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by ComputerGuru 2303 days ago
It’s easy to sit in an armchair and claim you’ve found the moral and ethical solution, but there are moral, ethical, and logistical ramifications to instituting a two-week quarantine on all overseas travelers including loss of life.

Are you also going to quarantine every pilot and flight attendant for two weeks each time they land, given their close proximity to possibly infected passengers? What is the point of a quarantine if it’s been shown we can’t reliably detect all cases (when dealing with such volumes)?

3 comments

Point of any measures would be to slow the spread of COVID19 and reduce the likelihood of an overwhelming wave of infections that cripples the health system, resulting in greater loss of life than otherwise would occur and unrelated mortality due to said impact on health system.

Even some simple recommendations from leadership (CDC) would be encouraging to see, but we keep being fed a “nothing to see here, no need to panic” politicized message.

Meanwhile, events like HIMSS (~50000 attendees from 90+ countries meeting in Orlando March 9-13 to sell overpriced antiquated health tech software to one another and hear the likes of HHS Secretary Alex Azar deliver keynotes) are likely to be a catalyst for pandemic.

> Even some simple recommendations from leadership (CDC) would be encouraging to see, but we keep being fed a “nothing to see here, no need to panic” politicized message.

Which recommendations are you missing? (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/get-your...)

And the advice not to panic comes from medical experts.

The recommendation that “mass gatherings” be postponed or canceled.

WHO defines “mass gatherings” as amplifiers of transmission of COVID19.

The recommendations you linked are basic infection prevention measures, but the fact is that being within 3 feet of someone infected with COVID19 (even asymptomatic) is enough to contract the virus.

Point of any measures would be to slow the spread of COVID19 and reduce the likelihood of an overwhelming wave of infections that cripples the health system, resulting in greater loss of life than otherwise would occur and unrelated mortality due to said impact on health system.

Selective travel bans would seem to be just as effective for this, and a lot more practical.

>It’s easy to sit in an armchair and claim you’ve found the moral and ethical...

This sounds like moralizing to me.

>including loss of life

How would temporarily not issuing tourist visas kill people?

Those challenges could be overcome with special protocols. The real problem would be the decimation of the tourism industries.