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Covid-19: May 2020 - HK News

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  1. #151

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    Quote Originally Posted by HK_Katherine:
    So you read the article from the Guardian about "travel during Covid" and noted the total lack of people being interacted with at Heathrow. I assume this person wore a mask on the plane, since they are a HK resident and HK residents all wear masks - masks being pretty good at preventing outbound infection. You are all fine with asymptomatic carriers travelling because they "don't know" they have it, yet they infect more other people. There is ZERO rational common sense in any of this.

    There is honestly no common sense AT ALL in banning travel. The WHO had it right in the first place when they said shutting down travel was not advised. Some level of sensible social distancing; mask wearing; stopping large group gatherings is appropriate. Other than that, we should just get back to living and open up the borders. Rich countries should be helping poor countries with PPE and bolstering their health systems so that no country has a breakdown of their systems, but other than that, this is just something that has to move through the community and be managed. Blocking it is NOT the solution. It never was. Some temporary measures to get it under control - fine. Some ongoing measures to prevent overwhelming numbers are sensible.

    But travel is 10% of global GDP; we live in a world where many families are spread across the globe; where businesses operate globally. Destroying ALL of this for a virus with such a low death rate is pathetic. It's a gross failure of public policy and it's a worse failure of humans to evaluate and manage their own risk appetite.

    History is not going to give this response a good score card.
    Go Trump! Have you got a MAGA hat?

  2. #152

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    Quote Originally Posted by hullexile:
    Go Trump! Have you got a MAGA hat?
    Trump is wrong too, because he does not want to consider even moderate and sensible strategies. Plus he's unable to communicate clearly whatever strategy he has. That's the problem with this debate. Nobody wants to find a middle group. It's all "lock em up" or "open em up". It's not helpful. As I said - a total failure of public policy and risk analysis.

  3. #153

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aramis:
    To me this seems more like someone frustrated to have her life disrupted than common sense. Not to mention the incredible arrogance of thinking that virtually every government on the planet and most health experts are wrong and she is right. The WHO didn't have it right and eventually reversed their initial position which seemed more politically convenient than common sense.

    I would say that your post history on this matter does not give you a very good score card and seriously lacks common sense and any kind of sensitivity. It amounts to basically let the weak and the poor die so that the strong can get on with making money.
    I'm well off, earning more now than I was a year ago and have plenty of savings to weather this storm. I also have "at risk" relatives in the UK whose wellbeing I care about. I'm much better placed to deal with this than the waitresses, airline steward/esses, check-in chicks, hotel staff and cleaners and many millions of others who are losing their jobs because of the travel bans. I've also spent much of my career formulating and critiquing public policy so I can see bad policy when it's staring me in the face.
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  4. #154

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    Quote Originally Posted by HK_Katherine:
    I'm well off, earning more now than I was a year ago and have plenty of savings to weather this storm. I also have "at risk" relatives in the UK whose wellbeing I care about. I'm much better placed to deal with this than the waitresses, airline steward/esses, check-in chicks, hotel staff and cleaners and many millions of others who are losing their jobs because of the travel bans. I've also spent much of my career formulating and critiquing public policy so I can see bad policy when it's staring me in the face.
    That is called a mirror
    juanalias likes this.

  5. #155

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    Quote Originally Posted by HK_Katherine:
    So you read the article from the Guardian about "travel during Covid" and noted the total lack of people being interacted with at Heathrow. I assume this person wore a mask on the plane, since they are a HK resident and HK residents all wear masks - masks being pretty good at preventing outbound infection. You are all fine with asymptomatic carriers travelling because they "don't know" they have it, yet they infect more other people. There is ZERO rational common sense in any of this.
    The virus can be transmitted through feces and a portion of those infected with COVID get diarrhea as a symptom, so while masks may help, the problem on an airplane is the toilets. And of course people remove masks to eat. There is no way I would take a long-haul flight in the midst of this pandemic unless it was completely necessary, and most rational people take the same view. Most global companies have banned work travel which is a big driver for the airline industry. So even if all travel restrictions were removed today, there would be a huge demand-side shock for the airlines which would limit flights and push up costs anyway.
    Tadashi likes this.

  6. #156

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    Quote Originally Posted by HK_Katherine:
    Trump is wrong too, because he does not want to consider even moderate and sensible strategies. Plus he's unable to communicate clearly whatever strategy he has. That's the problem with this debate. Nobody wants to find a middle group. It's all "lock em up" or "open em up". It's not helpful. As I said - a total failure of public policy and risk analysis.
    Seriously that is a problem that you view your position as " middle ground". Having no travel restrictions is not middle ground it is way out there whacky. Even the idiot protesters calling for their "freedom" don't go that far. So please don't pretend you represent some form of common sense middle ground.

    Separating kids from their parents is not middle ground.
    TheBrit likes this.

  7. #157

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    Quote Originally Posted by HK_Katherine:
    So you read the article from the Guardian about "travel during Covid" and noted the total lack of people being interacted with at Heathrow. I assume this person wore a mask on the plane, since they are a HK resident and HK residents all wear masks - masks being pretty good at preventing outbound infection. You are all fine with asymptomatic carriers travelling because they "don't know" they have it, yet they infect more other people. There is ZERO rational common sense in any of this.

    There is honestly no common sense AT ALL in banning travel. The WHO had it right in the first place when they said shutting down travel was not advised. Some level of sensible social distancing; mask wearing; stopping large group gatherings is appropriate. Other than that, we should just get back to living and open up the borders. Rich countries should be helping poor countries with PPE and bolstering their health systems so that no country has a breakdown of their systems, but other than that, this is just something that has to move through the community and be managed. Blocking it is NOT the solution. It never was. Some temporary measures to get it under control - fine. Some ongoing measures to prevent overwhelming numbers are sensible.

    But travel is 10% of global GDP; we live in a world where many families are spread across the globe; where businesses operate globally. Destroying ALL of this for a virus with such a low death rate is pathetic. It's a gross failure of public policy and it's a worse failure of humans to evaluate and manage their own risk appetite.

    History is not going to give this response a good score card.
    Quote Originally Posted by HK_Katherine:
    I'm well off, earning more now than I was a year ago and have plenty of savings to weather this storm. I also have "at risk" relatives in the UK whose wellbeing I care about. I'm much better placed to deal with this than the waitresses, airline steward/esses, check-in chicks, hotel staff and cleaners and many millions of others who are losing their jobs because of the travel bans. I've also spent much of my career formulating and critiquing public policy so I can see bad policy when it's staring me in the face.
    I’m going to step in here at the risk of getting skewered and say I’m not morally opposed to a cost-benefit analysis but want to disagree on two points.

    First, that a travel ban/quarantine might not have been helpful. I think shutting down travel from the beginning was the best chance of preventing it from becoming a pandemic. The WHO was held back by politics and conservatism from making what I think would have been a reasonable recommendation (or at least not comment on issues they had no evidence for either way), and decided simply to be a passive scientific observer held captive to politics rather than a forward-thinking influencer of events. I had my doubts then, and still have doubts now whether it would have worked, but I do think it was the world’s best chance back then, precisely because of the risks of asymptomatic carriers as you’ve mentioned.

    Secondly, it is false to say that anyone is happy about asymptomatic carriers travelling around and being a potential risk to others. It’s more that people might be inclined to give them more of the benefit of the doubt than someone knowingly putting others at risk. (As a side note, nowadays there are treatments for HIV, and spread isn’t by casual contact either.)

    Now to the more contentious part where people can have different perspectives. Now normally everyone has a different risk tolerance, and part of life is we get to choose how much we want to bear (outside mandatory insurance and other government laws, but that’s a different quarrel), and I understand the frustration you and others have that seemingly too low risk tolerances are having on your choices now that the risks can be better quantified. If others want to be in cash rather than invested in the future, that’s on them, however much you want the best for them, and advise them otherwise, but it mostly won’t affect you. Sorry to say, but with a contagious disease, we are all affected, and our rights and freedoms are going to be impinged on by the collective responsibilities we have, whichever side of the societal risk tolerance threshold we happen to land up on. At the moment, if you have had the good fortune to land up in a place that has managed to have the disease largely under control, I don’t think it’s anybody’s place to argue that we should rush to get infected, or simply passively stop resisting/be careless about the risk because of our own risk tolerance. Endangering others is not okay, although I’m sure nobody here needed reminding.

    Having said all the above, I think everybody needs to consider whether, even beyond human beings, whether animals are also a potential reservoir of infection, and if longer-term eradication/containment efforts will work. Long-term, travel bans don’t seem a solution any more (if right about possible animal reservoir/transmissions), even if it might have worked at beginning from a single source (although arguably mandatory quarantine isn’t a travel ban as such). The economic effects also lead to effects on health and well-being, including mortality, and I don’t have a conclusion either way myself, but this is simply something that needs thinking about, and there’s no point shooting the messenger.
    Last edited by AsianXpat0; 18-05-2020 at 11:12 AM.

  8. #158

  9. #159

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    Quote Originally Posted by MatthieuTofu:
    It think the most damaging impact of covid19 on Hong Kong is Beijing using it for the destruction of any pretense of one country two systems. Much worse than any short term inconvenience and even the economic damage.

  10. #160

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    Quote Originally Posted by merchantms:
    So even if all travel restrictions were removed today, there would be a huge demand-side shock for the airlines which would limit flights and push up costs anyway.
    I agree. Which is one reason why reopening borders is not risky. Few people would choose to travel but those who wanted or needed to, could. The airline industry may not go back to previous levels, but they may at least be able to stave off bankrupcy with reduced fleets. The attack on globalisation this response has provoked is unprecedented. The people who suffer will not be those of us with cushy jobs in rich countries, it will be the poor in developing nations. Again.

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