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

[lovetravellingoz]

. My 75 yo mother is asking me whether she should go on her planned 2 week holiday to Vietnam mid March and i honestly don't know what to tell her.

Being of that age is a very strong risk factor in terms of a poor outcome if contracted.

 

[p--and--t]

BA changing their COVID cancellation rules...

Whine Wednesdays: British Airways Is Rolling Back Their Cancellation Waivers For Hong Kong & China

British Airways rescinds COVID19 cancellation policies for China & Hong Kong.

loyaltylobby.com

 

[juddles]

..... Don’t know about others but I am finding it really difficult to make an informed opinion on how bad this thing is. My 75 yo mother is asking me whether she should go on her planned 2 week holiday to Vietnam mid March and i honestly don't know what to tell her......

Hi there I Love To Travel.

A couple of points regarding your mother's travel plans:

First up, given that this whole thing started in SE asia, that whole area is the first concentration of the virus. Vietnam included.

Second, some viruses affect healthy young people more due to over-reactions in the bodies immune systems - this appears to NOT be that - and elderly people or those with weak respiratory systems suffer most.

Would I want my elderly mother to be travelling to SE asia at this point? Of course not! That is literally putting an "at-risk" person into the area of "most risk"!!

I am not an alarmist, I hate news stories that sell dread, but in your case I would be completely against that travel. That a 75 year old is still contemplating a holiday into SE asia at this point shows just how confusing and wrong the media reporting is.

No! No! No!

If I was her, I would not just be forgetting any international travel at this point, but I would be planning on where to be when the pandemic (as it is) actually hits me. I would, at her age, be considering where the best medical facilities will be when it arrives.

A holiday at this point, is in my opinion, scandalously risky and unnecessary.

This is still a pandemic in development. I would not choose to be in vietnam where it is probable that in a month or two (like many places) the main initial wave will just be hitting and medical resources are overwhelmed.

This is not a particularly evil virus. But it is dangerous to the elderly. Forget holidays. Put everything off fro a few months until the reality becomes clearer than the mud that is reported today

 

[PineappleSkip]

Well if the US shuts down and closes its borders then the rest of the world will too

Suspect not. The time is rapidly passing when closing borders will be effective. Iran outbreak has been identified in more than half a dozen mainly middle east countries. Italy outbreak has spread to about 10 countries across three continents. This has all happened this week. So far containment measures have been effective in maybe 25 countries, but the dynamic of spread is rapidly changing, and the mostly China oriented travel restrictions are not keeping up.

Don’t know about others but I am finding it really difficult to make an informed opinion on how bad this thing is.

So is the rest of world. Noone knows with any reliability what the death rate is. The WHO China mission report (link below) from a couple of days ago found that the fatality rate is between 2% and 4% in Wuhan, and 0.7% outside Wuhan. However we can say, based on experience over the past two months, that it is highly likely to spread to a lot of people, and that there will be more Koreas, Italys and Irans. We just don’t know where. Outside China the case numbers have been doubling every 5-6 days all this month, suggesting maybe 25,000 cases outside China mid March and many more end of March. We also don’t know how effective containment measures will be, but the recent WHO mission report concluded that the China outbreak peaked and plateaued 2-4 weeks ago, and is now in decline.

My 75 yo mother is asking me whether she should go on her planned 2 week holiday to Vietnam mid March and i honestly don't know what to tell her.

I’d tell her the facts, and the risks. I’m guessing this is already booked travel.
1. Vietnam has reported 16 cases, has not reported any cases since 13 February, and 15 of 16 cases have recovered. It’s as free from reported active coronavirus right now as Australia is (there are currently about 8 active cases in Australia). Vietnam has also imposed a ban on travel from China, similar to Australia, but infection rates per head of population are now far higher in Korea than in China.
2. If she cancels booked travel now, she is likely to lose money, as the travel advice for Vietnam has not been elevated, and there are no restrictions on travel to or from Vietnam. Wait and see might be a sensible option, and it’s free.
3. There is the risk that there is an outbreak bubbling away in Vietnam that hasn’t been detected. This is a risk virtually everywhere, including in Australia, and I’d be pretty confident that there are or will be more Koreas, Irans and Italys. We just don’t know where. Given the spread country to country is now rapid in the Middle East, and in Europe, and has recently been more limited from China, proximity to China is no longer a determinant.
4. I don’t know what your mother’s general health is, which would be relevant to the risk.. If she had a chat with her doctor that would help her make a more informed assessment.

cheers skip

 

[Jenya]

COVID-19 confirmed for passenger arrived to Shanghai from Iran via Moscow using Aeroflot flights.
I recon Russia could be next Italy given very high possibility they will try to hide first cases as China did.

 

[drron]

My 75 yo mother is asking me whether she should go on her planned 2 week holiday to Vietnam mid March and i honestly don't know what to tell her.

Pineappleskip gives the best advice on this.
I am 73 and still intend going on my holiday with 2 weeks in Japan,bangkok and Singapore.

 

[Pushka]

So this discussion abiut Indonesia and no reports of Coronavirus. If it was very active in this region, then surely Aussie travellers would be arriving back after a 10 day stay with symptoms and diagnosis by now?

 

[juddles]

With Brazil reporting its first case, there are now 48 countries with confirmed cases.

I think the Brazil case is very important as it is the first in South America. The reported case was picked up in an elderly person returning from Italy, and was "home quarantined", but they have a couple of dozen other suspected cases already. I would rate Brazil as one of the best able Sth American countries to detect and deal with this thing, but others like Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, etc to be far more at risk.

I know from experience that there is a lot of chinese activity in the "informal" mining sector throughout northern sth america - concentrated in remote areas with very rudimentary medical systems. And this is an industry where travellers are not exactly likely to broadcast their movements.

 

[dajop]

Meanwhile, don't mess with the Singapore government ....

COVID-19: Two to be charged with giving false information to MOH during contact tracing

SINGAPORE: Two people will be charged under the Infectious Diseases Act for giving false information to the Ministry of Health (MOH) and obstructing the conduct of contact tracing amid the coronavirus outbreak.Hu Jun, a 38-year-old Chinese national from Wuhan, and his wife Shi Sha, a 36-year-old...

www.channelnewsasia.com

Man loses PR status, barred from re-entering Singapore after breaching Stay-Home Notice

SINGAPORE: A 45-year-old man has lost his permanent residency status in Singapore after breaching a Stay-Home Notice while the country battles the novel coronavirus outbreak.He will also be barred from re-entering Singapore, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said on W

www.channelnewsasia.com

 

[Antoallison]

Pineappleskip gives the best advice on this.
I am 73 and still intend going on my holiday with 2 weeks in Japan,bangkok and Singapore.

I think a critical factor in deciding to travel to any country in the next month is - what are their medical facilities like ?

Japan, Singapore and Bangkok all have excellent levels of care available, but I speak from personal experience that a week in a hospital in Hoi An, Vietnam and transfer to an international standard hospital in Danang is NOT something I would want to repeat ever.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Excellent levels at normal times. Now that level of care would be an open question, I think.

There is no doubt this will be something that spreads in Australia. Hopefully we can contain effectively to slow the transmission and give health services a chance to cope.

 

[OATEK]

We have a Mediterranean cruise starting on 28/3 and have been advised that we will be refused boarding if travelled from or through China, including Hong Kong. We rebooked our flights through SIN some weeks ago, so are still OK at this stage. The cruise includes Israel, who has the same ban.

 

[Pushka]

We have a Mediterranean cruise starting on 28/3 and have been advised that we will be refused boarding if travelled from or through China, including Hong Kong. We rebooked our flights through SIN some weeks ago, so are still OK at this stage. The cruise includes Israel, who has the same ban.

Celebrity the other day added Lombardy and Veneto to the list of banned transit areas. Yeah, like that’s going to work for them in a country like Italy where train travel reigns supreme. And where Venice is a major port for many med cruises. I’m waiting for Rome to be added to the list and there goes our July cruise.

 

[tgh]

There are some as yet unexplained aberrations in the spread of the virus that give some hope of redemption.

We understand it's biological construction but assume similar functional behaviour to other corona virii
It may be that the incubation period from infection to symptomatic (or testing positive) covers a wider time range than presently considered.
It may be that the bug is capricious in its intensity or infectivity, does it sleep on the job , is it a viral weakling ?
It may be deterred by some common combination of popular vaccines.. eg...doesn't it like the flu vaccine ?
What combination of causation allowed it to go berserk in Wuhan (while in au we were flying hundreds of passengers back and forth daily) and yet struggle to get a foothold here or elsewhere ?

 

[dajop]

Does it dislike religion?

OK, joking, but a lot of the cases in Singapore are linked to two churches, and some of the cases in Korea are as well. And of course the holy city of Qom in Iran.

Of course these scenarios bring people together very closely, and it least in the version of christianity I'm familiar with, lots of hugging and hand shaking and sharing of communion .....

 

[jakeseven7]

Pineappleskip gives the best advice on this.
I am 73 and still intend going on my holiday with 2 weeks in Japan,bangkok and Singapore.

Best of luck, Singapore and Japan on on many no-fly lists from corporates now.

 

[dajop]

Best of luck, Singapore and Japan on on many no-fly lists from corporates now.

I'm with Dr. Ron on this. OK, granted I live in Singapore, but I feel totally comfortable going back there next week (been working remotely in Australia this week, for non virus related reasons). I think for some reason (climate or resources being thrown at it or both) , it is not "exploding" like it is elsewhere, just a trickle of new cases.

Interestingly our company has banned travel to/from China, South Korea & Italy, but not Singapore and Japan (Iran already banned for other reasons of course).

 

[p--and--t]

Listening to ABC(US) think I just heard additional 500-600 people on home isolation in two states of USA in the last day or so.

And full on sanitation effort under way at LAX after a Korean Airline crew member who has been back and forth from there has been diagnosed.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Not a vaccine, but a potential treatment (cure) is now being trialled.

Amid Coronavirus-Induced Stock Rout, This Drug Maker May Have a ‘Cure’

For both the deadly virus and the embattled stock market.

observer.com

On Monday, the World Health Organization said at a press conference in Beijing that Remdesivir is by far the only antiviral drug that may have “real efficacy” in treating COVID-19. The news sent shares of Gilead Sciences to jump 4.6 percent.

Remdesivir was originally developed to treat the Ebola virus during the Western Africa epidemic from 2013 to 2016. Despite promising results in its early development stage, the drug failed to show significant efficacy in combating the virus. However, having seen some animal-trial success in treating infectious respiratory diseases like SARS and MERS, which are induced by coronaviruses that are structurally similar to COVID-19, Gilead began discussion with researchers and clinicians in the U.S. and China late last month about testing Remdesivir on COVID-19 patients


In collaboration with Chinese health authorities, Gilead started running trials of the new drug on selected patients in Wuhan, China, where the virus first erupted. The company said it’s currently working on two trials—one for patients with severe symptoms and the other with moderate symptoms.

Trial results are expected in April.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

What combination of causation allowed it to go berserk in Wuhan (while in au we were flying hundreds of passengers back and forth daily) and yet struggle to get a foothold here or elsewhere ?

Wuhan
1/ has a population of 11 million
2/ critically it had a month when its population did not know about it and so no, or virtually,no, new precautions were taking place (ie would have been actively spreading at a rate greater than what one would now expect for locations where populations are taking more precautions from hygiene to self-isolation to tracking down the symptomatic etc).