Despite the warnings people traveled to XYZ and are now stuck. Who is responsible?

[Rickk]

.....

I just want to make it clear for some people armchairing this and saying "it was so obvious" and "if you flew, you should have known better in Feb or early March" - a LOT changed just between the days of March 9-16. ......

It was not so much that a lot changed in the virus and its propagation rates, what changed was that the US and other governments woke up to the facts and the politicians made the decisions to take significant steps to control the spread of the virus.

The information was out there, all it took was some CNN to get the basic facts. As soon as China locked down Wuhan province in January, it was apparent to anyone who thought it through that severe travel restriction were on the way, and would come pretty quickly.

 

[outofofficebrb]

However, this virus was high on if not dominating the news cycle since early February. The potential for a pandemic was obvious back then. While the experts are discussing the actual numbers the potential for geometric growth was there.

Any responsible government should have had access to better data, more fully developed, researched and explained than did CNN.

It was clear to me that there would be some travel restrictions being put in place, I was a little surprised at how fast and how stringent some of these were but am still amazed that some places are operating normally.

I believe that it is the governments role to inform citizens of travel risks and take steps to assist travelers through information and limited logistical assistance but it is the responsibility of each individual to assess the risks and take responsibility for their own decisions.

In general, I am very happy with the response of the Government of Canada on this crisis. I get regular emails from them on travel restrictions and information on flights available etc. So far, no Government funded planes have flown to get private citizens out of here, but they did assist people getting flights from Puerto Princesa back to Manila to return to Canada. Logistical assistance, not financial assistance.

I am quoting your post and deleting anything that I am not referring to in order to make it easier to follow.

Feb 1 - 16,800 total cases. 16,600 of those cases were in China (98.8%)....so I disagree that the possibility for it to become a pandemic was obvious then. There were travel advisories put in(and at that time, pretty much just China) was not an indicator that it would lead to total travel bans and borders closing in many other countries (locking people in or out) at that time. You even said yourself, you were surprised at how fast and stringent some of these occurred. Most happened in March and within a very short time span.

I am not taking a political stance as I do not think it is relevant but I will say that I think the US government as a whole failed in addressing and preparing for what happened, even when it started to become an issue and there were warnings to when it actually arrived and was an issue. Suffice to say, I think the government of Canada is doing and has done a better job managing this disaster than the United States has.

I also want to reiterate something for everyone...none of these chartered flights where governments come to the rescue of those stranded are free. They are paid for and they are quite expensive, especially when you consider it is a one way fare, it is usually way more expensive than the original round trip ticket that these folks paid for to get where they were stranded. So, yes, they ARE taking responsibility for themselves financially. Some governments also provide temporary loans if needed.

With that said, I believe when you travel whether domestic or international, regardless of this situation at hand, you should always have enough money to hold you over in case things go wrong or in case of emergencies. Not being able to afford an extended stay (e.g., paying for food or lodging) due to circumstances beyond your control should not be the responsibility of the government, either, regardless of whether you left during "good times" or "bad times". It should be factored into the budget and as an emergency plan. Though, this one might be with an indefinite time period.....

 

[outofofficebrb]

It was not so much that a lot changed in the virus and its propagation rates, what changed was that the US and other governments woke up to the facts and the politicians made the decisions to take significant steps to control the spread of the virus.

The information was out there, all it took was some CNN to get the basic facts. As soon as China locked down Wuhan province in January, it was apparent to anyone who thought it through that severe travel restriction were on the way, and would come pretty quickly.

Sorry, I disagree that when China locked down Wuhan in January that it was an obvious indicator that so many other countries would be shutting down their borders and locking people in/out later on and exploded to what it has now. You seem to have much more foresight than the rest of us. I don't think this has anything to do with an engineering background. If past events are indicative of future possibilities, WHO declared this a global health emergency on Jan 30. Other diseases that have made this list include the following and have not resulted in such widespread travel restrictions/bans and leaving people stranded on such a large scale, or affected the global economy and so many places before, including those with a much higher mortality and transmission rate. This is unprecedented and therefore, unprecedented (and unexpected) results came to be...so even if people were acting based on history, this came as a surprise from left field for many people.

• Chikungunya
• Cholera
• Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever
• Ebola virus disease
• Hendra virus infection
• Influenza (pandemic, seasonal, zoonotic)
• Lassa fever
• Marburg virus disease
• Meningitis
• MERS-CoV
• Monkeypox
• Nipah virus infection
• Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
• Plague
• Rift Valley fever
• SARS
• Smallpox
• Tularaemia
• Yellow fever
• Zika virus disease

We knew little in the beginning and as each day passes, we learn more and understand the virus a bit more, and are understanding its implications and effect on various populations more. Once governments took steps to control the spread, it changed the tone of communication as well as the actual message and they very quickly implemented travel restrictions or bans with little notice meaning as soon as it was announced, you had 2-3 days, maybe 5 to figure it out and get out, if you could. Flights were dropping like flies with little notice with that time frame as well for the flights I was following. If you had a multi week trip and left before that came to be, you would have ended up being overseas once governments snapped to reality and would have been stranded.

 

[Centrals]

You can kick WHO to touch from the start. It has done NOTHING whatsoever except following instruction from china. WHO said "Wuhan virus" was NOT highly contiguous in the beginning. And they have to change that pretty quickly.
HK suffered badly from SARS in 2002/3 and since then most of us take precautions(eg. wearing surgical mask) early from any contiguous disease warning. I really could not believe that medical professionals from some countries were questioning the usefulness of such a simple low-tec device. BIG mistake. In HK we are living literally over each other but we managed to keep the infection rate low. There is NO magic but common sense.

Ignorance = unprepared = wide spread

 

[Clevelandguy]

There's a little saying I like..
You play stupid games , you win stupid prizes.

 

[Jay]

I just want to make it clear for some people armchairing this and saying "it was so obvious" and "if you flew, you should have known better in Feb or early March" - a LOT changed just between the days of March 9-16. Again, while I did not end up traveling and am so glad I was paying attention to all of this in detail, I have empathy, sympathy, and compassion for those that left during that time period when it was between the cusp of it being obvious and not obvious. Or, maybe they left when things were fine and their trip overlapped to a point where it wasn't. I was lucky enough that my trip fell around a time period that allowed me to make the right decision in hindsight, but that did not apply to everyone who is in this pickle now. I respectfully ask that you try to find the same within you. Some countries (and our own states for that matter) did not have very many cases or any at all, and no travel warnings or restrictions whatsoever. Obviously, that might be a function of whether they were testing or not. Sometimes, you make a decision based on the knowledge you have at the time. Decisions always look a lot easier to make after the fact when you have all the information and facts.

The bolded is the primary purpose of my post.

I decided to fly to the Philippines (Subic Bay and then Coron was planned) and departed Melbourne on the 8th. Prior to that I made a thread about the stats in the Philippines FYI: Coronavirus tracker and Info - Philippines and there was nothing too alarming,

The 'nothing too alarming' didn't last for long. On the evening of the 12th, it was announced that Manila was to go into 'shutdown' 48 hours later. About that time NZ announced a 14day home isolation period for arrivals. Details of what exactly that meant were hard to find, and with officials conflicting each other the following day. I decided to avoid Manila departed via Clark a day later, heading to SGP, then to OZ.

Perhaps, in hindsight, I should have been more cynical about what "patients under investigation" meant. They're now being somewhat transparent with the data now; 2287 tests with 803 confirmed cases. But that's essentially not testing.

Net net, decisions are based on the knowledge you have at the time.

 

[Jay]

You can kick WHO to touch from the start. It has done NOTHING whatsoever except following instruction from china. WHO said "Wuhan virus" was NOT highly contiguous in the beginning. And they have to change that pretty quickly.
HK suffered badly from SARS in 2002/3 and since then most of us take precautions(eg. wearing surgical mask) early from any contiguous disease warning. I really could not believe that medical professionals from some countries were questioning the usefulness of such a simple low-tec device. BIG mistake. In HK we are living literally over each other but we managed to keep the infection rate low. There is NO magic but common sense.

Ignorance = unprepared = wide spread

To mask or not is an interesting one. But contrast HK vs SGP; in SGP, as of 2 weeks ago, not many were wearing them. I asked the immigration officer if he was worried not wearing one. He wasn't (then). The only people that were wearing were service (taxis / uber drivers, food vendors etc). IDK if that's changed in SGP as of now? HK as I understand is 99.9% mask use (with the 0.1% being muppets).

Both HK and SGP, even though there's some recent new cases, both have things under control relatively. Our daily jump is about = to your net current # of cases.

That total mask use approach of HK has obvious benefits (protecting others). The partial use approach in high contact situations (e.g. uber) also has some (but less merit). The issue we have in OZ is that most in general aren't wearing them (although it's highly variable by area) and then there's the 'messy' State / Federal health official info on masks. In the market and supermarket many are now wearing; better late than never.

The other problem here is supply of masks . It seems we donated a lot to Wuhan https://www.smh.com.au/national/sec...edical-supplies-to-china-20200326-p54e8n.html Hopefully there's a bit of a boomerang happening ...

How's HK doing with contact tracing? Do you have an App yet like SGP?

 

[Sue J]

Ray,
I know I may seem like an armchair quarterback and/or risk averse, but the reason I’m so aware or what travel conditions were like at the time you left the country was that I gave my 18 year old permission to leave the country with a friend on March 9th after a lot of discussion about the possible risks. The reasons on I let her go were,

A. It was to Canada, to a city an hour from the border by car.

B. It was on the condition that the kids always answer their phones and

C. They be prepared and willing to bug out on an hour’s notice without complaint if things turned iffy.

Again, I’m sympathetic, but there were travelers stranded across the globe in a rapidly evolving situation. There was no way for the State Department to solve the transportation problems of literally tens of thousands of Americans.

In the end I’m glad you made it home safe.

 

[Blackcrusader]

Feb 1 - 16,800 total cases. 16,600 of those cases were in China (98.8%)....so I disagree that the possibility for it to become a pandemic was obvious then.

Was quite obvious to Taiwan and it had already implemented procedures for the pandemic and warned other countries and the W.H.O. Of course the head of the WHO who is known to have "embellished his resume" lied about his terrorist links and is a known puppet of China came out and lied to the world about non Human to Human transmission when Taiwan already warned that was happening. China knew it was lying when it had to WHO make that statement.

So to say it was not obvious is wrong. Most countries stupidly believed China and the their puppet WHO instead of acting. Taiwan knew better from how China lied in 2003 about Sars and was lying again in 2019 when they started jailing medical professionals who were warning about the new SARS like virus in December 2019.

 

[Centrals]

The other problem here is supply of masks . It seems we donated a lot to Wuhan https://www.smh.com.au/national/sec...edical-supplies-to-china-20200326-p54e8n.html Hopefully there's a bit of a boomerang happening ...

How's HK doing with contact tracing? Do you have an App yet like SGP?

The supply is an massive issue. Production lines are slowly being established locally, all the materials and machinery came from where else ie china!
HK is tiny and most of the cases can be traced to the source and of course there are some exception. The main issue is those on forced 14 day home quarantine, 70+ were already caught and sent to the quarantine centre. People are selfish and stupid beyond description.

Chinese district returns face mask gift 10-fold to Japanese city : The Asahi Shimbun
Just ask them nicely!
Good luck.

Living so close to communist china and with so much daily contact through various sources. We have fairly good idea on what is happening in the country.

42 new cases today, 37 have recent travel history including 22 students returned from overseas.