Is Coronavirus affecting your travel plans?

[Trixi Mouse]

I planned a first ever mother/son trip to WDW for end of this month. We were going to stay with the grandparents (snow birds) for part of it. Now the grandparents are thinking of coming back up north early (they're in their 70s and he's a doctor). They have now arranged for us to stay on their points for the days that we were going to stay with them. I'm relieved as I was worried about going to the parks and exposing them to anything.
I'm in a holding pattern till the 1 week mark as I feel like this week is going to bring us a lot more info (just a hunch). I'm turning 50 this year and have *mild* asthma. I don't want to risk being there alone with a 6 year old and getting too sick to care for him. I also don't want to be a carrier back to my husband and family.

 

[AurumPunzel]

I'm due to go to DLP and I've been monitoring the news and government websites just in case it would throw a spanner into the works, but as far as I'm concerned, it's still going ahead.

 

[wvjules]

I saw an employee at DLP has tested positive.

 

[RamblingMad]

When was the last time we had multiple countries forcibly restricting travel inside their own borders and one country welding shut people inside apartment complexes because of the flu or some other disease?

Exactly. In the US we hear: wash your hands. In Italy they close down sections of the country. Two very different responses.

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

Wonder what B4 company that is? My son works for a big corp in Tyson's Corner.

B4 = Big 4 Accounting Firm

Ernst & Young, Deloitte, KPMG and PriceWaterhouseCoopers

I think she wanted to know which Big 4 had an employee test positive.

Yikes! My son works for EY in Tyson's Corner!!!!

 

[Silvermist999]

I saw an employee at DLP has tested positive.

Read this too, apparently it’s not a CM that deals directly with guests. So no closures necessary.

 

[wvjules]

Yikes! My son works for EY in Tyson's Corner!!!!

It's not EY.

 

[woodleygrrl]

You wanna hear a story of extremely bad luck? I just finished three months of weekly chemo, had three surgeries since July and a 6 day hospital stay due to complications from chemo. We haven't been able to travel since last Spring. All I want to do is go to Spring Training and Disney. We have made this trip extra special with a cabana at the water park, and Victoria and Alberts.

GUESS WHEN I AM SUPPOSED TO LEAVE??? TOMORROW!

Right now we are still going for the Spring Training part and we will see about WDW. We are supposed to arrive there on Saturday. I am going to be so so sad if we dont get to go.

 

[gwynne]

You wanna hear a story of extremely bad luck? I just finished three months of weekly chemo, had three surgeries since July and a 6 day hospital stay due to complications from chemo. We haven't been able to travel since last Spring. All I want to do is go to Spring Training and Disney. We have made this trip extra special with a cabana at the water park, and Victoria and Alberts.

GUESS WHEN I AM SUPPOSED TO LEAVE??? TOMORROW!

Right now we are still going for the Spring Training part and we will see about WDW. We are supposed to arrive there on Saturday. I am going to be so so sad if we dont get to go.

Oh goodness. I understand how important this trip is to you. Have you talked to your Dr's about their best advice?
Sending good thoughts your way as you work through decisions.

 

[Colleen27]

Countries try to reduce the spread of the flu and other diseases. The virus is novel but the concept is not.

Running commercials encouraging vaccination is hardly on par with cancelling flights, shutting down major events (Ireland just cancelled all St. Patrick's Day parades!), closing schools and imposing quarantines.

 

[DLgal]

I just read an article that the White House and the airlines are having some VERY heated discussions right now (as in today) about air travel. The WH/administration is threatening to actually ground domestic flights unless the airlines agree to collect data about every passenger that the CDC/Fed Govt want (info such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, recent travel history, potential exposure to infected individuals, etc), beginning March 14, but that the airlines say is impossible to comply with in that time frame.

Standby for the proverbial "stuff" to hit the fan.

 

[Starwind]

Germany has now reported its first two deaths due to Covid19. See media report (this is one example): https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/coronavirus-germany-reports-first-2-deaths/1759875

The Robert Koch Institute in Germany (their equivalent of the CDC) has a german-language page giving the case numbers in Germany, broken down by state: https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Fallzahlen.html?nn=13490888 [if you view the page in the Google Chrome browser, Google will offer to translate it for you].

 

[Starwind]

I just read an article that the White House and the airlines are having some VERY heated discussions right now (as in today) about air travel. The WH/administration is threatening to actually ground domestic flights unless the airlines agree to collect data about every passenger that the CDC/Fed Govt want (info such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, recent travel history, potential exposure to infected individuals, etc), beginning March 14, but that the airlines say is impossible to comply with in that time frame.

Standby for the proverbial "stuff" to hit the fan.

CNN article on the issue: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/09/politics/coronavirus-airlines-white-house-tensions/index.html

If it is actually not technically possible, grounding flights isn't going to make it any less so.

 

[Brianstl]

CNN article on the issue: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/09/politics/coronavirus-airlines-white-house-tensions/index.html

If it is actually not technically possible, grounding flights isn't going to make it any less so.

But grounding the flights could slow down the spread of the disease to a pace that might not threaten to overwhelm our healthcare system. The number of people it hospitalizes is the big worry with the disease more so than the number of people it kills. You over burden the system and you have a lot of people dying from all sorts of things.

 

[gottalovepluto]

We decided to cut a trip to Italy out of our plans for May.
We have a Transatlantic cruise with Disney coming up and we were going to fly from Barcelona to Rome for 5 days after the cruise.
We decided to not risk Italy because of fear of being quarantined when we try to get home.
I called Alitalia, they are not letting you cancel yet for May travel

I’m watching to cancel a couple flights with Alitalia in May as well

I hope they’re still in business by then...

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

But grounding the flights could slow down the spread of the disease to a pace that might not threaten to overwhelm our healthcare system. The number of people it hospitalizes is the big worry with the disease more so than the number of people it kills. You over burden the system and you have a lot of people dying from all sorts of things.

I was more thinking the time and resources it takes to track down people who may have been in contact and allows them to follow so to speak the spread. I think that would be more the reason they want the information attached with an "OR else" kind of situation.

They could ground the flights now if they wanted to...it would be terrible and have all sorts of reprecussions..but they could. That would help slow the spread. But I don't think they really want to do that not so soon on the heels of the cruise advisory. I do think they want to put some sort of pressure on the airlines to get things going.

I do think it's a taxing thing on the airlines to have a looming deadline so short but reading the article and only reading the article it also seems like the airlines in part may just not want to put forth the effort as in they just don't want to even think about it. Partly I can't blame them especially with privacy regulations they are dealing with and continual issues of the MAX 8.

One thing that would help is airlines have loyalty programs that already collect some of the information. My SWA account has my name, my address, my e-mail and my phone number already contained within it. The difference of course is I gave this information voluntarily when I signed up for an account to earn Rapid Rewards. For all the travelers with loyalty programs I'm sure that would cut down. They could install a hard stop in their system say for checking in and the like to verify contact information is accurate prior to preceeding (many websites have that function already).

 

[gottalovepluto]

Exactly. In the US we hear: wash your hands. In Italy they close down sections of the country. Two very different responses.

Two countries in very different places in their outbreak. Too early to determine how the responses will differ. Do you remember where Italy was 2 weeks ago? Starting to think they might have a problem...

 

[RamblingMad]

Two countries in very different places in their outbreak. Too early to determine how the responses will differ. Do you remember where Italy was 2 weeks ago? Starting to think they might have a problem...

The US doesn’t have the capacity to test like Italy. We can be in the exact same position and not know it.

 

[godisney14]

My $0.02. Here is my outlook for the next 1-2 months:
Will the situation get worse? Likely
Will the situation stay the course? Maybe, if the US spends as much as necessary fighting the virus instead of pouring money to keep the stock market from falling further.
Will the situation get better? 100% No

Even in China and Korea where testing and government response is greater, the prevalence is still increasing (although the incidence rate is slowly coming down).

The virus is not sensitive to interest rate cuts or fiscally backing certain industries. Those aren’t going to do anything about public perception of the disease risk either.

 

[Brianstl]

I was more thinking the time and resources it takes to track down people who may have been in contact and allows them to follow so to speak the spread. I think that would be more the reason they want the information attached with an "OR else" kind of situation.

They could ground the flights now if they wanted to...it would be terrible and have all sorts of reprecussions..but they could. That would help slow the spread. But I don't think they really want to do that not so soon on the heels of the cruise advisory. I do think they want to put some sort of pressure on the airlines to get things going.

I do think it's a taxing thing on the airlines to have a looming deadline so short but reading the article and only reading the article it also seems like the airlines in part may just not want to put forth the effort as in they just don't want to even think about it. Partly I can't blame them especially with privacy regulations they are dealing with and continual issues of the MAX 8.

One thing that would help is airlines have loyalty programs that already collect some of the information. My SWA account has my name, my address, my e-mail and my phone number already contained within it. The difference of course is I gave this information voluntarily when I signed up for an account to earn Rapid Rewards. For all the travelers with loyalty programs I'm sure that would cut down. They could install a hard stop in their system say for checking in and the like to verify contact information is accurate prior to preceeding (many websites have that function already).

Honestly, I think the airlines are most worried about the extra cost burden this would put on them. I understand that from their point of view. Too many people are paying attention to the percentage of people who are dying from this virus without looking at what it has done to the healthcare system in places with sizable outbreaks. We don't have the same amount of hospital beds in this country as many others do on a per person basis and the laws in this country prevent us from building hospitals with the speed displayed in China. The Feds now have to look at it from a public health emergency perspective. Having the airlines collect this information is viewed as a way to slow the spread of this virus without grounding flights by giving public health officials the information they need to backtrack who has been exposed to future positive test cases.