with community spread being so prevalent, what is the logic behind border closings between two comparable countries? It's not like it matters any more if one sick person moves from Canada to the US or vice versa any more than any other movement.
What follows are just my assumptions and observations but:
I think it’s meant to discourage shopping or eating at rest stops or small towns along the way, or unnecessary contact between family & friends either at a destination or while in a car or minivan, travelling. They are in fact trying to discourage “any other movement” with the closing of gatherings over 10-50 people depending on jurisdiction, the call to practice social distancing (and only leaving your home when it is essential to do so), etc.
They aren’t restricting truckers, who technically could carry and spread the disease because the point isn’t entirely to stop the disease at the border but to instead limit everyday movement to the essential. Assuming transport workers isolate themselves as much as anyone else does, the trade benefits far outweigh the potential harm, especially as truck drivers are often alone anyway, hard to spread it to others then. Compare this to personal travellers who meet and interact with small town folks or who travel as a group... lots of contact, lots of opportunities to share that which we don’t want shared. ;-)
From a pandemic standpoint travelers tend to go to the same places as other travelers. Further, people are generally going to avoid known hotspots but unknown hotspots represent the great risk for spreading as people don’t realize what’s going on until much later. At the extreme, carefully returning people with known infections was a minimal risk due to the preventive measures taken.
Net result most Americans that got the virus from a foreign country got it outside of China. Completely closing the borders and or adding a 14 day quarantine for new arrivals would have helped. Just banning travel to China was mostly pointless.
I think it's still very much an open question whether these bans will have any effect. And I guess we'll see how Americans feel about being on the receiving end of the xenophobia.
The confusion with the EU travel bans was that it seemed somewhat arbitrary, allowing UK etc. It was also announced somewhat ambiguously, where some people thought it included shutting down cargo shipments
This border closure is also different in that both sides have negotiated a mutual agreement
That said, yes, we should realize how much perspectives are shifting with each passing week. Ideally we'd try learn from Europe's hindsight rather than blame their rate of infection on greeting rituals
This assumes that the US and Canada are homogeneous blobs, where closing a border is like pulling a piece of string across a small pond. Reducing any community transmission is good, which is why Italy closed off parts of their country as the spread got worse.
At least on the Canadian side of the border, there is a distrust of how the US has handled this and the general belief is that there are significantly more cases that aren't being reported compared to Canada. Closing the border gives us a better chance of keeping tabs and controlling the spread within the country if we aren't getting additional cases from our neighbours.
Absolutely. There is little reason to trust anything that comes out of the US administration, and the ongoing reporting of leadership dysfunction at the highest levels of the country does not lend credibility to containment efforts.
There are also accounts of blatant disregard by US citizens in certain areas of the country of social distancing measures, such as reports [1] that thousands of people are flocking to beaches in Florida, which understandably causes concern among Canadians.
The flipside is that the USA could recover from this in a few months, whilst the rest of the world is still at the start of their 18-month lockdowns.
It is grim, but a reduced elderly and sick population would save significant amounts of federal and state money.
I'm going through Coronavirus right now personally (I'm in Europe), with the typical symptoms for a young healthy person: dry eyes, tightness around the sternum, sweats, light fatigue. Its really no different from any other cold I've had. Without all the news about it I probably wouldn't even notice.
It would be politically difficult, but allowing COVID-19 to take effect, with some mitigation (eg. recommending isolation for the elderly), would lead to long-term strategic benefits for the countries that can get through it.
It would be like post-WW2 all over again - the USA being the only functional industrial economy. Tourism from around the world could be welcomed due to the population's herd immunity, and a baby boom would probably result from the cheap housing made available to young people.
It hasn't spread to all communities yet. China had a lot of province, city and village level "borders" closed, I'm a little surprised that we haven't seen any US states (esp places like Hawaii or Alaska) do this yet.
I think it makes sense to insulate systems that respond to the issue differently.
Another example is the EU, I think. EU is not like the USA and the countries are sovereign, therefore they have very different approaches to combat the same issue so they close borders even within the union while the US states are co-ordinated from the DC so they are in the same boat and can keep the flow going.
I think it's just about what's politically feasible. Some infrastructure and historical precedent exists for closing borders between nations, even within the EU, but not between US states.
For limiting the spread of the virus, it would be better to close borders between states or even counties.
It seems like we should follow the model of South Korea. They seem to have the pandemic under control and almost didn't close any borders. Testing and tracking seems to do the trick. Not sure why we like drastic measures and not look at the countries that deal best with it and copy what they do. It's kind of befuddling to me.
The US is so far behind on testing that the SK approach is not currently an option. The hope is that better options will present themselves in the coming weeks and months.
It's not clear that South Korea does have the pandemic under control - their new cases actually went up slightly in the last day, and there's been worrying talk of small clusters that have the authorities there concerned. The reason they're a problem is that smaller clusters are incredibly hard to find with testing and tracking, so if they're finding some there are probably more undetected ones out there multiplying.
if they find them quick enough they can still stop them from going exponential, but to do that you have to test more people faster. failing that they'll be forced to go into lockdown in more areas.
It's easier to test + trace when you can control people flow within your country.
I think it's a little wreckless for the media to elevate the South Korea model without comparing ground realities. SK: basically an island, water on three sides, even more impenetrable North Korean DMZ on the other. Majority of their 50k visitors a day comes via air. Compared to Canada, while we're fortunate enough to only share border with US, but it's also a country 10x CAN population with very lax border crossing process. CAN/US exchange 300k people per day at many border crossings, some of them unmanned/unmonitored. If shit breaks down, it's basically a porous open border. Canada also has 130k air travelers per day. Both CAN & US also receives more visitors from more countries than Korea. Korean trade is done via shipping, Canada has vast supply chain dependency that networks directly into US via highways (thousands of truck drivers) and rail. The exposure, in terms of population flow and commerce, is on a totally different level. Other considerations, Korea has am ore compliant population, there's mandatory civil service and they were a dictatorship until 1979, so anyone over 50, i.e. the vulnerable population have experience with hard times knows how to fall in line (except the religious cults). They also have experience with SARS, which Toronto, Canada has as well, though our response was less than great according to our postmortem.
I feel like the media is hyping up S.Korea because it's the most reasonable democratic analogue with an adequate response. No one is going to take mimicking Taiwan, Singapore or HK model seriously because the gulf in ground realities is too large. But most medium size countries with porous border has closer conditions to China than South Korea.
Also I don't see this get mentioned at all, but S.Korea politics is pretty corrupt, at least measured against other OECD countries. Almost every one of their former presidents have been jailed or dirty for various reasons. I don't know why people trust their data given how politicized response to this virus is. The administration has every incentive to cover up as well. Time will tell.
My province as of a couple of days ago had tested as many people as the entire US. From our perspective, allowing unrestricted movement with the US is asking for more cases.
The ideal way to stop community spread is to keep everyone more or less in their homes. Failing that, you can isolate communities from each other, and failing that, you can isolate states and countries from each other.
In principle, closing the border between Washington State and British Columbia is a good idea, just as closing the border between Washington and Oregon is a good idea. It just happens to turn out that it’s much easier to close the international border than the interstate border, and if you’re solving a problem, you typically do the easier parts first.
Kudos to both governments for the way this is being handled. A joint announcement with considerations for maintaining trade and facilitating necessary travel, while curtailing unnecessary travel to minimize transmission. Should be better both for compliance and for long-term goodwill than a unilateral measure by either side.
Hopefully both sides can continue to employ significant social distancing while ramping up testing and other measures, so that outbreaks can be brought under control and this situation can be as temporary as is prudently possible.
As soon as this virus broke out in China, I immediately remembered comments on HN from ~6 months re: open borders and mass population migration. I argued that robust border controls would be useful for preventing disease transmission and was criticized as connecting totally undocumented migrants to disease was "vile rhetoric". After all, "no one was suggesting restricting tourism to prevent disease."
Now here we are with a no-shit virus outbreak and neither the Canadians nor the Mexicans are interested in having Americans freely flowing across their border.[1]
I'd want to laugh at how the real world tends to shred the fantastical political/social positions of so many people....if it weren't all so tragic. :(
38 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 281 ms ] threadI think it’s meant to discourage shopping or eating at rest stops or small towns along the way, or unnecessary contact between family & friends either at a destination or while in a car or minivan, travelling. They are in fact trying to discourage “any other movement” with the closing of gatherings over 10-50 people depending on jurisdiction, the call to practice social distancing (and only leaving your home when it is essential to do so), etc.
They aren’t restricting truckers, who technically could carry and spread the disease because the point isn’t entirely to stop the disease at the border but to instead limit everyday movement to the essential. Assuming transport workers isolate themselves as much as anyone else does, the trade benefits far outweigh the potential harm, especially as truck drivers are often alone anyway, hard to spread it to others then. Compare this to personal travellers who meet and interact with small town folks or who travel as a group... lots of contact, lots of opportunities to share that which we don’t want shared. ;-)
Personally I think the border should have closed immediately after the PM’s press conference on Monday.
And Biden called such bans Xenophobic.. until apparently they weren’t. Fascinating how quickly we forget.
https://nationalfile.com/flashback-biden-opposed-trumps-chin...
Net result most Americans that got the virus from a foreign country got it outside of China. Completely closing the borders and or adding a 14 day quarantine for new arrivals would have helped. Just banning travel to China was mostly pointless.
I saw a lot of argle-bargle when a Norwegian university highlighted the obvious truth of the US's vulnerable infrastructure https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/coronavirus-norway-...
This border closure is also different in that both sides have negotiated a mutual agreement
That said, yes, we should realize how much perspectives are shifting with each passing week. Ideally we'd try learn from Europe's hindsight rather than blame their rate of infection on greeting rituals
There are also accounts of blatant disregard by US citizens in certain areas of the country of social distancing measures, such as reports [1] that thousands of people are flocking to beaches in Florida, which understandably causes concern among Canadians.
1 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-thousands-florida-b...
It is grim, but a reduced elderly and sick population would save significant amounts of federal and state money.
I'm going through Coronavirus right now personally (I'm in Europe), with the typical symptoms for a young healthy person: dry eyes, tightness around the sternum, sweats, light fatigue. Its really no different from any other cold I've had. Without all the news about it I probably wouldn't even notice.
It would be politically difficult, but allowing COVID-19 to take effect, with some mitigation (eg. recommending isolation for the elderly), would lead to long-term strategic benefits for the countries that can get through it.
It would be like post-WW2 all over again - the USA being the only functional industrial economy. Tourism from around the world could be welcomed due to the population's herd immunity, and a baby boom would probably result from the cheap housing made available to young people.
Another example is the EU, I think. EU is not like the USA and the countries are sovereign, therefore they have very different approaches to combat the same issue so they close borders even within the union while the US states are co-ordinated from the DC so they are in the same boat and can keep the flow going.
For limiting the spread of the virus, it would be better to close borders between states or even counties.
I think it's a little wreckless for the media to elevate the South Korea model without comparing ground realities. SK: basically an island, water on three sides, even more impenetrable North Korean DMZ on the other. Majority of their 50k visitors a day comes via air. Compared to Canada, while we're fortunate enough to only share border with US, but it's also a country 10x CAN population with very lax border crossing process. CAN/US exchange 300k people per day at many border crossings, some of them unmanned/unmonitored. If shit breaks down, it's basically a porous open border. Canada also has 130k air travelers per day. Both CAN & US also receives more visitors from more countries than Korea. Korean trade is done via shipping, Canada has vast supply chain dependency that networks directly into US via highways (thousands of truck drivers) and rail. The exposure, in terms of population flow and commerce, is on a totally different level. Other considerations, Korea has am ore compliant population, there's mandatory civil service and they were a dictatorship until 1979, so anyone over 50, i.e. the vulnerable population have experience with hard times knows how to fall in line (except the religious cults). They also have experience with SARS, which Toronto, Canada has as well, though our response was less than great according to our postmortem.
I feel like the media is hyping up S.Korea because it's the most reasonable democratic analogue with an adequate response. No one is going to take mimicking Taiwan, Singapore or HK model seriously because the gulf in ground realities is too large. But most medium size countries with porous border has closer conditions to China than South Korea.
Also I don't see this get mentioned at all, but S.Korea politics is pretty corrupt, at least measured against other OECD countries. Almost every one of their former presidents have been jailed or dirty for various reasons. I don't know why people trust their data given how politicized response to this virus is. The administration has every incentive to cover up as well. Time will tell.
See "The fates of former presidents of South Korea", it's a gongshow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_South_Ko...
https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/why-are-koreas-covid-19-death-...
A quote from the villains in Under Siege 2. One of the few memorable things from that movie.
How they could test so early: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1237058531410489345.html
How they can test so many: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1238890311272796160.html
My province as of a couple of days ago had tested as many people as the entire US. From our perspective, allowing unrestricted movement with the US is asking for more cases.
In principle, closing the border between Washington State and British Columbia is a good idea, just as closing the border between Washington and Oregon is a good idea. It just happens to turn out that it’s much easier to close the international border than the interstate border, and if you’re solving a problem, you typically do the easier parts first.
It's time to close the border.
Hopefully both sides can continue to employ significant social distancing while ramping up testing and other measures, so that outbreaks can be brought under control and this situation can be as temporary as is prudently possible.
Now here we are with a no-shit virus outbreak and neither the Canadians nor the Mexicans are interested in having Americans freely flowing across their border.[1]
I'd want to laugh at how the real world tends to shred the fantastical political/social positions of so many people....if it weren't all so tragic. :(
[1]https://news.trust.org/item/20200313151928-n3bce
You can't see germs. They are too small.
Out of sight, out of mind.