Impacts of Covid-19 pandemic on domestic travel

[Tropic]

With an abundance of caution I'm sure (and hoping not to be labeled panic merchants...), Amazon has imposed restrictions on staff international and domestic US travel until April. I understand a number of major Australian corporates have similar strategies in their business continuity planning esp should the situation deteriorate here and some forms of social distancing be imposed.

Amazon tells all 798,000 employees to halt travel, in US and internationally, over coronavirus fears

An Amazon spokesperson said the company has told all employees to "defer non-essential travel during this time."

www.businessinsider.com

 

[oirets]

To be completely fair, a lot of this is just fear mongering from the media.

Also the incentives are such that you always want to predict doomsday scenarios. Think about it, if you predict a pandemic and one hits, you're a hero for predicting it. If one doesn't hit then "it doesn't hurt to be cautious". It doesn't make any political sense for anyone to actually say that the chances of any major outbreak are slim.

Number of active cases has been in decline for over a week now, only 5 countries have more than 100 active cases right now (China, Korea, Japan, Italy and Iran), of which Japan is relatively well controlled and Iran and China have been mostly quarantined by the rest of the world (including Australia).

The biggest risk is an outbreak in Europe, but looking at the numbers from France and Germany, it seems well controlled. I'd say keep an eye out for France and Germany over the next two weeks. If the numbers there don't show exponential growth, then I think we're pretty much safe and this whole thing will disappear from the media and everyone's consciousness soon after.

 

[Franky]

To be completely fair, a lot of this is just fear mongering from the media.

Also the incentives are such that you always want to predict doomsday scenarios. Think about it, if you predict a pandemic and one hits, you're a hero for predicting it. If one doesn't hit then "it doesn't hurt to be cautious". It doesn't make any political sense for anyone to actually say that the chances of any major outbreak are slim.

Number of active cases has been in decline for over a week now, only 5 countries have more than 100 active cases right now (China, Korea, Japan, Italy and Iran), of which Japan is relatively well controlled and Iran and China have been mostly quarantined by the rest of the world (including Australia).

The biggest risk is an outbreak in Europe, but looking at the numbers from France and Germany, it seems well controlled. I'd say keep an eye out for France and Germany over the next two weeks. If the numbers there don't show exponential growth, then I think we're pretty much safe and this whole thing will disappear from the media and everyone's consciousness soon after.

As someone said this morning on the radio - it's more panic than pandemic...

 

[ozfflyer]

....


We went Italian tonight - chock-a-block is the words

any restaurant that is not full on Fri night, is almost certainly going under. The trick to staying alive is getting good patronage rest of week.

 

[Pushka]

To be completely fair, a lot of this is just fear mongering from the media.

Also the incentives are such that you always want to predict doomsday scenarios. Think about it, if you predict a pandemic and one hits, you're a hero for predicting it. If one doesn't hit then "it doesn't hurt to be cautious". It doesn't make any political sense for anyone to actually say that the chances of any major outbreak are slim.

Number of active cases has been in decline for over a week now, only 5 countries have more than 100 active cases right now (China, Korea, Japan, Italy and Iran), of which Japan is relatively well controlled and Iran and China have been mostly quarantined by the rest of the world (including Australia).

The biggest risk is an outbreak in Europe, but looking at the numbers from France and Germany, it seems well controlled. I'd say keep an eye out for France and Germany over the next two weeks. If the numbers there don't show exponential growth, then I think we're pretty much safe and this whole thing will disappear from the media and everyone's consciousness soon after.

But it's the Governments and other authorities who are taking the action. We can ignore the "news" but not the government action.

 

[ozfflyer]

maybe this explains why the Reds get only 11,000 in 50,000 seat Suncorp stadium ?

Gatherings banned, travel restricted as coronavirus cases grow worldwide

 

[Franky]

maybe this explains why the Reds get only 11,000 in 50,000 seat Suncorp stadium ?

Gatherings banned, travel restricted as coronavirus cases grow worldwide

When was the last time any rugby game filled a stadium?

 

[jase05]

maybe this explains why the Reds get only 11,000 in 50,000 seat Suncorp stadium ?

Gatherings banned, travel restricted as coronavirus cases grow worldwide

Super Rugby has had poor crowds for many years

 

[Tropic]

I think we're pretty much safe and this whole thing will disappear from the media and everyone's consciousness soon after.

Yeah people will forget all about this virus once things settle down and all this fear mongering by the media ends. Unless I guess you one of those few unlucky ones who get sick or lose a few loved ones.... My focus now is on staying out of harms way, learning italian and working on minimising the economic impacts from this thing. WP until Aug 2021 and 100 SC away from LTG, so happy to leave all the flying to everyone else for the next 6 months. Should know what's happening by then I reckon...

 

[drron]

When was the last time any rugby game filled a stadium?

Might go and watch the Reds Women-flogged Melbourne 104-3.watched it on Foxtel.

 

[ajd]

In his press conference re the death in WA today, the Premier said "The modelling indicates that potentially, in late April or May, there may be greater spread of the illness here in Australia, and at that point in time obviously we would need to ramp up some of our activities. The peak would then hit us in potentially August, which is obviously not a great month because our coldest months with the highest level of flu."

(I'm sure there's a more formal Health Department prediction somewhere in the regular reports they're posting but I can't be bothered finding it.)

Unfortunately for me, my next planned big domestic travel is... late April, followed by back home to attend a large conference, followed by early May... I can easily drop the conference, and I haven't booked anything apart from flights for the other travel, but I am rather looking forward to these trips.

My plan is to hold off on booking anything further until a bit closer to the time, except maybe a hotel with free cancellation. I'll judge closer to the time based on any further government action and the location of domestic outbreaks.

I can't see the authorities doing extended large-scale quarantines like we've seen in China mostly because whatever happens here, we've got rather more notice of the pending epidemic and are more prepared for it than Wuhan was when it suddenly came out of nowhere.

I don't think the current emphatic statements coming out from government are fearmongering so much as the authorities realising that a large percentage of the population are going to only do 10% of what they say, because anything they say will be deemed fearmongering, so you have to use the P-word loud and clear to get people's attention.

 

[oirets]

In his press conference re the death in WA today, the Premier said "The modelling indicates that potentially, in late April or May, there may be greater spread of the illness here in Australia, and at that point in time obviously we would need to ramp up some of our activities. The peak would then hit us in potentially August, which is obviously not a great month because our coldest months with the highest level of flu."

This claim is a little dubious, though I can understand why it was made.

There simply isn't enough data to be able to make any clear predictions right now. Something important to consider is that even today, well over 90% of all cases are from China. The only places to even have more than 100 cases aside from China are Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy. It's relatively well controlled in Japan, and Iran is no the travel ban list.

The main firewall for us here in AU (and most of the other more isolated places, e.g. the US) are the EU countries. I'd closely follow what happens in the UK, France and Germany over the next two or three weeks. The number of active cases have been falling and falling for quite some time.

Again, take what I say with a grain of salt - I'm not the Department of Health, but hey, I did top my epidemiology class when I was in medical school.

Regarding the actual deadliness of the virus, what we know now is that it's more infectious than the flu, but in healthy adults, the mortality rate is unlikely to be very different. In people under 70 (or maybe it was 60, I don't recall exactly), only 0.2% of cases are fatal. On top of that, in a country with more than 1 billion people (China), there weren't even 100,000 cases, meaning that less than 0.01% of the country was even infected.

My point is that it's not going to be doomsday. We will converge to one of two scenarios:

1) It never really reaches AU in any meaningful way.

2) It becomes an illness like the flu that 0.01% of us will have to deal with. If we parallel the infection rates from China, then 2,500 people will contract the illness in AU.

To keep it all in perspective, you have a far, far, far higher chance of dying in a traffic accident than you do of contracting and subsequently dying from this virus.

 

[ajd]

This claim is a little dubious, though I can understand why it was made.

I'm taking this to be the view of the government as of right now, noting that their view is absolutely going to change because as you say we still have very little data - hopefully the "potentially" doesn't come to pass!

There simply isn't enough data to be able to make any clear predictions right now. Something important to consider is that even today, well over 90% of all cases are from China. The only places to even have more than 100 cases aside from China are Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy. It's relatively well controlled in Japan, and Iran is no the travel ban list.

Iran is on the Australian travel ban list now, and was put on the NZ travel ban list a few days before we got to it. It's also becoming clearer that testing capabilities and policies are highly variable between countries - Iran quite clearly has a caseload well into the thousands and just can't confirm it as yet. Again not enough data, let's wait and see as you say.

 

[oirets]

Iran is on the Australian travel ban list now, and was put on the NZ travel ban list a few days before we got to it. It's also becoming clearer that testing capabilities and policies are highly variable between countries - Iran quite clearly has a caseload well into the thousands and just can't confirm it as yet. Again not enough data, let's wait and see as you say.

Iran is quite a special case. Without getting into the politics of Iran, they basically refused to shut down major religious sites where people are known to kiss religious monuments. This was reported as a major reason for the explosive outbreak in Iran.

The good news to come out of today is that it appears as if the proliferation in Italy has markedly slowed down.

 

[juddles]

To be completely fair, a lot of this is just fear mongering from the media.

Also the incentives are such that you always want to predict doomsday scenarios. Think about it, if you predict a pandemic and one hits, you're a hero for predicting it. If one doesn't hit then "it doesn't hurt to be cautious". It doesn't make any political sense for anyone to actually say that the chances of any major outbreak are slim.

Number of active cases has been in decline for over a week now, only 5 countries have more than 100 active cases right now (China, Korea, Japan, Italy and Iran), of which Japan is relatively well controlled and Iran and China have been mostly quarantined by the rest of the world (including Australia).

The biggest risk is an outbreak in Europe, but looking at the numbers from France and Germany, it seems well controlled. I'd say keep an eye out for France and Germany over the next two weeks. If the numbers there don't show exponential growth, then I think we're pretty much safe and this whole thing will disappear from the media and everyone's consciousness soon after.

I agree with the sentiment about media hype, but the rest of your post I humbly disagree with. There are now almost 60 countries with confirmed cases, despite almost noone having significant means of identifying same. Even the conservative approach by the australian government has accepted this will spread worldwide.

You use the phrase this "seems well controlled". No, it is not. It is not controlled. It is breaching all attempts to contain. If the WHO do not declare it a global pandemic within the next 48 hours I will eat humble pie....

 

[oirets]

I agree with the sentiment about media hype, but the rest of your post I humbly disagree with. There are now almost 60 countries with confirmed cases, despite almost noone having significant means of identifying same. Even the conservative approach by the australian government has accepted this will spread worldwide.

You use the phrase this "seems well controlled". No, it is not. It is not controlled. It is breaching all attempts to contain. If the WHO do not declare it a global pandemic within the next 48 hours I will eat humble pie....

When I say "well controlled", I don't mean it figuratively, I mean that the growth rate in active cases is less than exponential.

So far, there are only five countries that have exhibited this exponential growth - that is China, Korea, Japan, Italy and Iran. The only other countries where it seems possible for there to be this sort of growth would be France and Germany.

Right now, of those five countries mentioned, China is now on the decline - the active cases are actually falling every day, and Japan has remained steady for around a week.

 

[juddles]

When I say "well controlled", I don't mean it figuratively, I mean that the growth rate in active cases is less than exponential.

So far, there are only five countries that have exhibited this exponential growth - that is China, Korea, Japan, Italy and Iran. The only other countries where it seems possible for there to be this sort of growth would be France and Germany.

Right now, of those five countries mentioned, China is now on the decline - the active cases are actually falling every day, and Japan has remained steady for around a week.

So what do you make of the myriad of countries that have almost no capacity to detect it, but have found it within their borders? Do you beleive that when country "X" says it has a single case, that that is a true number? This whole thing has a momentum where detected cases are way behind the true number. Literally week by week it expands. A few days ago there were 40 countries, and within seven days that has risen to 50+. Just one of the basket cases alone, such as Italy, will be sufficient to feed the rest of the planet.

 

[ozfflyer]

When was the last time any rugby game filled a stadium?

Most top tier rugby tests fill stadiums.

Post automatically merged: Mar 2, 2020

Super Rugby has had poor crowds for many years

Bit like leagie crowds

Foxtel doesn’t help

Point is govt is saying don’t go to mass gatherings & some people will avoid Chinatown & anything related to China, concerts, large sporting events, flights anywhere, shopping centres etc.

 

[p--and--t]

Went to a Japanese Teppanyaki last night in Melbourne. Buzzing.

When some of our group were running 10 minutes late the staff became concerned and hovering over us as they wanted us in and out because they had booked in more people that wanted our seats.

The Greek festival in the city was really buzzing as well late into the night.

So not everyone has settled into panic mode despite media headlines of "Plague" taking up a third of the page.

 

[ozfflyer]

Went to a Japanese Teppanyaki last night in Melbourne. Buzzing.

When some of our group were running 10 minutes late the staff became concerned and hovering over us as they wanted us in and out because they had booked in more people that wanted our seats.

The Greek festival in the city was really buzzing as well late into the night.

So not everyone has settled into panic mode despite media headlines of "Plague" taking up a third of the page.

Sunday nights are often 3rd busiest night for restaurants.

Thin gis some people will take no notice of govt warnings & some will take a lot of notice, which isn't good for the economy. Saw story on a current affair last week I think it was, about some people stocking up & shelves in supermarkets not be restocked, with items from China, as they can't get stock.