Why are we not screening at the airports?

[Argus]

The stories coming out of China about the coronavirus keep getting worse. The drastic action the Chinese government is taking seems completely at odds with their public statements about the low death rate and the comparatively low number of infections. Health authorities in Hong Kong gave a press conference which basically said the Chinese government was lying and things are far worse than they're saying publicly. Despite their best efforts the virus has spread throughout China and is starting to spread out beyond China.

And Canada is doing almost exactly nothing. The two cases we have now got in Toronto were because a Chinese guy coming back from there walked off the plane already having symptoms and nobody was there to check him out. He went home and infected his wife. And possibly others. We don't yet know.

I can't think of a single reason why we should not be screening people at the airports when they arrive from China. The US is doing this. Why aren't we? So far the extent of the federal government's efforts is that they've put up some signs in airports asking people who are sick to please tell someone. That's their idea of risk management, apparently.

Maybe the government should put less time into telling us soothing stories they've gotten from the Chinese and a little more into preventing people with this disease from coming to Canada and infecting others.

 

[Spiderfish]

Leaders are just getting back from break, they have a very busy agenda ahead of them of kicking around a new trade deal, figuring out how to creatively stall or deep six a new AB oilsands mine without further pissing off a province full of already unhappy westerners, and banning legal possessions from lawful Canadians.  Priorities. 

Also, Trudeau's new beard apparently hasn't made him more astute, same guy...might be wise not to get your expectations up.

Edited January 27, 2020 by Spiderfish

[eyeball]

32 minutes ago, Argus said:

I can't think of a single reason why we should not be screening people at the airports when they arrive from China.

Economics trumps virtue? Maybe someone has reasoned that the economic carnage due to preventing travel would be to great. Kind of like doing something about climate change would devastate the economy.

[Shady]

15 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Economics trumps virtue? Maybe someone has reasoned that the economic carnage due to preventing travel would be to great. Kind of like doing something about climate change would devastate the economy.

Screening doesn’t mean prevent travel.  

[eyeball]

5 minutes ago, Shady said:

Screening doesn’t mean prevent travel.  

Preventing travel would prevent the spread of contagion better than screening though.

[Shady]

22 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Preventing travel would prevent the spread of contagion better than screening though.

Yes it would.

[Moonlight Graham]

They are screening at airports.  That's not to be perfect.  You can arrive in Canada without symptoms and then get them later.  Not much we could do unless we quarantine everyone who self-identifies as having been to certain parts of China.  Even then they'll lie and there's no way to verify.

[Shady]

13 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

They are screening at airports.  That's not to be perfect.  You can arrive in Canada without symptoms and then get them later.  Not much we could do unless we quarantine everyone who self-identifies as having been to certain parts of China.  Even then they'll lie and there's no way to verify.

You’d have to look at implementing quarantines.  Then lying doesn’t matter either way.

[Rue]

The site below discusses medical exams but you will note if you are planning to stay less than 6 months you are not required to do one unless you are going to work in these areas: health sciences, nursing or  geriatric homes, medical students going to medical universities, physicians on short term jobs, teachers, domestics , people who look after children, the elderly ro disabled, lab workers, agricultural workers (but only who have visited or lived in a suspect nation more more than 6 months during the past year.

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/application/medical-police/medical-exams/requirements-temporary-residents.html

Other than the above the CBSA officer on your entry CAN if he or she suspects you have a medical condition that might endanger the public safety or public health or cause an execessive demand on health or social services can declare you inadmissable and not allow you to enter. The power is there, but as one poster said, if a medical condition is dormant the officer won't have any reason to stop up the person UNLESS a bulletin is issued at the borders to these officers to stop anyone from a particular geographic region. Immigration Canada working on conjunction with the federal and provincial Ministries of Health and the World Health Organizations and non profit medical organizations and Health agencies, governments and organizations around the world, is supposed to share evidence on the movement of communicable diseases and if need be shut down specific movement from specific geographic areas.

In fact I hate the Chinese government, but its true, they did voluntarily shut down the movement and departure of persons from the region once they knew how widespread it is and now Canada, Jordan, the US, other Western nations are asking to help and take their citizens with the disease back to unburden the Chinese.

This is not the first or last time it will happen and as all of you have mentioned unless you shut down anyone coming from a particular geographic zone automatically, there is no other guaranteed way to prevent the spread of diseases. Once in an airplane while the plane circulates air from outside its sneezing, touching, breathing, that spreads the virus not necessarily the air itself. Masks do not do anything. They make people feel better but they have very little effect other than providing a false sense of security.

What we do know is if you handle animals unsafely and don't wash your hands which is the case in China, the touching of raw flesh then not washing your hands and passing that on, causes viruses to jump. The flesh with the virus  can be any flesh, chickens, pigs, cattle. It is believed certain viruses came from those in Africa eating guerillas and those in China who eat bats.

I mean do you really know what your Big Mac is? 

[eyeball]

32 minutes ago, Shady said:

You’d have to look at implementing quarantines.  Then lying doesn’t matter either way.

What about the economic carnage?

Oh the humanity? I have my doubts.

[Moonlight Graham]

47 minutes ago, Shady said:

You’d have to look at implementing quarantines.  Then lying doesn’t matter either way.

You'd have to quarantine everyone coming from China.  That seems unrealistic.

[Shady]

29 minutes ago, eyeball said:

What about the economic carnage?

Oh the humanity? I have my doubts.

Carnage?  Enough with the hyperbole.

[eyeball]

5 minutes ago, Shady said:

Carnage?  Enough with the hyperbole.

The stock market is reacting badly to the spread of the virus. Oil prices are down over fears people will be travelling less. I've had at least one STR booking from a family planning on vacationing closer to home this year due to how wacky things are getting with Coronoviurus being the straw that broke their particular camel's back.

[bush_cheney2004]

41 minutes ago, eyeball said:

The stock market is reacting badly to the spread of the virus.

 

TSX is only down 0.7%...122 points.   Yawn.

 

[eyeball]

Well sure, I wasn't suggesting it's about to cause a crash, simply that economic considerations do and will factor into decisions that adversely effect the economy, as suspending travelling would do.

 

[bush_cheney2004]

5 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Well sure, I wasn't suggesting it's about to cause a crash, simply that economic considerations do and will factor into decisions that adversely effect the economy, as suspending travelling would do.

 

 

What does "reacting badly" mean today compared to any other market day of gains or losses (e.g. TSX) ?

 

[CITIZEN_2015]

Just now, Argus said:

 

Maybe the government should put less time into telling us soothing stories they've gotten from the Chinese and a little more into preventing people with this disease from coming to Canada and infecting others.

 

I agree. This is one case that I agree with a regional ban. Stop travelers from China and any other infected country till it is more clear what is going on. 

[Argus]

2 hours ago, Moonlight Graham said:

They are screening at airports.

The media reports on how this guy came in said they were not, and were relying on self-reporting.

 

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

What does "reacting badly" mean today compared to any other market day of gains or losses (e.g. TSX) ?

The same thing which looks in your market's case like it reacted even more badly.

Quote

Dow plunges 454 points as fears about coronavirus rattle investors. U.S. stocks posted their worst day since October on Monday, as fears over the spread of a deadly outbreak of coronavirus rattled Wall Street. ... The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 453.93 points

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/01/27/coronavirus-outbreak-fears-monday-stock-markets/4586386002/

What do plunge, fear, worst and rattled mean in today's yadda yadda? Something to quibble over if nothing else I suppose.

Edited January 27, 2020 by eyeball

[bush_cheney2004]

3 minutes ago, eyeball said:

The same thing which looks in your market's case like it reacted even more badly.

 

No...just reacting normally...as with any other market condition.   Nothing special about yet another virus panic.

I'm still waiting to die from Ebola.

 

[QuebecOverCanada]

Stop overreacting. The coronavirus is nothing more than a virus in the same family of the flu that may lead to complications in those who are afflicted with other chronic health conditions. The risk is to get a viral pneumonia as a result of the virus, and it is likely very rare to get to that point if healthy. For thousands of cases of infections, you get the sick and elderly that may die from it. For regular, healthy folks, no worries. Just like H1N1, just wash your hands more often and if you get it stay home to not contaminate vulnerable ones.

[Rue]

17 hours ago, eyeball said:

The stock market is reacting badly to the spread of the virus. Oil prices are down over fears people will be travelling less. I've had at least one STR booking from a family planning on vacationing closer to home this year due to how wacky things are getting with Coronoviurus being the straw that broke their particular camel's back.

Yah I noticed late last night gas down to 99.99 in Mississauga at 9.30 pm.

I think like everything in the news we go hysterical. I mean right now you would think Koby Bryant was God. Hey I thought he was a great bb plater player but the media over plays some stories and people react with hysteria.

I am not saying the spread of a flu is not serious but I agree with QuebecOver. Hey calm down. This has been going on forever, its just we are more aware of it now. Its always been like this. The advent of air travel makes viruses travel faster than by boat but viruses travel and mutate and that is nothing new and many happened before we used anti-biotics. Now we have over-used anti-biotics and their are resistant strains well we have other treatments. 

Asymptomatic people will not show any signs so unless you now detain anyone who is Chinese or came from Asia who comes to Canada what do we expect the Canadian Border Security to do. They are on the look out for people from certain geographic regions and any possible sign of illness.

I think people  also have to understand wearing masks and screaming and trying to light the person on fire  when they see anyone who looks Asian, isn't going to help.

The reality is you are constantly exposed to all  kinds of viruses and bacterias.  Good hygiene  including hand wasing is the key. Also if you eat out all the time well of course people sneeze or cough on your food or touch it with filthy hands and what you eat may have been scraped off of previous plates uneaten to be recycled especially fried rice. Unless you can see the cook doing his or her thing in front of you, you run the risk of Lord knows what. Remember cooks pick their noses like all of us.

Sleeping in a hotel room, touching anything in public, getting on  a bus, train or plane, being in a crowd all bring risks.

Unless you stay home and never leave again, you ain't gonna avoid germs and even then you still have germs.

Well  I imagine tourist travel or even business travel to China will slow down and Chinese restaurants might feel  a bit of a pinch. Who knows.

Maybe this is karma for  locking up two innocent Canadians.

Maybe we should all become vegetarians.

[SpankyMcFarland]

This strain seems to have a fairly long incubation period:

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/480067-coronavirus-could-be-much-more-contagious-than

Meaning that you could be infected by apparently healthy people. 

 

 

 

[eyeball]

18 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

No...just reacting normally...as with any other market condition.   Nothing special about yet another virus panic.

I'm still waiting to die from Ebola.

 

Exactly, nothing special about it at all. The panic is being contained by maintaining economic norms i.e. allowing people to travel, which is why I answered Agus' question the way I did. The medical intervention of quarantine and preventing travel would in all likelihood cause a greater panic with greater reverberations thru the economy. Can't have that right so....economics trumps....fill-in-blank-here. But why do I need to explain this to you?

I suspect the fact this virus originated in China makes it easier for some to wonder why there shouldn't be more restrictions on travelling from China. Imagine if this had originated in a Muslim country.

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by eyeball

[eyeball]

...

Edited January 28, 2020 by eyeball