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

get me outta here said:
For those that think anything not as right as sky News could read the Washington post as well.
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Like I said:

RooFlyer said:
Don't believe everything you read in the media ...
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... that applies to all media, at all times.

If people must take stuff from papers etc, intended to make some point, please give us a long section, so we can put it in context.
 
I am booked to fly to the US (Connecticut) (LAX layover) for a conference (800 pax) 19 April on Qantas And Delta. All purchased including accommodation and travel insurance (and a side trip to Boston) in September 2019. Conference appears to be going ahead but it looks like I have no recourse re my TI if I cancel. The TI was through Qantas. Is that what others are understanding when reading the policy? I want to travel but not if I have no insurance and I am seriously out of pocket for all accommodation and flights if I cancel!
 
Curlycoat2 said:
I am booked to fly to the US (Connecticut) (LAX layover) for a conference (800 pax) 19 April on Qantas And Delta. All purchased including accommodation and travel insurance (and a side trip to Boston) in September 2019. Conference appears to be going ahead but it looks like I have no recourse re my TI if I cancel. The TI was through Qantas. Is that what others are understanding when reading the policy? I want to travel but not if I have no insurance and I am seriously out of pocket for all accommodation and flights if I cancel!
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I have the same policy and have posted upthread. My take on it.... if you purchased prior to the cutoff date and there is no issue with Gov decrees like closing borders, enforcing mandatory quarantining, etc you'll be fine. But as soon as it happens - you're on your own. Take a look at what Italy and Israel have just enforced.

If you cancel before a "DO Not Travel" warning issued by Aust gov - you're on your own.

In this situation - its a massive risk to do any international travel.... maybe NZ would be ok.
 
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Indonesia has more deaths now. According to their stats because they don't properly test, the death rate is alarmingly high. But that is because mild cases go unnoticed.
 
Pushka said:
Indonesia has more deaths now. According to their stats because they don't properly test, the death rate is alarmingly high. But that is because mild cases go unnoticed.
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Tick tock .... it's just like waiting for a countdown to reach it's final outcome.
 
Pushka said:
We had one of those. A fantasy retirement plan. Things completely out of your control bring it back to a new kind of reality. Shares are down, interest rates are pathetic. So where does this leave self funded retirees? They get virtually nothing from the Government for support.
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Being brutally direct (sorry!):

- Equities are always volatile. When times are good and everything is going up (Feb 2020!) it's easy for everyone to be a genius investor and put things into equities. We've seen this how many times over the last 40 years? But we've equally seen that it's a long term winner and that's what the professionals are meant to help with - moving you out of volatile risks as you need more certainty.

- Why would the government support self funded retirees ? I don't mean in a moral or ethical sense but when do you get something for nothing (and lets not have the discussion about paying taxes all your life as that goes down a completely different rabbit hole). Lets suggest that we want the government to have as little say in our lives as possible because that's a good thing and in return they will do little to help us..

So where does that leave retirees:

- If you have $10m and it's now worth $8m and you have to fly J instead of F, well life is clearly terrible but hard to have empathy unfortunately. I'm not saying this isn't a real problem (within that problem set) but that's a small number of people

- If you have $1m and it's now worth $800k and you have to fly Y instead of J..

- If you have $200k and it's now worth $160k and you can't fly at all..

So yeah.. that's what might happen if you were just in equities.

I'd like to think that self funded retirees are in a position where their super is structured in such a way that minor lifestyle adjustments are needed rather than major ones when equities drop.

So what will retirees in general do ?

- Some will have to come out of retirement, which is no fun at all
- Some will (particularly the SMSF ones) search for yield in other areas since equities and cash will do nothing for the next few years. Property because people still need a place to live or investments in businesses because people still eat, socialise and so on.

There will be a lot of social pain involved and the worst case scenario is when it's everyone for themselves and the best case scenario is when we come together, accept a reduced level of quality for all as a means to reduce pain to the worst hit segments. Australia is overall a really rich country but that doesn't mean we may be any good at sharing that wealth both internally and externally..

We're not really any worse than comparable countries in this but it'd be nice to aim to be better ?
 
ja1 said:
Being brutally direct (sorry!):

- Equities are always volatile. When times are good and everything is going up (Feb 2020!) it's easy for everyone to be a genius investor and put things into equities. We've seen this how many times over the last 40 years? But we've equally seen that it's a long term winner and that's what the professionals are meant to help with - moving you out of volatile risks as you need more certainty.

- Why would the government support self funded retirees ? I don't mean in a moral or ethical sense but when do you get something for nothing (and lets not have the discussion about paying taxes all your life as that goes down a completely different rabbit hole). Lets suggest that we want the government to have as little say in our lives as possible because that's a good thing and in return they will do little to help us..

So where does that leave retirees:

- If you have $10m and it's now worth $8m and you have to fly J instead of F, well life is clearly terrible but hard to have empathy unfortunately. I'm not saying this isn't a real problem (within that problem set) but that's a small number of people

- If you have $1m and it's now worth $800k and you have to fly Y instead of J..

- If you have $200k and it's now worth $160k and you can't fly at all..

So yeah.. that's what might happen if you were just in equities.

I'd like to think that self funded retirees are in a position where their super is structured in such a way that minor lifestyle adjustments are needed rather than major ones when equities drop.

So what will retirees in general do ?

- Some will have to come out of retirement, which is no fun at all
- Some will (particularly the SMSF ones) search for yield in other areas since equities and cash will do nothing for the next few years. Property because people still need a place to live or investments in businesses because people still eat, socialise and so on.

There will be a lot of social pain involved and the worst case scenario is when it's everyone for themselves and the best case scenario is when we come together, accept a reduced level of quality for all as a means to reduce pain to the worst hit segments. Australia is overall a really rich country but that doesn't mean we may be any good at sharing that wealth both internally and externally..

We're not really any worse than comparable countries in this but it'd be nice to aim to be better ?
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Perhaps you need to research the criteria for pension cut off these days? And just now I sent off an email to my accountant telling him that my super is such that I will be returning to work. Sadly we sold our family home just a few months ago and put those amounts as a self contribution into Super. We transferred from an SMSF to Hesta a year ago so trust they have managed this better than the smsf would have but I don't dare look now. I've lived through the 1987 crisis and the GFC. As a small family business we struggled through the GFC but made it. I do understand the share market volatility thanks. I reckon I've seen it a bit more of that than you. I just don't enjoy the gloat of opportunity because we are at the wrong end of that and in recent years, there hasn't been a great deal of advance as we had just started the positive after the GFC.

But in reality I am way more concerned for my sons and my grandchild. I hope they get to keep their jobs.
 
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amaroo said:
There's been plenty of discussion about staying home when sick. It seems to me that doc should have followed that advice and just stayed home...

The other thing about this sorry tale, the bug must be pretty rampant in the USA.
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Plenty of discussion is not the same as following a process. And we have the benefit of hindsight which is wonderful but we weren't there at the time.

Does it also seem to you that everyone today who is sick should stay home ? Every police, utility worker, doctor, airline crew, hotel cook, sanitation worker ? Lets be real - also not going to happen and there are sick people working every day, often because there's no real choice not to.

The advice to date has been that "if you THINK you've been infected or had contact with someone who has been you should self isolate". Only now is it starting to change to "if you aren't feeling well even if you don't think you're infected and didn't have contact with anyone.." which is a very different message.

And I agree with the second part - the US has completely screwed up their internal situation and it puts them in the same basket as China potentially in terms of a cover up. How do you have situations where you are 'monitoring' over 10,000 people in a state but don't have actual test kits to test them with..

This is all such a bizarre discussion in a sense. Do people realistically think this isn't going to spread like we already have with the actual flu ?
 
Pushka said:
Perhaps you need to research the criteria for pension cut off these days?
...
But in reality I am way more concerned for my sons and my grandchild. I hope they get to keep their jobs.
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I'm assuming there isn't a (government) pension - for a self funded retiree. I know it's technically possible to qualify for one even being self funded but.. it's a much longer discussion on whether you should or shouldn't etc.

I'm not having a discussion about what the government should do or could do.. I'm just assuming its unlikely they will do anything that makes any kind of short term difference to one group of people (at the expense of others?). But people (not the government) can make decisions - at their own expense - to help these groups..

I was thinking about things from an investment POV in what I wrote. Jobs are a whole different thing and I can't imagine what will happen there. In reality I'd like to think that your kids and grandchildren (and my grandchildren!) will be fine - but the nature of employment for them was always going to be very different than it has been for me.

The days of having 'stable' long term employment with not much change seem to be long gone. And it's not necessarily completely bad as I see a lot of the younger generation using the flexibility to their advantage and careers go into a lot of different branches than was previously possible.
 
ja1 said:
I'm assuming there isn't a (government) pension - for a self funded retiree. I know it's technically possible to qualify for one even being self funded but.. it's a much longer discussion on whether you should or shouldn't etc.

I'm not having a discussion about what the government should do or could do.. I'm just assuming its unlikely they will do anything that makes any kind of short term difference to one group of people (at the expense of others?). But people (not the government) can make decisions - at their own expense - to help these groups..

I was thinking about things from an investment POV in what I wrote. Jobs are a whole different thing and I can't imagine what will happen there. In reality I'd like to think that your kids and grandchildren (and my grandchildren!) will be fine - but the nature of employment for them was always going to be very different than it has been for me.

The days of having 'stable' long term employment with not much change seem to be long gone. And it's not necessarily completely bad as I see a lot of the younger generation using the flexibility to their advantage and careers go into a lot of different branches than was previously possible.
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It is the Government that determines whether someone is self funded or not based on assets and income. And agree that everyone is in the same predicament. But I don't like the gloat posts that see the share market crash as simply an opportunity to make some money in the future when there are many in our society, who will greatly suffer - and I'm not talking about holidays but just making ends meet - without government support - because of that crash. And that same group hasn't recovered yet from the GFC. Although maybe now their assets will be low enough to receive government support through pension.
 
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RooFlyer said:
If people must take stuff from papers etc, intended to make some point, please give us a long section, so we can put it in context.
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I think most of us are pretty aware of the context around Donald Trump without needing yet another newspaper article!
 
ja1 said:
Does it also seem to you that everyone today who is sick should stay home ?

<snip>
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Yes, particularly if you are treating patients and have just arrived from OS.

The kids orthodontist has just arrived back from Japan, he sent an email out stating where he's been and if you wanted to change the appointment - no worries.

It's not that hard really.
 
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