The end game: What is the future of travel between contained and endemic countries?

[pbmaise]

This thread was started to discuss the future of travel in a world where the virus has been stamped out in one area but still active in others.

If quarantine is required, when and where is it to take place? Will anti-body testing proving you already had the virus become a future stamp in your passport?

In particular, I am hoping people will post into this thread how countries are planning on reopening their borders to travelers.

Definitions:
Endemic means the virus is always present in a population and hot spots flare up from time to time. Very large areas like the USA, South America, India, and Europe may enter a phase this Fall where large outbreaks occur. These outbreaks will not likely be as large as the first wave, however, will be large enough that nations where the virus is contained become concerned.

Contained means the virus has essentially been eliminated to the point that the only new outbreaks are due to travelers coming from countries where the virus is still raging.

A good article that contrasts countries where the virus is currently contained is located here. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...re-taiwan.html

That article details how in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan the virus was contained to low levels and numbers only began to rise after residents and workers returned from other countries.

Virus contained countries all have something in common. They will likely want to open their borders to tourism without quarantine to other contained countries.

Likely contained countries will be:
SE Asian countries (except Indonesia), Japan, South Korea, Taiwan
Canada, Ireland, Iceland, Scandinavian countries, Pacific island nations,
The States of Hawaii/Alaska, (If they closed their border to mainland US unless visitors are quarantined.), OZ and NZ.

China may be included in this list and Chinese tourism in contained countries would be a strong incentive to include it.

[pbmaise]

My personal situation in regards to future travel and borders is as follows:

#1 US citizen who has not been in USA since last year.
#2 Home and fiance in the Philippines.
#3 Current location in Malaysia waiting to haul out vessel when the dock yards open again.
#4 Near term plans are to return to Philippines by plane.
#5 October plans is vacation in Gold Coast Australia and flight via Malaysia

Currently no fights for me to take and Philippines will not allow me into the Philippines because I am not married to a Filipino and don't have a permanent residency visa.

My hope is that both Malaysia and Philippines realize that Covid 19 is contained in both countries and they will allow people to travel without quarantine. This said, I would be willing to go into quarantine in the Philippines at my expense. Preferably not in a government military barracks. I would permit cell phone tracking of my location under a self-quarantine requirement at home.

Looking into October, and my flights to Australia that are already booked. A 14 day quarantine after flying from Philippines to Malaysia, and another 14 day quarantine in Australia would be a trip killer. Likely quarantine on the way back of another 28 days would make 56 days in quarantine just to enjoy a 10 day holiday in Australia.

[Paul L]

It's clearly just conjecture now, as no one knows how this is likely to work out. Without a vaccine, or perhaps a treatment, the pandemic isn't going to stop anytime soon. By soon I mean in less than a year. Places that claim they have tbe disease contained are likely to see flare ups and have to clamp down again, especially when it comes to borders. This has already happened to countries tbat have been early success stories, like Singapore, S Korea, China and Japan. Tne 1918 Spanish flu had three peaks over a year.

Some places that have very poor control may end up with herd immunity prior to more advanced countries, along with a smaller and poorer population and a less stable government.

There is a lot of blaming and/or fear of the foreigner going on. Not just in the US administration but on the ground in places like Indonesia, Thailand, Maldives. Since cruisers are tbe partial face of foreigners in remote islands, this might have a longer term effect on cruising.

[pbmaise]

Countries have been good about closing borders and listing the reasons why they did so. The information that we currently lack is what are their plans to open their borders.

Yesterday, Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore all had less than 10 deaths. These neighboring countries surely could safely soon open their borders to each other. When and how?

I am looking for specific news articles and government plans.

[BlackHeron]

65+ of the population needs to have recovered and aquired antibodies for effective herd immunity -or an effective vaccine needs to be found, tested, produced, and implented so that herd immunity is reached. That second one isn't going to happen before the first the way things are going.

Flattening the curve doesn't mean people aren't all going to get it eventually, only that they are spreading out the cases so they have time to bury the bodies, and the hospitals aren't so overloaded that they can no longer do all the other everyday lifesaving that went on before this pandemic.

Survival rate once put on a ventilator is somewhere between playing Russian Roulette with a 5-shot revolver and flipping a coin even before the hospitals get overloaded with patients.

[fivecapes]

Originally Posted by pbmaise

Will anti-body testing proving you already had the virus become a future stamp in your passport?

Not so fast....

[Ruso]

As we say in Russia... "You not even started serving your sentence yet and planning another heist?" Forget about a pleasure travel until next year.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by pbmaise

Countries have been good about closing borders and listing the reasons why they did so. The information that we currently lack is what are their plans to open their borders.

Yesterday, Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore all had less than 10 deaths. These neighboring countries surely could safely soon open their borders to each other. When and how?

I am looking for specific news articles and government plans.

Sounds like you are expecting significant border easing soon. I doubt it, at least where it pertains to cruisers.

Here's a recent article on the Malaysian ministey of tourism plans to restart tourism. They plan to start in Sept and only for domestic tourism. Don't think these restrictions are easing anytime soon.
https://www.ttgasia.com/2020/04/08/m...Aco6ufZt7br6aQ

[pbmaise]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Sounds like you are expecting significant border easing soon. I doubt it, at least where it pertains to cruisers.

Here's a recent article on the Malaysian ministey of tourism plans to restart tourism. They plan to start in Sept and only for domestic tourism. Don't think these restrictions are easing anytime soon.
https://www.ttgasia.com/2020/04/08/m...Aco6ufZt7br6aQ

Good work, however, this article is focused on the question of when to restart marketing efforts to promote tourism. Nothing in the article implies any milestones that need to be met before restarting tourism.

Restarting tourism and cross border travel is financially very important to me since my vessel does day trips primarily for Chinese tourists. I also expect other nations in the area to follow suit so I can eventually get back to the Philippines.

[Mike OReilly]

It's guesswork as to how the future will look for international cruising. I suspect that those countries that rely on tourism as a principal income stream will want to open up sooner, and more fully, than those who see it as gravy. So I doubt if there is a single answer.

I do fear that some of the rapid and extensive restrictions in our civil liberties will become permanent. Freedoms lost are hard to gain back, and authorities tend to keep power once they get it. You only have to look to our recent big crisis of 9/11 and even the Great Recession to see how "temporary" measures became permanent.

As political analyst Naomi Klein outlined in her book "Shock Doctrine", those with power have always tried to use crisis to extend their reach. Given the increasing authoritarian tendencies we're already seeing in many of our so-called "free" societies, I do fear what we will look like once the dust has settled on Covid-19.

[hpeer]

Mike,
Another 6-pack theory. Someone else noted the psychological effect of social distancing. It is a tool commonly used by strong man governments, think Mao.

If, and how this is used and manipulated on such a large scale will be an interesting experiment. But also it MAY manifest on either a personal level, a regional level, and on an international level. One needs only to think of the Zimbardo experiment to have chills run down your spine.

I’m predicting nothing. But someone needs to be considering these issues and their less obvious effects and how to counter them. Enough will already be looking at how to capitalize them.

In general it does not look promising for unimpressed travel. How bad it will be is another issue.

[slug]

I frequently fly USA Spain for work

Obviously it’s s no go at present

I suspect that in future you will need to apply for a visa to travel

This visa will be based on corona testing

Widespread corona testing is critical

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by hpeer

Mike,
Another 6-pack theory. Someone else noted the psychological effect of social distancing. It is a tool commonly used by strong man governments ...
... I’m predicting nothing. But someone needs to be considering these issues and their less obvious effects and how to counter them. Enough will already be looking at how to capitalize [on] them...

Indeed.

Unfortunately, one of the greatest crises that's faced any of us, certainly in the modern Western world, comes at a time where some of the most toxic, low-IQ, totalitarian men are in power.
However, in a crisis, there is no substitute for competent government.

It seem, we are faced with many choices, between the very bad - and far, far worse!

[valhalla360]

By this fall (if not earlier), public opinion will shift from panic over the disease to panic over the economy. It's already starting to shift.

It will likely happen sooner in poor countries. There may be some limits early but if they are trying to get business going, they aren't going to make it too difficult. Maybe a temp check and a statement that you don't have symptoms. Maybe some limitations on the elderly.

It's just not realistic to think economies will be shut down for months. People will revolt.

[hpeer]

Gord,

I’m not so sure about that. I would say the Cuban Missile Crisis was the greatest. It worked out but the potential was there. And there have been other nuclear scares that occurred, false attack reports, that were a crisis of short duration which we had no awareness of.

That period of the 1960’s that contained the huge race riots, the triple assassinations of the Kennedys, and King, and the carnage of the Vietnam war was a period of long anxiety and, in my mind, crisis. Believe me, when you have a low draft number, it is a personal crisis.

The generations before us had WWI, the Great Depression, and WWII. China had Mao and Russia had Stalin.

In this case we will loose something substantially less than 0.1% of the population. That loss will be made up within a single season, a single year in Africa alone.

There is something going on with this crisis I do not understand, starting with China. China has badly been a bastion of human compassion. Why then did they react so strongly to this virus? How did they know it required a hard lockdown? According to Worldometer the Chinese recovery rate is about 95%, but in Italy and Spain it is 55% to 70%. Am I to believe that the first hit country has responded so much better than later ones? That hardly seems credible. Either China has some miracle cure they are not sharing or they are lying. Why?

I could go on further but I’ll stop. It would serve no purpose because I have no answers. I just don’t believe the answers I’m getting.

We are being TOLD it is a crisis. We are not accustomed to this kind of death rate, it is unusual to us because we have lived a charmed post-antibiotic existence. But a death rate substantially below 0.1% does not in my book constitute a crisis. Some of us need to be very careful, my Wife and I are in risk zone being 67 and 69. We need to take steps to care for ourselves.

Why we are shutting down the economy to the extent we are I don’t get. It may be necessary and justified, but I’m not hearing the rational. I hear a lot of emotion and compassion, which is good. But they don’t result in reason answers and strategy. My best guess is no one really knows and a lot of folks in power and influence are taking it. But there is also more to the Chinese story.

I expect this post to get a lot of emotional blow back. It’s a contrarian opinion.