Preparing for Coronavirus?

[marshwiggle]

I can't imagine the US closing its border. There are over 300,000 people entering the US every day...

Interesting question for constitutional/international law experts out there: Can a country legally bar entry to its own citizens if they haven't even been accused of any sort of crime in any country?

(As the saying goes, "Home is the place that, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.")

[pigou]

I can't imagine the US closing its border. There are over 300,000 people entering the US every day...

Interesting question for constitutional/international law experts out there: Can a country legally bar entry to its own citizens if they haven't even been accused of any sort of crime in any country?

(As the saying goes, "Home is the place that, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.")

Courts have given wide discretion to the executive when it comes to national security. E.g. Japanese internment camps were found to be constitutional. The bigger deterrent to this isn't legal, but political: the people who would be affected by this (i.e. who travel internationally) tend to be wealthier. Not a good strategy to upset business travelers if you want to get re-elected.

[clean]

I can't imagine the US closing its border. There are over 300,000 people entering the US every day...

Hasnt the US border been closed to anyone returning from China's infected areas?  US citizens are forced into 2 weeks of quarantine and others are refused entry?

IF the virus is now 'in the wild' in California and I would not be surprised that it is out and about in New York, then closing the borders is 'closing the barn door after the cows escaped'.

I worry that New York has the virus because reports indicate that no additional screening is going on from people flying from the virus areas of Italy and likely from any other non-China areas. 

[spork]

Our head public relations person just sent an all-hands email saying that though "no risk has been identified" to the campus community, the university is recommending that all students currently studying abroad in Italy return to the USA immediately.

This is like the parents of a student of mine refusing to let her study abroad in Morocco "because of Ebola."

[marshwiggle]

I can't imagine the US closing its border. There are over 300,000 people entering the US every day...

Hasnt the US border been closed to anyone returning from China's infected areas?  US citizens are forced into 2 weeks of quarantine and others are refused entry?

But being quarantined on arrival isn't the same as being denied entry, if the quarantine is in the U.S.

[clean]

But being quarantined on arrival isn't the same as being denied entry, if the quarantine is in the U.S.

True, but it certainly increases the cost of travel! 

And being put in quarantine is no extended vacation!

[fast_and_bulbous]

It is becoming likely that I will be eating my upcoming 3 week trip to Italy, starting in Genoa (the work related part), and then Rome (the vacation part), in less than two weeks.

Worst case scenario is being stuck in a large city under lockdown in a foreign country and then being quarantined when you get back home.

I'm not confident the work related part is going to happen anyway - the university is already shut down, supposedly to open next week.

A friend just cancelled her Italian jaunt, and another friend worried about France in April.  Her biggest fear is that King Kong will close the US borders, and she won't be able to get back home.  I hadn't even thought of that, but given his lack of impulse control.....

Just got the email from the organizer of the event I was to speak at, it's been cancelled/postponed, so our vacation has as well. United is waiving some fees with rescheduling flights to northern Italy but I'm not sure what an all out cancellation will cost us if we can't reschedule in time. I am kind of relieved but a bit dizzy over all of this - we'd been planning our trip for a long time. In the grand scheme of things I guess I can't complain too much, although I prefer going to art galleries etc. to stockpiling canned food.

[marshwiggle]

Just got the email from the organizer of the event I was to speak at, it's been cancelled/postponed, so our vacation has as well. United is waiving some fees with rescheduling flights to northern Italy but I'm not sure what an all out cancellation will cost us if we can't reschedule in time. I am kind of relieved but a bit dizzy over all of this - we'd been planning our trip for a long time. In the grand scheme of things I guess I can't complain too much, although I prefer going to art galleries etc. to stockpiling canned food.

The stock market is down, but it's a good time to buy stock in streaming services.

[secundem_artem]

Stop worrying people.  Cheeto Jesus has put Mike Pence on the case.  I guess Jared was too busy.

[pigou]

Hasnt the US border been closed to anyone returning from China's infected areas?  US citizens are forced into 2 weeks of quarantine and others are refused entry?

Only people from Hubei province for US citizens, which wasn't that many. Flights out of Wuhan were getting canceled already. As for non-citizens caught in this: they could rebook to, say, Vancouver and enter the US after two weeks. Definitely more than a minor inconvenience, but we're talking about a few hundred people here. Not hundreds of thousands per day.

If I were emperor, I'd fire anyone who does anything out of an "abundance of caution.". Out of an abundance of caution, you can do anything, no matter how nonsensical it is. A Hungarian soccer team suspended its Italian coach -- mind you, not because he was in Italy, but because of his nationality. And Asian restaurants are seeing a big drop in customers around the US. My Uber driver a couple weeks ago told me he wished he could block Asian riders from the app...

[Vkw10]

My university has cancelled several upcoming study abroad trips, reminded us that Board policy prohibits official travel to any country with certain State Dept travel advisories so we can't be reimbursed if we travel to those places, informed us that quarantine and remote teaching plans are being reviewed so everyone is ready to implement if needed, and ...

Placed huge bottles of hand sanitizer in every lobby, reception area, restroom, dining area, etc, with pleas to immediately report empty bottles so they can be replaced. They're also running a 60 second video on proper hand washing on announcement screens.  Saw in building lobby, library, and dining hall today.

I'm rather impressed at the practical response. Personally, I've stocked up tissue and canned soup, reminded staff that using sick leave protects colleagues and students, and started prepping alternate assignments in case we switch to remote teaching during an outbreak. I already have some from the last big flood that shut campus down.

[hmaria1609]

Earlier I got another e-mail notice from Avalon Waterways--South Korea was included.

[clean]

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/coronavirus-live-updates-who-covid19-covid-19-italy-china-canada-wuhan-deaths

Not new news.  the headline may not accurately reflect her comments.

Coronavirus updates: Stockpile food and meds in case of infection, Canada's health minister says
"Health Minister Patty Hajdu is encouraging Canadians to stockpile food and medication in their homes in case they or a loved one falls ill with the novel coronavirus.

Updates below

That's good advice for any potential crisis from a viral outbreak to power outages, she said Wednesday.

"It's good to be prepared because things can change quickly," she said.

She also suggested people should do what they can to ease the burden on the health care system in the meantime by staying home if they're sick, washing their hands and getting flu shots.

"
Are you stockpiling food and medicine?

I live in a hurricane zone. I usually have sufficient stocks to survive being without power for 4 or 5 days.  This is better because power should remain.  I have purchased some frozen foods, but there is no way I have 2 weeks worth of food stocked.  As my drugs are delivered in 3 month supplies (that is the plan we have from the employer health plan), so I m good there. 

How prepared are you to weather a virus related shut down in your community? 
What do you think will close and what will remain open?

[spork]

As I might have posted in this or another thread, the current semester has been the worst flu season among undergraduates on my campus that I have seen in twenty years of full-time teaching. I know that my state is reporting to the CDC a frequency of influenza-like illness that is 30% higher than last year. I've been getting official emails from Student Affairs that "so and so has been diagnosed with the flu and has been advised not to attend class" at a rate of about once every 48 hours. Often these students go home to recuperate. I suspect a noticeable uptick in student absences will happen with COVID-19, whether from actual cases or parental fears. I run all my courses, whether face-to-face or online, through our LMS, so even if the campus closes I'll still be teaching, just without any commute.

I bet conferences are going to fall apart. I've got one in a week, attendees were notified it will proceed as planned. There is another one in my disciplinary area on the West Coast in three weeks and it sounds like people are cancelling. I have a training in California in June; my university has already reimbursed me for the registration fee but I haven't bought airline tickets yet because of the possibility it will be cancelled. 

Other than that, I always keep a pharmacy's worth of prescription drugs in my house, and I've got plenty of firewood to heat the house until summer. I'll be buying a few 50 lb bags of rice this week, but I do that on a regular basis anyway.

[Caracal]

As I might have posted in this or another thread, the current semester has been the worst flu season among undergraduates on my campus that I have seen in twenty years of full-time teaching. I know that my state is reporting to the CDC a frequency of influenza-like illness that is 30% higher than last year. I've been getting official emails from Student Affairs that "so and so has been diagnosed with the flu and has been advised not to attend class" at a rate of about once every 48 hours. Often these students go home to recuperate. I suspect a noticeable uptick in student absences will happen with COVID-19, whether from actual cases or parental fears. I run all my courses, whether face-to-face or online, through our LMS, so even if the campus closes I'll still be teaching, just without any commute.

I hadn't thought about absence issues. I give students three absences with no penalty. I've always felt like that keeps people from feeling like they need to come to class if they aren't feeling well and that if students just skip a bunch of classes early and then get sick later that's on them, but I wonder if I'm going to need to tweak that policy or allow more absences given the state of anxiety.

I'm also a lot grumpier about the prospect of classes going online. I use the LMS, but just for quizzes, submissions, grades and attendance and I've never taught an online course. I worry it would just be an organizational disaster to have to start doing it in the middle of the semester.