If the virus were a California fire, the airline industry would be the Santa Ana winds.

[shockey80]

Nobody is really talking about how the airline industry spread this virus around the world before anybody knew what was happening.

There are over 100,000 airline flights per day in the world. Talk about the perfect virus spreader. Governments are going to have to re-think the entire airline industry or this will happen again.

Trump has been bragging and lying about what an amazing job he did stopping flights from China. When you think about it you realize how stupid it is stopping flights from one country during a world wide pandemic. Infected people from China, who were not sick, traveled around the world infecting people in other countries. Many of them traveled to America.

In a world wide pandemic you have to shut down the entire airline industry.

[rzemanfl]

1. Yes, I posted that thought here way back at the beginning of this shit show.

Now we all have to worry about being exposed if we leave our yards or open stuff delivered to our houses.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. tRump did not shut down Europe flights; cant imagine white people being a problem

And his China flight shutdown let 40,000 people in after. Mostly with zero screening, often jammed into crowded corridors.

Took tRump about 5 weeks to shut down Europe flights. By then, New York was heavily infected from Europe, as shown by mutation tracking. https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global?d=map&dmax=2020-01-05&dmin=2019-12-26&p=full

[shockey80]

3. When Trump brags about shutting down China, reporters should call him out.

It was really stupid shutting down one country when the virus had already spread around the world.

[dalton99a]

4. +1

[MineralMan]

5. Airline travel does, indeed, facilitate the spread of infectious diseases.

Trump shut down direct flights from China, so people traveling to the US from China simply re-booked to fly to an intermediate destination that wasn't blocked. Simple. The only effective method Trump could have used would have been to block all international travel to the US. He didn't do that. Ever. And that made it possible for anyone who really wanted to fly to a US destination to do so.

In the end, there is no real way to block travel during such a pandemic. Not any practical way. Throughout, US Citizens came back to the US from everywhere. It is almost impossible to prevent US citizens from returning home.

[shockey80]

6. Over 100,000 flights PER DAY.

Think about that. This virus spread around the world in days.

[MineralMan]

7. Yes. There's really no practical way to stop that from happening.

It's a fact of life now. We're all less than 24 hours from anywhere on the planet, really.

Remember the Jules Verne book and movie "Around the World in 80 Days?" That's how it used to be.

[peacebuzzard]

8. Same thing with the cruise ships.

They just floated around until they found a willing port of entry, and booked air travel home.
Then they mixed in with the same passengers in your photo.
Cruise ship travel is probably the least desirable diversion for this moment in time.

[MineralMan]

10. The handling of cruise ships was completely botched.

Once they covered the beginning of the quarantine of passengers, we heard no more about them. The media dropped the ball there.

Worse, cruises continued, even after multiple cruise ships became Petri dishes. What a clustersomething.

[Tenngal]

9. Truth

This is what we have been saying from the beginning. Why are they allowed to operate?

[FirstLight]

11. + a MILLION!

Also, fuck them and their bailout...

If I cant get a refund on my cancelled flight, or the flight I can't take because the place has banned US travelers, then THEY don't get shit.

They say they will "waive" the rescheduling fees (oh how very sweet of them)

And instead of refunding the ticket, you get a 2-year voucher to reschedule.

Well in 2 years, that trip might just be out of the question. A Lot can happen in 2 years ...