Is Coronavirus keeping you from booking liveaboard/overseas trips this year?

[dead dog]

If yinz would wait a while you might see some price dropping in the future.

 

[WeRtheOcean]

A new normal ... yes, it could be called that but with a much higher infection rate than the general flu, combined with a much higher mortality rate, it's probably 50-100 times more lethal to the average person.

Or, it could be like SARS: a one-off that doesn't stick around.

 

[GrafCanuck]

Was planning a trip to Bonaire this April but have procrastinated. The virus risk (albeit slight) and absolutely no discounts (amazing) are the deterrents. Unfortunately, direct flights from Toronto to Bonaire end mid April. Plan B is Curacao or Grand Cayman in May. Personally, my wife and I prefer Bonaire for various reasons.

 

[Centrals]

Or, it could be like SARS: a one-off that doesn't stick around.

Both this COVID-19(Wuhan virus) and SARS are coronavirus. But this Wuhan verson is highly contiguous, a lot longer incubation period in some cases, some infected persons did not show any symptoms until much later stage etc etc.
Next one could be highly contiguous and deadly as well !!! Virus does mutate.

 

[Centrals]

I think with the case in Hong Kong, many factors helped slow the spread of the virus.

1. Previous extensive experience with SARS;

2. Top notch healthcare system;

3. Almost completely closed borders to China, albeit slowly;

4. Immediate and strong response from local residents to wash hands, wear masks, sanitize, avoid crowds, etc. So in doing that everyone was in the fight from the beginning. If anyone was infected themselves and they did not know it at the time, the fact that they were wearing masks helped minimize the spread to others. I am very aware of what the doctors and medical professionals are saying about masks and the shortage problem. While I agree everyone wearing masks is creating a shortage, I don’t agree that everyone wearing masks is not helping slow the spread. And I mean everyone, not just a small portion of society. I highly doubt the West will have everyone wearing masks because the message is very different from what is being said in the East. There’s a cultural aspect to this and the attitudes and response to this are just very different. In the East, not wearing masks is stigmatized. In the West, it’s the opposite.

Just a nugget of interesting info: our city had 3 infected people who arrived on a plane from China, all were wearing masks on the plane and went into voluntary isolation immediately upon arriving. No new cases ever resulted from those 3 initial cases. Then the cases coming from China just stopped due to border closures. And we had no new cases for a few weeks. Nada. This was a huge surprise because we have a large Chinese population here. We were expecting a lot more cases. Now we have over 30 cases, all of them coming from outside Asia: Iran, Italy, France, Las Vegas, Colorado, etc. Few, if any, were wearing masks on the plane nor self isolated upon arrival. These people went out in public doing regular life stuff after arriving. Now our health officials are scrambling to track down everyone that they might’ve infected, including those on public transit. My only point here is that the human/community response and cultural attitudes about this are so different. Coming from both an Eastern and Western cultural background, the difference is very stark.

Both Toronto and Hong Kong had experienced SARS in 2003 and knew how to deal with it immediately when something similar was suspected.
I believe the alpha patient was infected in HK and then brought the virus(SARS) back to Toronto.
The fatality in both Hong Kong and Toronto was more or less the same : 17%

 

[Moby_]

The problem is overreaction.
Here in Italy the craziness exploded. Schools and universities have been closed, all public events (including sport) cancelled...
We are not allowed to travel at all.
I had to go to South Korea areond half of March, and I had to cancel the work trip.
As you cannot forecast such explosions of craziness, better to wait that the situstion calms down.

This is a surprising opinion to see from an Italian. The other posts I've seen from Italians is more like "WTF is wrong with these other countries? Can't they see what's happening in Italy? Our parents and grand parents are dying"

Eg. As an Italian, I really hoped the horror stories that are coming out of Italy ri... | Hacker News

 

[Scubagolf]

My wife/dive buddy are going to Coz at Scuba Club again Apr 2-12. We were there in 2009 during the Swine Flu pandemic. I think it was early June. There were FIVE guests at SCC for the first 4 days, and then about half full the rest of the week. It was REALLY great. Not for staff, but it was fantastic for us.

 

[Centrals]

Philippines and now Thailand are off limit for Hong Kongers. And the list might grow even we only have 120 confirmed cases since 24th Jan.

 

[Angelo Farina]

This is a surprising opinion to see from an Italian. The other posts I've seen from Italians is more like "WTF is wrong with these other countries? Can't they see what's happening in Italy? Our parents and grand parents are dying"

Eg. As an Italian, I really hoped the horror stories that are coming out of Italy ri... | Hacker News

See the date of my post: it was two weeks ago, and most people here (me included, for sure) did not perceive the danger arriving, yet.
Afterwords , our government was very good acting so early, when no one was yet worrying.
And yes, what are other countries doing? Ignoring the problem??

 

[urbaneve71]

Well WHO has officially declared this a pandemic.

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 11 March 2020