it's already depressed share price in the past month.

Norway to help airlines with funding amid virus outbreak: PM

The Norwegian government plans to help airlines secure funding that will allow them to remain in operation while bookings fall due to the coronavirus outbreak, Prime Minister Erna Solberg said on Wednesday.

www.reuters.com

 

[amaroo]

Not quite.

North Korea is the first country to close its borders with China. The USA may be the second to disallow people travelling from mainland China into the USA..

<snip>

I count NK and the Chinese as the same organism - plenty of history to back that one up.

Post automatically merged: Mar 12, 2020

Reuters | Breaking International News & Views

Find latest news from every corner of the globe at Reuters.com, your online source for breaking international news coverage.

in.reuters.com

India is taking big steps.

I know a couple in their 70's that departed for India yesterday - crazy stuff!

 

[OATEK]

SMH reporting that AUS will not follow US on travel ban to Europe at this stage:

"The Australian government's top health advisers have told the national security committee they do not recommend putting a travel ban on Europe at this stage, after the United States banned much of the travel from the continent.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison asked federal and state chief health officers to review all travel from Europe on Thursday as the national security committee considers putting up more walls around Australia to stop the spread of the coronavirus."

Australian health advisers say no to Europe-wide travel ban

Surging cases across Italy, France, Germany and Spain and the US decision to ban non-residents travelling from 26 European countries forced it to be considered.

www.smh.com.au

 

[trevella]

Friends that we stay with in Alabang have said that there have been armed forces and police patrolling the streets in Manila this evening and the city is going into lockdown

They got that one right... scary place to be from our accounts.

 

[Lynda2475]

I seeing lots of chatter re Ausrtalian International Airports not doing any real arrival checks for passengers en masse (only for foreign nationals entering from certain countries), unlike SIN or HKG where temperature of all passengers is taken.

I woud have thought that Australia would have means to have same sort of checks at our international airports (at least the larger capital city one, maybe not Broome) as other first world nations.

 

[Mogul]

Smarttraveller now recommending all overseas travel be reconsidered

 

[Pushka]

Smarttraveller now recommending all overseas travel be reconsidered

Post automatically merged: Mar 13, 2020

Smarttraveller now recommending all overseas travel be reconsidered

They need to be much more directive than that for it to have any effect. That’s pretty much useless advice.

 

[Lynda2475]

They need to be much more directive than that for it to have any effect. That’s pretty much useless advice.

Yep unless it says "Do Not Travel" insurance doesnt have to cover the non-refundable portion of cancellation costs.

 

[PineappleSkip]

I seeing lots of chatter re Ausrtalian International Airports not doing any real arrival checks for passengers en masse (only for foreign nationals entering from certain countries), unlike SIN or HKG where temperature of all passengers is taken.

I woud have thought that Australia would have means to have same sort of checks at our international airports (at least the larger capital city one, maybe not Broome) as other first world nations.

IIRC people with sympttoms are told to report themselves on arrival. The issue of testing arrivals gets a mention in the national Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza...

Evidence suggests that the ability of border measures to identify cases is limited. During the pandemic (H1N1) 2009 of the 15,457 travellers who were identified at the Australian border as being unwell, only 154 (1%) were managed as influenza after further investigation. Of 1287 passengers identified at Sydney airport through entry screening measures, only 3 (0.3%) were confirmed as cases.

Even though the nature of SARS makes it more suited to use of border measures, experience from the SARS outbreak also showed that entry and exit screening was quite ineffective in preventing spread. Of the 1.84 million arrivals screened for SARS at the border when entering Australia in April–June 2003, only 4 arrivals met the case definition when investigated further.

As the nature of the influenza virus makes it difficult to achieve any practically useful delay in transmission through active screening border measures, the focus of border measures in this plan will be on minimising the spread of the virus through the use of communications. Active screening measures for case identification, such as thermal scanners and Passenger Locator documents, are an ineffective and inefficient use of resources for the purposes of reducing transmission of respiratory viruses.

Here's a topical example. In Canada, Sophie Trudeau has tested positive for CoVID-19 and Justin Trudeau is in isolation - but doing a lot of teleconferences. She returned from the UK on Wednesday night and started getting symptoms afterward. A very familiar pattern.


Cheers skip

 

[amaroo]

Cover-more has just pulled their CFAR policy

Travel insurer suspends sales of 'cancel for any reason' product

Cover-More has suspended sales of its "cancel for any reason" (CFAR) add-on product in Australia and New Zealand amid the escalating impact of the coronavirus.
It was one of the only travel insurers to offer this type of cover, which is more common in the US.

Cover-More will suspend sales of its "cancel for any reason" add-on product.

Cover-More CEO, Asia Pacific, Judith Crompton said Cover-More has made the decision to suspend sales of the CFAR product for an interim period while the company assesses the risk profile and immediate sustainability with Zurich, Cover-More’s underwriter in Australia and New Zealand.

"Cover-More is very proud of our CFAR product which we have pioneered in Australia and New Zealand since April 2018. And we absolutely want it to build into a long-term sustainable feature of our travel insurance offer in the Australian and NZ travel markets."

"We have not taken this decision lightly and we stress that we hope this suspension will enable us to keep CFAR in market in the longer term."

"We are in unchartered waters and unprecedented times for the travel industry with the global impact of the coronavirus outbreak and we will continue to do everything we can to support our travel agents and partners and Australian and New Zealand travellers,” Ms Crompton said.

Suspension of CFAR sales will be effective by end-of-day Friday 13 March 2020.

 

[Denali]

Interesting to see

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[drron]

The CDC basically has always developed it's own tests.This time the original test wasn't conclusive but that was because they made it too complicated.The test being used now is basically 2 of the components of the original test.this was discovered early on.It was Feb 5th that the CDC gave permission to other public health labs to test but also develop their own tests.
NY governor has said NY State is now going to test thousands a day.So why has it take NY 5 weeks to ramp up.The problem is not just the CDC and the Feds.

As well still no acknowledgement that private labs are testing and these numbers are not included in the statistics.A colleague working in up state New York reports everyone entering their hospital as patients or visitors are being tested-it is a private lab and it is a large hospital.

Unfortunately it is not as simple as you believe.

 

[I love to travel]

Trafalgar tours are playing hardball. Refusing to cancel European and Candian tours including ones with cruises attached.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

The CDC basically has always developed it's own tests.This time the original test wasn't conclusive but that was because they made it too complicated.The test being used now is basically 2 of the components of the original test.this was discovered early on.It was Feb 5th that the CDC gave permission to other public health labs to test but also develop their own tests.
NY governor has said NY State is now going to test thousands a day.So why has it take NY 5 weeks to ramp up.The problem is not just the CDC and the Feds.

As well still no acknowledgement that private labs are testing and these numbers are not included in the statistics.A colleague working in up state New York reports everyone entering their hospital as patients or visitors are being tested-it is a private lab and it is a large hospital.

Unfortunately it is not as simple as you believe.

Yes things are belatedly changing now. I know you quoted 5 Feb as the date that permission was given, but 29 Feb seems to be the date that is being reported as when private labs could use or create their own testing kits.


Controversies over the lack of diagnostic testing for the COVID-19 virus have dominated U.S headlines for weeks. Technical challenges with the first test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) left the nation with minimal diagnostic capacity during the first few weeks of the epidemic, according to a new paper published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Michelle Mello, a professor of medicine at Stanford Health Policy and professor of law at Stanford Law School.

On February 29, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began allowing high-complexity labs across the country to use tests they developed in-house. On March 5, the Stanford Clinical Virology Lab deployed its own test for patients at Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children’s Health.

Stanford Law’s Michelle Mello on the Federal Rollout of Diagnostic Testing for the COVID-19 Virus | Stanford Law School

Controversies over the lack of diagnostic testing for the COVID-19 virus have dominated U.S headlines for weeks. Technical challenges with the first t

law.stanford.edu

Conclusion
Diagnostic testing is critical to an effective response to the novel coronavirus. As the US moves to make up for initial missteps, emerging evidence should guide policy and practice. The public health and medical communities should recognize the need to alter policy to fit changing circumstances and support consistent and compassionate messaging that recognizes both the benefits and limitations of testing.

Diagnostic Testing for the Novel Coronavirus

This Viewpoint explains the technical and regulatory challenges that hampered diagnostic testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) during the early spread of infection in the US and considers the unintended consequences of making testing more widely available,...

jamanetwork.com

On Feb. 29, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it was relaxing the restrictions for the use of diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2 developed by laboratories in the United States that meet the certification guidelines for high-complexity testing. The new policy allows these laboratories to begin using in-house developed clinical tests for the virus before obtaining the agency’s approval through an emergency use authorization. The FDA noted that “Rapid detection of COVID-19 cases in the United States requires wide availability of diagnostic testing to control the emergence of this rapidly spreading, severe illness.” Laboratories developing their own tests are expected to apply for emergency use authorization from the FDA within 15 days.

Stanford Medicine COVID-19 test now in use

The Stanford Clinical Virology Laboratory has deployed an in-house diagnostic test for the virus that causes COVID-19. Rapid identification of infected people could help limit the spread of the virus.

med.stanford.edu

Part of the issue, the report said, is faulty COVID-19 testing kits issued to states by the CDC in early February. The kits were found to have "faulty negative controls," meaning the results of some test kits were inaccurate, and states had to continue sending test samples to the CDC for testing.

FDA policy prohibited states and private entities from developing their own test kits, meaning they only had access to the faulty FDA kits. The agency lifted that regulation on February 29, allowing states and commercial labs to create their own coronavirus testing kits.

The US government has completed fewer than 6,000 coronavirus tests as more states report new cases and deaths

"We don't have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward," Vice President Mike Pence said on Thursday.

www.businessinsider.com

FDA approves new coronavirus test that could speed rate of testing up to tenfold | TechCrunch

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency approval for use of a new test that can increase the rate of testing patients by up to 10

techcrunch.com

After testing delays, US COVID-19 cases surge past 900

The number of US cases of the novel coronavirus surged to more than 900, after public health experts criticised authorities for downplaying the epidemic and lagging behind in testing efforts.

telanganatoday.com

It relied on the same technology as one authorised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and deployed around the world — except that a fault meant the CDC kit was returning inconclusive results.

It was not until February 29, the date of the first US death and more than a month after the first confirmed US case, that the Food and Drug Administration lifted a ban on state laboratories developing their own kits based on the WHO’s tests.

“Adopting broader testing criteria and allowing use of a wider range of tests would have been helpful in identifying the first US cases and containing the spread,” said Michelle Mello of Stanford, a co-author of the JAMA report.

 

[RooFlyer]

Trafalgar tours are playing hardball. Refusing to cancel European and Candian tours including ones with cruises attached.

Ditto Intrepid. All tours running. Cancel 31 days out to get 50% back and 50% credit. Under that and you lose 50%. That's sorta ok, if they still pay all their pre booked hotels, but I suspect they won't.

Louvre and Versailles now closed.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Ditto Intrepid. All tours running. Cancel 31 days out to get 50% back and 50% credit. Under that and you lose 50%. That's sorta ok, if they still pay all their pre booked hotels, but I suspect they won't.

Louvre and Versailles now closed.

I do not know who owns those particular businesses, but for many travel, and other businesses the harsh reality would be that if they refund 100% that they will go out of business, which also means in turn that they will not be able to refund everyone.

Also if they stop running the tours/trips etc they have to refund.

Many companies, and in particular, small ones will simply not have the liquid reserves available to stay in business. And it is not just there funds, it is that income from forward bookings is being turn off.

So for some businesses even if they want to stop running the tour/service etc, they may not be in the financial position to do so. It is a true Catch 22.