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

[CityRail]

Let alone Australia’s Universities who are totally dependent on Foreign Students.

I think Australian Universities could delay the commencement of the semester up to Mid-March whilst they are monitoring the situation. I am sure the VCs from universities are meeting tomorrow (Sunday) to discuss the situation as I am sure lots of academic (including myself) will be asking questions to the University first thing Monday morning.

Tourism industry, unfortunately will be severely impacted as very likely there will be no tourists coming to Australia for the first half of the year.

This virus could lead Australia into negative economic growth, if it persists, recession.

 

[Steady]

I think Australian Universities could delay the commencement of the semester up to Mid-March whilst they are monitoring the situation. I am sure the VCs from universities are meeting tomorrow (Sunday) to discuss the situation as I am sure lots of academic (including myself) will be asking questions to the University first thing Monday morning.

Tourism industry, unfortunately will be severely impacted as very likely there will be no tourists coming to Australia for the first half of the year.

This virus could lead Australia into negative economic growth, if it persists, recession.

Welcome aboard CityRail

 

[Sabot]

Thats true - the tax payer subsidises students as well. But the cost of that would be much much higher without the international students.

Post automatically merged: Feb 1, 2020

Yes. It means you don’t go out in public. But let’s inject reality. People won’t. Period.

I'm dubious that universities use international student fees purely to subsidize domestic students.
From what I understand, course fees are only as high as they are because of the government underwriting which serves as a false bottom for the market.

We'd ultimately be better off with lower levels of international students.
Agree with you re: realities of self imposed quarantine though.

The AusGov has 12 million in emergency stock.
It’s the same one that is used in bushfires

Yeah, should be P2 (CE/Euro certification) or N95 (NIOSH / American certification)
My point was more about the Singaporean Government.

Everywhere here seems reasonably prepared, outside of the QLD Premier's Office.

 

[pauly7]

I think Australian Universities could delay the commencement of the semester up to Mid-March whilst they are monitoring the situation. I am sure the VCs from universities are meeting tomorrow (Sunday) to discuss the situation as I am sure lots of academic (including myself) will be asking questions to the University first thing Monday morning.

A majority of university courses are mixed delivery these days I’m sure some creative juggling of syllabus could mitigate alot of the heartache. I’m on a board of uni and there is a lot of rejigging happening 24/7 to enable students to commence even if they are trapped OS. Some of the ‘hands on’ subjects will be difficult though.

 

[moa999]

Vietnam has just banned all flights coming from China effective immediately until May 1

Also appears to include Hong Kong (like Italy) and Macau and Taipei.

Not good for Taiwan startup Starlux.

 

[CityRail]

A majority of university courses are mixed delivery these days I’m sure some creative juggling of syllabus could mitigate alot of the heartache. I’m on a board of uni and there is a lot of rejigging happening 24/7 to enable students to commence even if they are trapped OS. Some of the ‘hands on’ subjects will be difficult though.

Postgraduate would have a better chance to deliver online, yet there are components such as computer lab or workshops will be difficult to deliver.

Undergraduate students require more supervision therefore despite students can be exempted from attending lectures, they are required to attend tutorials and labs where it is attendance requirement.

Of course my experience is only limited to Commerce/Business faculty so I cannot say there could be other attendance requirements.

 

[p--and--t]

Welcome aboard CityRail

A majority of university courses are mixed delivery these days I’m sure some creative juggling of syllabus could mitigate alot of the heartache. I’m on a board of uni and there is a lot of rejigging happening 24/7 to enable students to commence even if they are trapped OS. Some of the ‘hands on’ subjects will be difficult though.

Postgraduate would have a better chance to deliver online, yet there are components such as computer lab or workshops will be difficult to deliver.

Undergraduate students require more supervision therefore despite students can be exempted from attending lectures, they are required to attend tutorials and labs where it is attendance requirement.

Of course my experience is only limited to Commerce/Business faculty so I cannot say there could be other attendance requirements.

Monash Uni announced a day or two ago that onsite lectures would be delayed and students are not to come onto campus before mid march at the earliest. Some online work will be set in the meantime

Edit: Relevant dates for Monash - originally onsite starting Mar 2, now not before Mar16th .

 

[DC3]

And the NZ charter flight leaves tomorrow, arriving WUH on Monday, to bring Kiwis home to NZ.

 

[pauly7]

More on topic - the virus effect on travel....;

Is this the final knife to the heart for VA’s already struggling HKG service??

 

[CityRail]

Monash Uni announced a day or two ago that onsite lectures would be delayed and students are not to come onto campus before mid march at the earliest. Some online work will be set in the meantime

I suspect other universities will follow suit. To be honest, Week 1 is only lectures, so online lectures for Week 1 on the week starting 9th March is feasible.

Is this the final knife to the heart for VA’s already struggling HKG service??

Hopefully not. I think the virus could impact for a limited time, I think Virgin may suspend the service in March and resume in June.

 

[DC3]

And the NZ charter flight leaves tomorrow, arriving WUH on Monday, to bring Kiwis home to NZ.

A Government response to Kiwis being unable to freely travel from Wuhan

 

[Quickstatus]

I think Australian Universities could delay the commencement of the semester up to Mid-March whilst they are monitoring the situation. I am sure the VCs from universities are meeting tomorrow (Sunday) to discuss the situation as I am sure lots of academic (including myself) will be asking questions to the University first thing Monday morning.

Tourism industry, unfortunately will be severely impacted as very likely there will be no tourists coming to Australia for the first half of the year.

This virus could lead Australia into negative economic growth, if it persists, recession.

ScoMo will need to spend his surplus

 

[Must...Fly!]

More on topic - the virus effect on travel....;

Is this the final knife to the heart for VA’s already struggling HKG service??

CX would have many many more problems to consider at the moment than VA.

HX, you feel, is finished though with this still developing.

Starlux might be best just suspending the operation for six months and burning through the cash they have to pay lease and staff. Instead of burning through that as well as the operational costs.

 

[Quickstatus]

Currently 153 confirmed cases outside China.
Notable missing country is Indonesia - there are reports that Indonesia earlier lacked the capability to test.
Statistically there should be about 3.4 deaths based on the current mortality/infected as described by JHU
However there are no deaths outside China.
Maybe the 153 were a healthy subset (and therefore able to travel).

Early reports suggested 30% infected required ICU. This surge would have overwhelmed their health care systems - leading to the emergency build of a new 1000 bed hospital. It is possible that many could not get ICU treatment. Not a criticism of the Chinese health care system. This would have also overwhelmed Westerm Health care systems as well.
There is a dearth of information about the medical histories and demographics of those who died

A technical paper estimating the Wuhan peak daily incidence of infection if nothing is done is approx April 2020. And likely major cities in China will peak 1-2 weeks later. (Using the SIR modelling described earlier in post #360 )

Paper suggests transmissability can (like other viral diseases) be reduced by social distancing, masks, hand washing. It also suggests that the restriction of mobility within China is now likely not to make a difference as local epidemics in other major centres with major transportation links with Wuhan are now experiencing their own epidemics but 1-2 weeks later.

Media reports which just extrapolate a curve should be disregarded.

 

[kamchatsky]

were already in trouble. Will they survive this ?

More on topic - the virus effect on travel....;

Is this the final knife to the heart for VA’s already struggling HKG service??

To be honest it would be a perfect excuse for VA to pull the HKG route entirely. It would be a shame though as I took VA83 to HKG in J 2 weeks ago and loved every minute of it.

 

[EzioAuditore]

There is a dearth of information about the medical histories and demographics of those who died

A good rolling summary of the problem

Hello.
Profiles of deceased patients in the early course of the epidemic were collected by hospitals and released to the pubic from by the state media and social platforms. I read some of them. Almost all of the deceased patients are senior or elderly (>60 years old) and with multiple comorbidities such as cardiac, respiratory and endocrine diseases. Youngest casualty was 36 years old from memory however no comorbidities reported.

Scientific journal publications are limited currently but I did find one below:

Updated understanding of the outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan, China - PubMed

To help health workers and the public recognize and deal with the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) quickly, effectively, and calmly with an updated understanding. A comprehensive search from Chinese and worldwide official websites and announcements was performed between 1 December 2019 and...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

"The deaths included 13 males and 4 females. The median age of the deaths was 75 (range 48‐89) years. Fever (64.7%) and cough (52.9%) were the most common first symptoms in deaths. The median days from first symptom to death were 14.0 (range 6‐41) days, and tended to be shorter among people of 70‐year old or above (11.5 [range 6‐19] days) than those with ages below 70‐year old (20 [range 10‐41] days, P=0.033). "

Hope more analysis are coming soon.

 

[Quickstatus]

Importantly the symptoms of 2019 n-COV are not the usual "flu-like/common cold" type
Few develop the runny nose, sneeezing and sore throat.
They usually develop: shortness of breath, dry cough, and Xray features suggestive of whole lung pneumonia/acute respiratory distress syndrome +/- fever

This is a disease of the lower respiratory tract - mainly in the lungs.

 

[PineappleSkip]

A technical paper estimating the Wuhan peak daily incidence of infection if nothing is done is approx April 2020. And likely major cities in China will peak 1-2 weeks later. (Using the SIR modelling described earlier in post #360 )

I got an error clicking on your link. Is this article the link?

some interesting stuff in the analysis about the impact of mitigation measures like clamping down on movement. And The suggested mitigation is chilling reading if you are an airline executive. Not sure how CX and others will cope.

 

[Quickstatus]

I got an error clicking on your link. Is this article the link?

Yes thanks - and corrected

Hello.
Profiles of deceased patients

Welcome @EzioAuditore !!! and thanks!!

 

[calmelb]

I suspect other universities will follow suit. To be honest, Week 1 is only lectures, so online lectures for Week 1 on the week starting 9th March is feasible.

ANU is still starting on the 17th of February for O-Week and 24th of Feb for Classes. From all emails they seem to be sure on not delaying the start of the semester (even with the bushfires and this)