6 ms·

I was actually thinking Trudeau is telegraphing from his talks with other G7 countries, that other countries are going to close borders soon, and if you want to

I was actually thinking Trudeau is telegraphing from his talks with other G7 countries, that other countries are going to close borders soon, and if you want to come home you should move now.

colechristensen 7y ago
At this point, what is the gain? The virus is already essentially everywhere. Closing borders in January might have done something but now I can't imagine there will be much of an effect.
- wenc 7y ago
  You limit imported new infections and can focus on slowing community spread. Due to the exponential growth rate, this absolutely makes a difference. In the past few days, Singapore and other countries have announced they are also adopting this strategy. Singapore too has a complex highly-interdependent border situation with neighboring Malaysia and has to make an exception there as well.
  - colechristensen 7y ago
    My point being that infected already exist here broadly, presumably in every urban area. The small number of people crossing borders wouldn't seem to make any difference, the goal should be on the more local levels of transmissions (closing restaurants or slashing capacity, hygiene requirements, closing schools/workplaces/events, i.e. venues for transmission) risking adding a few infected individuals to a large population of infected individuals seems to be the wrong step, or much much too late.
    - bobthepanda 7y ago
      If a country had already hit its peak, new infected travelers potentially infecting they came across (customs, transport, at their lodging) might cause new local flareups, no? At which point you might have to wait for a new peak to subside.
    - bawolff 7y ago
      That's probably not true (yet). From what i have read, there are reports of community spread in bc, alberta, and ontario. That's a lot of Canada but certainly not all of it. If a significant portion of cases are still travel related, closing the border makes sense imo.
    - JabavuAdams 7y ago
      Roughly 250k Canadians cross the Canada-US border per day. Not sure about US citizens.
    - eftychis 7y ago
      Unfortunately (or fortunately because other phenomena are based on this also -- see gossiping protocols), that is true. Once you have a critical population, related with the connectivity of the subgraph, the propagation is self-sustained, that is everyone is going to get infected in a SIR model or similar. One could argue that you might change the curve slope a bit. And I guess that is the bet here.
- yingw787 7y ago
  If you restrict movement at all, you help reduce the amount of societal entropy. At a fine-grained level this is what China did, and it does work. I'm worried about the U.S. closing state borders (land and air), and what that might mean for supply chains. I hope it doesn't come to that.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    These border closures have almost universally had exemptions for shipping. So there may be secondary effects but it's unlikely to be disastrous.
- adventured 7y ago
  > The virus is already essentially everywhere. For one thing, your setup is bad. You simply do not know that to be true. Your premise is some kind of equality of distribution, which is never going to be the case. Simple scenario: how about if the US ends up having 20 times as many cases as Canada, while having only 10 times the population. Cultures - specifically the people that derive from them - are all different. They all behave differently. They will all comply with or violate quarantines differently. They will all spread, or not spread, the virus differently. Compare Italian touching culture with Germany. Very different cultures. It's also better to not be responsible for any more foreign citizens than absolutely necessary, during a time of panic, quarantine, national emergency. We do not yet know how bad this is going to get. I don't understand why people keep repeating the terrible premise that it doesn't matter, when it's so incredibly obvious there are numerous important ways that it matters. The experts are calling for these travel lockdowns, and they're doing it for good reasons.
- toohotatopic 7y ago
  People come by plane. How do you travel by plane without risking infection? Since it is not avoidable that at least one person on a flight is infected, you have to quarantine each passenger.
  - divbzero 7y ago
    The parent’s point rings true to me. It’s not so much the spread from country to country as it is the confined space that would concern me. As such, safety of domestic flights and trains should be considered as well.
  - JabavuAdams 7y ago
    Easier to trace who was on a plane with other infected people. You're not aiming to stop all infections, but to be able to slow, contain, and trace.
- s_gourichon 7y ago
  This is basically the point made in https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-si... (accessible without payment and also works in private browsing).
hammock 7y ago
Residents are not denied entry when the borders close.
- graeme 7y ago
  Flights stop though as there is no market. Already happening.

I was actually thinking Trudeau is telegraphing from his talks with other G7 countries, that other countries are going to close borders soon, and if you want to come home you should move now.

colechristensen 7y ago

At this point, what is the gain? The virus is already essentially everywhere. Closing borders in January might have done something but now I can't imagine there will be much of an effect.

wenc 7y ago
You limit imported new infections and can focus on slowing community spread. Due to the exponential growth rate, this absolutely makes a difference. In the past few days, Singapore and other countries have announced they are also adopting this strategy. Singapore too has a complex highly-interdependent border situation with neighboring Malaysia and has to make an exception there as well.
- colechristensen 7y ago
  My point being that infected already exist here broadly, presumably in every urban area. The small number of people crossing borders wouldn't seem to make any difference, the goal should be on the more local levels of transmissions (closing restaurants or slashing capacity, hygiene requirements, closing schools/workplaces/events, i.e. venues for transmission) risking adding a few infected individuals to a large population of infected individuals seems to be the wrong step, or much much too late.
  - bobthepanda 7y ago
    If a country had already hit its peak, new infected travelers potentially infecting they came across (customs, transport, at their lodging) might cause new local flareups, no? At which point you might have to wait for a new peak to subside.
  - bawolff 7y ago
    That's probably not true (yet). From what i have read, there are reports of community spread in bc, alberta, and ontario. That's a lot of Canada but certainly not all of it. If a significant portion of cases are still travel related, closing the border makes sense imo.
  - JabavuAdams 7y ago
    Roughly 250k Canadians cross the Canada-US border per day. Not sure about US citizens.
  - eftychis 7y ago
    Unfortunately (or fortunately because other phenomena are based on this also -- see gossiping protocols), that is true. Once you have a critical population, related with the connectivity of the subgraph, the propagation is self-sustained, that is everyone is going to get infected in a SIR model or similar. One could argue that you might change the curve slope a bit. And I guess that is the bet here.
yingw787 7y ago
If you restrict movement at all, you help reduce the amount of societal entropy. At a fine-grained level this is what China did, and it does work. I'm worried about the U.S. closing state borders (land and air), and what that might mean for supply chains. I hope it doesn't come to that.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  These border closures have almost universally had exemptions for shipping. So there may be secondary effects but it's unlikely to be disastrous.
adventured 7y ago
> The virus is already essentially everywhere. For one thing, your setup is bad. You simply do not know that to be true. Your premise is some kind of equality of distribution, which is never going to be the case. Simple scenario: how about if the US ends up having 20 times as many cases as Canada, while having only 10 times the population. Cultures - specifically the people that derive from them - are all different. They all behave differently. They will all comply with or violate quarantines differently. They will all spread, or not spread, the virus differently. Compare Italian touching culture with Germany. Very different cultures. It's also better to not be responsible for any more foreign citizens than absolutely necessary, during a time of panic, quarantine, national emergency. We do not yet know how bad this is going to get. I don't understand why people keep repeating the terrible premise that it doesn't matter, when it's so incredibly obvious there are numerous important ways that it matters. The experts are calling for these travel lockdowns, and they're doing it for good reasons.
toohotatopic 7y ago
People come by plane. How do you travel by plane without risking infection? Since it is not avoidable that at least one person on a flight is infected, you have to quarantine each passenger.
- divbzero 7y ago
  The parent’s point rings true to me. It’s not so much the spread from country to country as it is the confined space that would concern me. As such, safety of domestic flights and trains should be considered as well.
- JabavuAdams 7y ago
  Easier to trace who was on a plane with other infected people. You're not aiming to stop all infections, but to be able to slow, contain, and trace.
s_gourichon 7y ago
This is basically the point made in https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-si... (accessible without payment and also works in private browsing).

hammock 7y ago

Residents are not denied entry when the borders close.

graeme 7y ago
Flights stop though as there is no market. Already happening.