As soon as a country starts freaking out like China did about the coronavirus, all commercial airports around the world stop all future flights. In the countries not hit yet, anyone deemed most at risk from the pandemic is housed in the closed airports, and airport/airline staff are paid to wear hazmat suits and treat them as hotel guests until the pandemic is declared over. Then the rest of the world can carry on as usual, but will need to find an alternative to commercial airplanes. I think the economic impact of this would be much lower than what we are seeing now and will see from the coronavirus panic. Any enhancements to my idea?
Airports are inadequate as hospitals and by the time a nation “freaks out”, the cat is already out of the barn. How to lessen economic impact of future pandemics? Start by building a strong social safety net with universal healthcare.
yeah, there’s reports that chinas had corona since august of last year but no one knew what it was and people were online comparing notes trying to figure it out and where it was heading… there piecing together online chat logs to trace its evolution …
So by the time, it hit big enough to really notice it was October and PROC health officials were downplaying it as just another flu (the Chinese public thought it was the return of SARS)
so by the time they started warehousing people it was Feb and it appeared outside of china mere weeks after that
This is impossible. Where did you get your "reports?
No matter how much you think China is lying, if the virus had been spreading for months before containment efforts were made, Taiwan would have a raging epidemic on its hands. Instead Taiwan, despite huge traffic from the Mainland, has contained the outbreak spectacularly well. How Taiwan is containing coronavirus – despite diplomatic isolation by China | Coronavirus | The Guardian
You mean aside from the fact that it is ridiculous? How does shutting down the world’s airports minimize economic impact? There are around 160,000 known coronavirus cases around the world right now. That many people travel through LaGuardia every two days. That’s one airport.
Well, I think you need an effective healthcare system, regardless of how it’s implemented. The problem in the US (and everywhere) for that matter isn’t that we don’t have universal health care. It’s that the system isn’t currently designed for the massive influx of patience a pandemic caused.
The social distancing and closures/cancellations are already having a much larger impact than a few medical bills. I’m not sure how you get around that though.
By definition a pandemic means the disease has already spread worldwide. At that point things like restricting commercial flights would mainly serve to “flatten the curve” so that not everyone gets sick at the same time, overwhelming local healthcare systems.
There hasn’t been much discussion on this topic that I’m aware of, but the vast majority, if not all, new illnesses, are zoonotic illnesses that mutated and spread to humans. What we need to do is to stop hunting and eating wild animals.
Is the last sentence clearly true? I thought most viruses jump to humans from domesticated animals, e.g. chickens (Covid-2019), pigs (swine flu), camels (Mers-2012). SARS-2002 did come from sales of civet cat meat. Almost all these coronaviruses are believed to originate in bats, I think, but jumped to humans via an intermediary species.
Do you realize colleges have told students to leave town, and finish the semester online? Many large colleges have an entire city of people whose jobs will be impacted by it suddenly becoming a ghostown. Large events have been canceled affecting restaurants and hotels and advertisers. What we are doing now is much more ridiculous. With my way nothing is canceled, but will be restricted to the crowd of people closest or most motivated. Some people are thinking I mean use the airports as hospitals. No I am saying use them as a protective bubble for the most vulnerable, and the airline/airport folks can still be paid as “hotel” staff.
I mean as soon as a country starts freaking out like China did. Not wait a while.
I once had a boss, who was an idiot.
We had cameras and a supply of film. We were supposed to take pictures when we had an incident at work.
Idiot boss decided he wanted to cut costs by using less film. So he held a meeting and told us to take less pictures. We asked him when he wanted us to take pictures and when he didn’t want us to take pictures. He kept trying to tell us to use our own judgment and we kept saying it was his policy so he needed to tell us what it was he wanted.
He finally said we should only take pictures in incidents that would end up in court because then we would need the photographs as evidence. We tried to explain to him how time worked and why we couldn’t make decisions in the present based on events that would happen in the future.
Your OP talks about shutting down all commercial airports around the world. How disruptive do you think that’s going to be? How many large events will need to be cancelled? How will that affect the restaurants and hotels and advertisers?
In this case the Chinese dramatically freaked out in the very beginning, sending a very clear signal at the outset.
I think instead of complete cancelation, going from a crowd of say 60000 to 0. Instead you might have a crowd of 40000.
Wait, so are we closing down all commercial airports or not?
unfortunately, I use the private/incognito browsing so the page wasn’t saved so these aren’t the exact report I read but Coronavirus Was Trending on WeChat Before China Confirmed Cases: Study
and here’s some of the report from the Chinese news: Exclusive: Coronavirus: China’s first confirmed Covid-19 case traced back to November 17 | South China Morning Post
if I can find the msn page again ill post that also
In the US, the virus first appeared here in western Washington state. The best way to contain it would have been to put us in quarantine immediately. It would have caused an economic disaster that could have been mitigated by federal funding. But since it would have prevented disaster, people wouldn’t have seen the need for it and would have been angry and noncompliant. And Trump wouldn’t have granted federal emergency funds because he’s an idiot whose first response was that it was a democratic hoax.
Now we’re stuck with trying to “flatten the curve” so the health system doesn’t get completely swamped.
Stopping flights wouldn’t have been nearly enough, OP. People drive and use other means of transport. And I don’t think you mean “freak out.” I think you mean “recognize the danger and take immediate action.” Right?
Would folks settle for “follow the CDC guidelines”?
Sure, but the CDC guidelines are vague and being handled inconsistently around the country. Some schools are closing, others are open.