[HN Gopher] U.S. to require negative Covid-19 tests for internat...
___________________________________________________________________
U.S. to require negative Covid-19 tests for international air
passengers
Author : Element_
Score : 266 points
Date : 2021-01-12 19:20 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| eloff wrote:
| The US is basically the center of this pandemic now. This is a
| joke. It's too little too late.
|
| What they should do is test people leaving the US for other
| countries - spare the rest of the world.
| turing_complete wrote:
| Well, don't discard Europe too early. We just surpassed you in
| total deaths!
| liquidify wrote:
| This seems like a scheme that will be ripe for gaming / outright
| fraud. How exactly does the U.S. verify anything? Basically the
| only way to do this would be to have control over some kind of
| verification system that comes from vetted and registered
| hospitals.
|
| Even then you have so many problems. There is no realistic way to
| even partially guarantee that forgeries won't happen regardless
| of your vetting system. And add to that the fact that the U.S.
| government has no control over regulations in foreign countries,
| so there is no way to force validators into compliance.
|
| This sounds half baked to me.
| [deleted]
| temporalparts wrote:
| A half-baked plan that will screen out only some COVID carriers
| is better than the status quo where we screen out none of the
| COVID carriers.
|
| In Hawaii, they have limited partnerships and Hawaii verifies
| the result directly with the labs. It says on the website
| they'll prosecute anybody that submits forgeries, but it's true
| that this is much easier to do when everything is within the
| same country.
| mandelbrotwurst wrote:
| It doesn't need any of that to be nearly entirely effective.
| The vast majority of people traveling into the country are not
| going to attempt to falsify documents.
| a13n wrote:
| I mean the number of people who are willing to commit forgery
| and lie to border patrol is probably pretty small. This is a
| huge step in the right direction that will prevent loads of air
| transmission. We don't really have time to wait years for a
| "fully baked" solution, and this is a solid compromise.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| When I got the PCR COVID test administered when I had a
| suspected case, I was required to fill out a form stating my
| name, DOB, email, phone, physical address, full social security
| number, and student ID (I'm a college student). Since these are
| all attributes bound to identity, I'm sure it's not too
| difficult to make a database of test results.
| liquidify wrote:
| ...Just from the thought of it, forcing other countries to
| store your private info would be a terrible idea considering
| they probably could care less about it being stolen.
|
| But, you are entirely missing the point. The U.S. cannot
| mandate that other countries maintain a database with U.S.
| citizens personal info, even if your idea didn't have massive
| gaping holes in it regarding security. It is simply
| impossible.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Forgeries of the international yellow fever vaccine certificate
| happen regularly. (For example, backpackers to Africa from
| Eastern European countries where the yellow fever vaccine was
| perennially unavailable at our local clinics printed out their
| own copy on yellow paper and put a fake stamp on it.)
| Nevertheless, the yellow-fever certificate requirement is
| believed to work well enough regardless. With COVID, too, one
| could argue that something is better than nothing.
| snakeboy wrote:
| My experience flying from the US to France through Portugal was
| that an agent at the gate looks over whatever paper you give
| them and highlights "PCR", "NEGATIVE" and the date and then
| hands it back. Then in Portugal they asked for the paper and
| waved me through, and the same at the French border.
|
| So logistically, pretty easy to fake (unless you're stupid
| enough to be trying to buy the fakes _in the airport_ like some
| guys who got caught in Paris a few months ago) but I agree with
| other commenters it 's better than nothing and will almost
| surely improve the rates of testing/precaution around travel.
| breck wrote:
| This is moronic. We have between 30M and 130M cases here. There
| is no mathematically possible way in hell that international
| passengers could bring COVID here in any noticeable way at this
| point.
|
| Why would they do this? I'll tell you the one and only one
| reason: some people are making tons of money off it. I just flew
| back to Hawaii from California and had to pay $170 for a COVID
| test, even though I'm already immune.
| bitcurious wrote:
| I think it's more about protecting the passengers who are in an
| enclosed space together for 6+ hours than preventing spread
| within the US. I find it a big reassurance.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| We don't want to import any more new more infectious strains if
| we can help it
| 6nf wrote:
| Unless the new more infectious strain also has a much lower
| mortality rate?
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| An issue with PCR tests is that most of them use a cycle
| threshold of 40, which produces way to many false positives.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testin...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "False positive" isn't really an accurate term there.
|
| If there's _no_ virus, you 're not going to be able to amplify
| it. A too-high threshold may detect non-contagious levels of
| virus (still a concern, if you're in the early pre-symptomatic
| days of an infection) or non-infectious virus particles left
| over post-infection.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Doesn't this presuppose that the only thing the test can
| detect is the virus itself and not things that highly, but
| not perfectly, correlate to it?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Not really, no. They specifically pick genomic sequences
| believed to be unique to SARS-CoV-2; they're specific
| enough to distinguish between SARS-CoV-2 and the other
| known coronaviruses, let alone _less_ related viruses.
| secretupstar2 wrote:
| https://deit.groovepages.com/stopdiet/index
| chadash wrote:
| Just to clarify, the linked article isn't really talking about
| false positives. It's talking about people who _are_ carrying
| the virus, but _perhaps_ aren 't contagious due to it being
| only small amounts.
| thelean12 wrote:
| Well at least false positives are much better than false
| negatives.
| gojomo wrote:
| This article doesn't mention PCR tests, so perhaps we're being
| smart enough to accept the often-more-relevant-for-infection-
| control antigen tests for this purpose. (I'd not yet bet on it,
| given how bureaucracies have made almost every wrong choice so
| far, but: maybe?)
|
| But also: if PCR false-positives are a concern, the cycle
| standard can be reduced, or the reporting expanded to include
| the cycle on which a test turned positive, so that "positive"
| tests that are likely dubious/marginal/past-infection can
| distinguished from "blazing active infection".
| learnstats2 wrote:
| The rapid antigen tests have a significant problem with
| false-negatives: the BMJ reported that Innova tests have 49%
| sensitivity.
|
| That makes it pointless to use as a border control - for
| every two cases, at least one gets through. (Or, potentially
| much worse, under this system: I throw away my positive tests
| and show whatever false negative one I have).
|
| You ideally _want_ to be conservative and permit some false
| positives at an effective border control, because you don 't
| want to risk infectious cases getting through and causing an
| untraceable national breakout.
| gojomo wrote:
| Even tiny sensitivity would be better than nothing - or
| something that's so slow & expensive it's impractical.
|
| But other antigen tests purport to have 90%+ sensitivity.
|
| And the kinds of "PCR positives" they miss are often cases
| that are no longer infectious, anyway: lingering viral
| fragments, rather than live full-virus shedding.
|
| So: ideal for border-control & creating other internal
| gradients that help suppress the worst active cases. The
| perfect should not be the enemy of the very good.
| matz1 wrote:
| How easy is it to find out the cycle threshold the provider
| use?
| nomercy400 wrote:
| Good idea. However, don't be surprised if other countries will
| also require negative tests for incoming US air passengers.
| vinay427 wrote:
| Most of the countries that have sane case rates and many that
| are doing terribly with respect to case rate already require
| this. Some such as the Netherlands added it relatively recently
| for transit passengers as well, although most only require it
| for arrival passengers.
| raldi wrote:
| I should hope so.
| swampthing wrote:
| That seems like a good thing for incoming US air passengers. It
| lowers the risk of infection from the flight.
| vincentmarle wrote:
| > U.S. officials do not plan to drop restrictions that were
| adopted starting in March that ban most non-U.S. citizens who
| have been in most of Europe, the United Kingdom and Brazil as
| soon as possible, the sources said.
|
| Does anyone know if the EU travel ban is going to get lifted
| anytime this year (with the Biden administration)?
| ls612 wrote:
| I'd sure hope it would be this year. Keep in mind we should
| have the ability to vaccinate every American adult by the late
| spring so the pandemic should be reduced to very low levels.
| nilkn wrote:
| I have an interesting anecdote related to this.
|
| As it happens, I currently have COVID. When I first noticed I was
| getting sick, I was scheduled to fly in the near future, so I got
| a rapid COVID test that delivers results in 15 minutes.
|
| It was negative. I got another one, and it was negative too. I
| had thus intended to go ahead with the trip under the assumption
| I had a minor cold.
|
| Later, a few days before I was to fly, I lost all smell and
| taste. Now I didn't know what to think. I wasn't particularly
| congested, and the loss of smell was total. I'd never experienced
| this before. Could both tests have been false negatives?
|
| I delayed the flight (free of charge luckily, so no big deal) and
| got a test that had to be sent to a lab for analysis. A week
| later, the positive test result came back.
|
| Take from this what you will. I'm not a scientist or a doctor and
| frankly there's nothing remotely intelligent I can say about the
| various tests out there for COVID. But if the rapid tests are as
| unreliable in general as they were for me, it's sort of no wonder
| COVID is spreading like wildfire. I was very, very close to
| boarding a plane with an active case of COVID, and I would have
| if I hadn't acted out of an abundance of caution.
| option wrote:
| note that rapid test is still useful to _confirm_ infection.
| But, yes, much more unstable for ruling out one
| DeRock wrote:
| Whether a test is positive or not depends highly on what type
| of test it is, and when you are tested relative to symptom
| onset. You can absolutely be carrying the COVID virus but still
| test negative. Heres a paper with a handy chart:
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2765837
|
| I think you testing negative was a combination of the rapid
| test being unreliable, as well as getting tested early with
| respect to symptoms.
| situationista wrote:
| Most countries which require a test for entry stipulate it must
| be a PCR test rather than a rapid (antigen) test. I'm currently
| in Lisbon waiting for the results of a 24h PCR test in order to
| board a flight to Azores, for example.
| Osmium wrote:
| I'm glad the OP made the correct decision in this case and hope
| they get well soon.
|
| > the assumption I had a minor cold > the loss of smell was
| total
|
| Since there does seem to be a messaging problem about the
| reliability of testing, I think it's worth emphasizing: if
| someone has symptoms of COVID, they should proceed as-if they
| have COVID. CDC guidance[1] is to isolate if you have a
| positive test OR if you have symptoms.
|
| To do otherwise is to gamble with the health and lives of the
| people they meet, and the people those people meet, and so on.
| It may prove almost impossible to show who caught COVID from
| whom, but that doesn't mean that ignoring guidance won't lead
| to deaths. A statistical death is still the death of a real
| person, even if we can't put a name to them.
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-
| sick/is...
| nilkn wrote:
| To be clear, the order of events was such that I did not have
| loss of smell/taste at the time of the rapid tests. There was
| no indication at that time of anything that wasn't completely
| consistent with and expected from a cold, and I even
| encountered resistance when I tried to get tested prior to
| the tell-tale loss-of-smell symptom appearing (hence the
| rapid tests only at that point). I had a mildly uncomfortable
| phone call with an urgent care center where they discouraged
| me from pursuing testing because they didn't think I had
| enough symptoms.
|
| I knew exactly from whom I had contracted whatever illness I
| had, and that person had also tested negative for COVID (upon
| further questioning, their test had also been a rapid one,
| and they too had not been informed of its unreliability for
| any negative determination).
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Rapid tests are known to be unreliable and particularly have a
| high false negative rate. That's why all the guidance has been
| that rapid tests can be used to indicate infection but not rule
| one out, and none of the screening processes based on exposure
| and symptoms accept "but I also had a negative rapid test" as
| neutralizing a flag on any screening factor.
|
| > I would have if I hadn't acted out of an abundance of
| caution.
|
| The bare minimum of caution with a rapid test is treating a
| positive as a true positive and a negative as an indicator that
| you need a regular test. That you understood your actions to be
| an abundance of caution demonstrates a failure to effectively
| communicate on some level (I'm not saying that you are
| culpable; the information is out there's but delivery
| is...mixed, even before considering how it is muddled by
| misinformation from various sources.)
| nilkn wrote:
| I definitely think there's a communication deficiency or
| breakdown happening, because none of the medical
| professionals indicated to me that the rapid tests were
| _that_ unreliable when it comes to producing false negatives.
| I also feel personally guilty for not having been as well-
| informed as I should have been. I 'm just glad I experienced
| a tell-tale symptom (loss of smell/taste) and was able to act
| on it before boarding a plane.
|
| Another interesting aspect of this is that prior to
| experiencing loss of smell/taste, I was more or less told by
| urgent care staff that I didn't have COVID, and they were
| pretty resistant to testing me -- hence I only got rapid
| tests. Yet I actually was right in the midst of an active
| case.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > because none of the medical professionals indicated to me
| that the rapid tests were _that_ unreliable when it comes
| to producing false negatives.
|
| You're being very emphatic about this, but all you've
| described is that the rapid test failed in a single case
| (you). We expect a lot more failure than that from the slow
| test! Where is the idea coming from that you experienced
| egregious unreliability?
| michaelt wrote:
| Well, he did take _two_ rapid tests, which both produced
| false negatives.
|
| What this tells us about false negatives depends on
| details he didn't mention, about how correlated the two
| tests were. Obviously, it was the same person each time -
| but was it the same day? Same test brand? Same clinic?
| Same tester?
| cbo100 wrote:
| You mentioned it was a few days between the initial
| negative rapid tests and the positive lab test.
|
| Would be interesting to know the result of another rapid
| test at the same time as the lab one.
|
| Are they just flat out missing some infections, or do they
| require a much higher viral load to indicate positive?
| weaksauce wrote:
| > Are they just flat out missing some infections, or do
| they require a much higher viral load to indicate
| positive?
|
| they do require a higher viral load than the pcr test to
| accurately show infection. the pcr test studies have
| shown to be 0-30% false negative later in the illness
| after symptoms have shown (when there are fewer antigens
| in the body). both the pcr and the rapid tests are
| expected to have a near 0% false positive rate though
| with most false positives being lab contamination or
| mishandling. even if the test is 50% false negative(not
| the actual number) it would still drastically slow the
| spread of the virus coupled with other measures. This is
| more of a defense in depth instead of a firewall; the
| swiss cheese layers of threat reduction.
| coding123 wrote:
| I can't count the number of communication breakdowns any
| more with Covid. Apparently to get any number of people on
| the same page about something is not possible. Even with
| the internet. Blame it on information overload, or perhaps
| apathy.
|
| I hope when Biden takes office he does daily Covid
| briefings where they disseminate accurate knowledge which
| would include correcting previous things we thought we
| knew. I know democrats that actually watched the Trump
| briefings because there were actually intelligent people
| behind half the info. I think many people tuned out the
| moment he recommended injecting bleach - but there was
| still value in the briefings. It was something that I know
| a LOT of people actually paid attention to.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Rapid tests are just a gamble if you want to save
| time/money/exposing others if you end up being positive.
|
| If you're negative, you then have to get the actual test,
| but if you're positive you can probably start isolating
| now.
| nip180 wrote:
| > if you're positive you can probably start isolating
| now.
|
| If you experience symptoms you should start isolating,
| regardless of the results of a rapid test.
| pvarangot wrote:
| Thanks for your anecdote. When SF was doing better and the
| possibility of big outdoor events with testing on the door were
| something that was being discussed, I looked at rapid tests
| together with some friends and the accuracy is really
| appalling. People relying on this to "safety socialize" may be
| one of the issues making cases rise in California, the math
| adds up. Many people reached to the government saying they
| should stop sponsoring and advertising rapid test sites because
| the false sense of security may be really doing more harm than
| good.
|
| One of the rapid tests that we considered has, as advertised by
| its own manufacturer, a 10% false positive rate on basically
| all the population, and a 50% false negative rate even on
| symptomatic individuals with high viral load. Do the math, but
| using that type of test in something like for example a 100
| person event or a restaurant will result in people being turned
| out of the door daily even if they were not symptomatic, and at
| least one or two people with high viral load being admitted
| into your place. I can't find the link of the test now, but
| there's better data about how harmful rapid tests are when not
| used together with PCR testing, for example here:
| https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4941 and here:
| https://asm.org/Articles/2020/November/SARS-CoV-2-Testing-Se...
|
| That's why most countries that really thought this through
| require a recent PCR test result for admittance.
|
| It's really not clear what benefits rapid tests have if you
| don't have a model for population behavior. I think at lest the
| SF government is only doing them to save face now that the cat
| is out of the bag.
| koyote wrote:
| > A week later, the positive test result came back
|
| Which country do you live in that it takes a week for the PCR
| test to come back? It's around 24 hours here and I thought that
| was the case in all developed countries.
|
| I hope you recover quickly!
| jonny_eh wrote:
| I hope you get well soon!
| jedberg wrote:
| This rapid tests have a very high false negative rate. The
| result you get back should really be "You have COVID" or "You
| may have COVID, get a PCR test".
| graeme wrote:
| Rapid tests are at their most accurate when someone is at their
| peak infectiousness. Accuracy declines swiftly before or after
| that.
|
| So the use you made of them didn't fit their ideal use case, as
| you used them several days before travel.
|
| Even then, with symptoms, I am not sure they would be enough to
| rule out a positive. The biggest use of rapid tests is finding
| additional positives that would not otherwise have been found.
| wendyshu wrote:
| Why wasn't this done months ago? Seriously, is there any good
| reason?
| mamon wrote:
| There's one thing I do not understand: they are introducing
| testing requirement, but still keep travel ban for all EU
| citizens in place. Why?
| FreakyT wrote:
| I'm glad it's happening (better late than never), but they really
| should have started doing this a year ago.
| surge wrote:
| Tests weren't widely available a year ago. 3-6 months ago
| maybe.
|
| In fact a year ago, exactly, the existence of COVID was still
| being denied or downplayed by the Chinese government. Very few
| people in the US even knew about it, and only if very plugged
| in to Chinese social media or non government sources.
| dekhn wrote:
| I'm pretty sure it was being widely covered (and acknowledged
| by the chinese) in late January during Chinese New Year.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/world/asia/coronavirus-
| ch... At the time the US evacuated ~200 people from Wuhan,
| flew them to LAX (well, landed at a nearby air force base),
| made them stay in isolation, then monitored them as they
| returned home for 2 weeks.
| pishpash wrote:
| Wrong. It was all over Reddit but people laughed over it.
| josephg wrote:
| The USA was doing 500k tests/day back in May, and over 1m
| tests/day by July. Probably couldn't have happened earlier
| than that, but it would definitely have been feasible mid
| last year.
|
| Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/full-list-
| covid-19-tests-...
| makomk wrote:
| In order for a policy like this to be workable, you need
| tests to be widely available in the countries people are
| travelling from because the whole point is to test people
| before departure - and they simply weren't in most non-US
| countries.
| azurezyq wrote:
| and the current situation is that US has more cases than
| anywhere else in the world.
| vinay427 wrote:
| Per capita it's really most of western Europe and the US that
| are struggling, and the US is doing better on vaccinations so
| far while it has had a higher case and death rate than most
| but not all of Europe. It's rather misleading to just cite a
| total confirmed case count.
|
| https://boogheta.github.io/coronavirus-countries/
| bluGill wrote:
| There are only a handful of countries not western Europe or
| the US where I would trust their numbers. Of the list
| Vietnam is the only surprise.
|
| Trust means their official numbers within a reasonable
| margin of error of correct. Nobody have perfectly accurate
| numbers, but the ones are trust are generally not
| miscounting by enough to worry about.
| vermontdevil wrote:
| Cue black market negative tests for sale.
| rhacker wrote:
| I love how in the photo there's two people with their nose
| outside the mask. It's clear as day why infections are up
| everywhere.
| ralph84 wrote:
| All of the research on masks published before it became a
| political issue said as much. The general public doesn't wear
| masks properly enough for masks to have an infection control
| effect.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| That's fixable without telling people to not bother wearing
| masks.
| [deleted]
| hikerclimber wrote:
| probably means that the flights from uk contain a more deadly
| version of covid. but i am no expert.
| esoterica wrote:
| The infection rate in the US is so high that the average arriving
| international traveller has a lower chance of being infected than
| the average US resident. What exactly is the point of this?
| Constitutionality aside, you would literally make a bigger impact
| on mitigating the virus spread by testing random people on the
| street. Like DUI checkpoints or stop-and-frisk but for covid.
| disabled wrote:
| This is no surprise, although according to CDC research, this
| only reduces the infection rate among these passengers by 5-9%.
|
| A lot of EU countries require their own citizens of their
| countries to get a COVID-19 PCR test prior to entry. A lot of
| times, this has to be paid out of pocket abroad.
| mortehu wrote:
| What research is this? As far as I've been able to tell, CDC
| hasn't conducted a single randomized survey on any large group,
| but has only collected convenience samples.
|
| Also keep in mind that due to compounding (keeping these people
| from infecting others on the plane and at home), the effect
| extends beyond the people prevented from traveling. You can
| also speculate that detectable infections are more
| transmissible during the journey.
| carstenhag wrote:
| Anecdote from a German that visited Spain to see the family:
| Spains government requires <72h old negative covid test before
| entering the country, with 6000EUR in fines if no test can be
| presented. Also, a form about symptoms etc had to be filled
| out.
|
| After arriving at Valencia, Spain, there was a big line where
| we had to show the form's result QR code only. Not a single
| passenger was asked for the covid test.
| calebm wrote:
| I've heard that the vaccine doesn't make you less likely to
| transmit COVID - just less acute symptoms. So getting the
| vaccine doesn't really help other people - just you. From this
| perspective, this doesn't make much sense (unless the objective
| is to make $ for the corporations).
| bluGill wrote:
| You heard wrong. Nobody actually knows if you can transmit
| after getting vaccinated or not. Thus far anyone who claims
| otherwise is a liar.
|
| There is some evidence that some of the vaccines prevent
| transmissions, but we need more study before we can make a
| statistical determination.
|
| We know why other vaccines have failed to stop transmission.
| The reasons those vaccines didn't stop transmission do not
| apply to the covid ones. However there is a lot we don't know
| about biology so until we have better evidence no expert will
| state that the vaccine stops transmission even though many
| believe it will.
| ruste wrote:
| Is that 5-9% of total passengers or 5-9% of those that have
| covid at the time?
| wzy wrote:
| This will now place a strain on the testing facilities of small
| countries (islands) that are a popular destination of American
| tourists.
|
| In Jamaica, every lab that has been approved to conduct the PCR
| test has been overwhelmed by a flood a Canadian tourists who now
| need a negative PCR test result to return home. Mind you, smaller
| countries have been having an uphill battle with procuring the
| reagents needed for the PCR tests because countries like the US
| is grabbing up everything COVID related, and not using them.
|
| Had the US implemented these measures 9 months ago, the entire
| world would have looking at the tail-end of this pandemic,
| instead of waiting for the US to catchup with what every other
| country considers as a best practice.
| raldi wrote:
| That's not a bug; it's a feature.
| vinay427 wrote:
| Every other country? Have you looked at the recent COVID-19
| case and death rates in much of western Europe? Many of those
| countries, one of which I live in (which still doesn't require
| testing arrival passengers), are still changing their policies
| on incoming travelers with respect to quarantining and testing.
| There isn't some global consensus that the US is blind to.
| wzy wrote:
| I am glad you picked up on the substantive point of my
| argument.
| vinay427 wrote:
| It's this part that I'm responding to, which appears to be
| one of the main points that you made:
|
| > Had the US implemented these measures 9 months ago, the
| entire world would have looking at the tail-end of this
| pandemic
|
| I don't see how that's true given the situation in western
| Europe as well as several other countries and obviously the
| US.
| danielfoster wrote:
| I don't know about other islands but I'm in Aruba at the moment
| and you can get a PCR test in 8 hours. I imagine those days
| will soon be over.
| wzy wrote:
| We have 2 private labs that can handle PCR tests and the
| turn-around is 24-48 hours, best case. Now, 1 of the 2 is
| booked out till February.
| vondur wrote:
| Surprising it took so long. I wonder if you are going to get some
| sort of certificate that proves you have been vaccinated for
| COVID once they roll out to everyone.
| ngngngng wrote:
| I recently had to get a negative COVID result to travel to Hawaii
| to see family. Hawaii only accepted tests from a very limited
| number of providers which complicated things, but after some
| effort I made an appointment and got a test. The rest of the
| process was very painless. We all had to keep masks on for the
| entire flight of course since there was no requirement that we
| all have a negative result before getting on the flight but it
| was comforting to know that nearly everyone else on the flight
| would have had a negative result so as to avoid the mandatory 14
| day quarantine upon arrival.
| rodgerd wrote:
| It's interesting to that see the volume of science denial on HN
| surrounding COVID continues.
| rhodozelia wrote:
| A similar requirement has been enacted in Canada and what has
| happened is that Canadians with covid can't return home to Canada
| and are stuck abroad. It really gives some teeth to the "do not
| travel" recommendation - if you get covid abroad you can't come
| home until you test negative. If you get covid at home and then
| go abroad you can't come home until you test negative. I think
| people who previously would have travelled and just risked it
| will be a lot more careful now since they can't get home if they
| are sick with covid. Instead of dozens of flights per day
| entering canada with covid cases we now have zero [1].
|
| [1] http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-
| conditions/covid-19...
| triceratops wrote:
| Small correction: you can't board a flight to Canada. You're
| always welcome at a land border without a test report in hand.
| In which case you'll be required to spend 14 days in government
| quarantine.
| sonotmyname wrote:
| You spend the 14 days in quarantine either way - land or air.
| And it's not 'government quarantine' for most people - it's
| just a hotel room, airbnb or wherever your approved plan says
| you're going to quarantine.
| eloff wrote:
| I'm totally ok with covid19 positive Canadians being stuck an
| unable to return home until they test negative. That's fair.
|
| But people are getting stuck because they can't get results
| back in the 72 hour window. That's really not cool.
| triceratops wrote:
| There are labs that guarantee < 72-hour turnaround times for
| travel. It costs extra but hey, that's life. This pandemic
| has been around for a year now so if it was that important to
| travel, it's worth paying extra for the test.
| jonwachob91 wrote:
| 72 hour? In Florida you only pay out-of-pocket if you get
| the 1 hour test...
| mminer237 wrote:
| The 30 minute tests are antigen tests. The 72 hour tests
| are PCR tests. Antigen tests can basically only detect
| the virus if you're currently contagious. PCR tests can
| detect the virus before and after you're contagious.
| Airlines typically require the 72 hour PCR tests.
| eloff wrote:
| In Nevada it takes 5 days. Canadians are getting stuck
| there.
|
| In Central America - could vary a lot by country.
| regimeld wrote:
| "But people are getting stuck because they can't get results
| back in the 72 hour window. That's really not cool."
|
| That's their problem. Should have thought of that before
| going on vacation, etc.
| Hurdy wrote:
| Now they are in countries in the Caribbean that have
| managed the virus relatively well and are overloading their
| public health system because they urgently need tests. But
| who cares that Canada is now creating a problem for poorer
| countries while gaining very little (because there's barely
| any community spread there) - stupid tourists should have
| thought of that before, right...?
| jeromegv wrote:
| Governments has been telling people for months not to go
| on vacation, that is correct, they should have thought of
| that before leaving.
|
| They also gave 2 weeks notice so if you went somewhere
| and didn't think you could get a COVID test, there was
| still time to make it back home before the ban started.
| Hurdy wrote:
| If only these people would suffer that would be alright -
| it was their mistake. But rich countries should not make
| poorer countries pay for the bad decisions of their own
| citizens. No matter how angry we are at them.
|
| What Canada is doing with vaccines for poorer countries
| is all great, but I think this is a bad policy.
| [deleted]
| eloff wrote:
| Because they had a magic 8 ball to predict this outcome?
|
| Given 98% of cases are internal spread, I just don't think
| it's warranted.
| graeme wrote:
| You can pick up new variants abroad though. That's better
| discouraged.
| oseph wrote:
| I don't think you need an 8 ball to predict that you
| shouldn't travel during this global pandemic --
| especially in the past 6 months when it's all hit the
| fan.
|
| Tough luck to those who get stranded, I say.
| totony wrote:
| >I'm totally ok with covid19 positive Canadians being stuck
| an unable to return home until they test negative.
|
| I am not; your home country should never deny you entry.
| You're telling a citizen he is not welcome in his own
| country, is that how you want to treat your citizens?
|
| Quarantine is warranted but denying entry has a weird taste
| to me
| jeromegv wrote:
| It's an imperfect solution. But thousands of people have
| left to the beach in Mexico, Florida, etc. We aren't
| talking of people that got surprised by COVID in March, we
| are talking of people that bought a plane ticket in the
| middle of the pandemic, traveled abroad for vacation, and
| are now inconvenienced by the fact they need to get tested
| to come back.
| peytn wrote:
| That sounds inconvenient. I've been ordered to stay at home
| off and on for almost a year, and it's been inconvenient too.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| I am terrified of the possibility of this being retained
| after the pandemic and expanded to cover other maladies.
| There already is a concept called medical inadmissibility,
| but it only applies to foreign nationals. It really concerns
| me that we are not applying it to Canadians as well.
| rhodozelia wrote:
| my friend's father passed away from covid three weeks after
| contracting it at a curling tournament which they obviously
| shouldn't have held, even in a small town in the middle of
| nowhere. he was 65 years old and had just retired. being dead
| is also not cool.
| eloff wrote:
| I think I can be upset at both.
|
| Only 2% of cases are coming from outside of the country, so
| this seems mostly like a political thing than actually
| being useful. There's a lot of lower hanging fruit to get a
| 2% reduction. This seems too heavy handed in places where
| it's not currently possible to do a 72 hour test.
|
| At the very least give some options to those can't meet the
| requirement. These people have to quarantine two weeks
| after returning anyway - I just don't see the logic behind
| this move.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| totally ok with letting them get stuck abroad. It's weird that
| everyone is freaking out about people travelling when the
| airports remain open and the guidance is totally about what ppl
| do inside the country. If you must keep the airport open(IMO
| should close them), let people leave and don't let them come
| back. If they leave, it's their problem (and unfortunately,
| some other country's). Stay at home.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| For non-essential travel, I can 100% agree with you.
|
| Not all travel is non-essential though (to a varying degree
| based on your belief of what "essential" encompasses).
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I get why they're doing this, but I fear as a society we've
| learned the wrong lessons about testing.
|
| These tests have a pretty high failure rate. That's probably ok
| for social level spread tracking (with wide error bars) or low
| volume contact tracing (where quarantining a few extra people is
| worth it). It's far better than nothing of course, but it's also
| far short of what we expect from something like a pregnancy test.
|
| But as a means to sign people off as safe to travel? Yeah, not so
| much. So many people have had the "one negative test so I can go
| party" only to discover what a false negative is.
| cbg0 wrote:
| > These tests have a pretty high failure rate.
|
| The rapid ones maybe, the PCR ones are quite accurate.
| slumdev wrote:
| PCR is sensitive, but at the cycle thresholds most labs use,
| it is not specific.
| jedberg wrote:
| I don't understand why we don't implement the isolation
| procedures of countries that have gotten this under control,
| following these procedures for both foreign citizens AND US
| citizens:
|
| - When you arrive in the US, you either spend two weeks at a
| government approved hotel, at your expense, which is monitored by
| federal agents to make sure you don't leave your room. You pay
| for room service for two weeks to get food. This is what
| Singapore does.
|
| - If you don't want to stay at the government hotel, you agree to
| let the government track your cell phone for two weeks to make
| sure you stay in your home, and randomly call you twice a day to
| make sure you didn't ditch your phone. This is what Taiwan does.
|
| As a plus, all the hotels near airports would be so thankful for
| all the forced business to make up for the loss of travel
| business.
|
| They should have been doing this for the last nine months.
|
| Edit: And obviously combine these rules with a relief bill that
| helps the industries that are hurt by these rules, or you know,
| everyone.
| syshum wrote:
| I know its probably crazy to ask, but tell me where in the US
| Constitution does the federal government have the power to
| force me into a hotel at my expense
|
| I know in "times of emergency" people seem to think the
| constitution is suspended and the government as "unlimited
| power" but last I checked Emperor Palatine was a fictional
| character, and saying "Singapore does" well Singapore is an
| Authoritarian nightmare IMO, one i do not really want to
| replicate here in the US. I pass taking public policy lessons
| from Singapore
| jedberg wrote:
| It's part of protecting the borders. The Supreme Court has
| already determined that anything within 100 miles of the
| border is the "border zone" and gives the government broad
| authority to enforce border protection within that zone.
|
| Also, it could reasonably argued that it is part of their
| "protect life" job.
| syshum wrote:
| That is a stretch of the reading of those provisions, the
| court has generally (and wrongly IMO) allowed Federal Law
| enforcement to stop people with in the border zones to
| establish if they crossed the border illegally, once
| Citizenship is established then normal protections snap
| back into place
|
| Even at border crossing the government has been allowed to
| seize Devices and other things but they generally can not
| prevent a US Citizen from entering, they can stop you from
| bringing your stuff, but they cant stop you (outside the
| limited questioning detainment certainly not 14 days)
| unless they have an arrest warrant or some other cause of
| action to arrest you
| jedberg wrote:
| I agree that they were wrong. But that is how things
| stand now.
|
| And they do have a cause to detain you -- you might be
| carrying a deadly virus. Until you can prove otherwise,
| they can detain you.
| syshum wrote:
| That is flipping due process on its head, the state has
| the duty to prove I am a danger to others, I have not
| duty to prove I am not
|
| Having a position that I have to prove my innocence is
| completely devoid of any due process and is
| unconstitutional
| solarengineer wrote:
| Given that Virus and Biology have no obligation to be
| compatible with various national and international laws,
| it is upon human society and governments to work around
| the virus.
|
| Thus, for e.g., people in South East and Far East Asia
| learned from the earlier pandemics and voluntarily wear
| face masks to protect themselves and those around them
| even when one has "just a cold or a cough".
|
| People also agreed to socially and physically distance
| when asked. The messages from scientists and doctors have
| been enough proof of the dangers that the virus poses.
| pertymcpert wrote:
| Good thing that you're not in charge of anything.
| eT8AZithxooKei6 wrote:
| They wouldn't prevent you from entering. They'd just make
| you quarantine once you did.
| DeRock wrote:
| Borders (and airports) are already a constitutional twilight
| zone. Just to get into (or sometimes out of) one I have to go
| through an X-ray scanner or manual groping that on its face
| would violate the Fourth Amendment. But at the same time,
| nobody is forcing me to go there.
| cbg0 wrote:
| > I don't understand why we don't implement the isolation
| procedures of countries that have gotten this under control
|
| I'd hazard a guess that it's because they don't want to
| completely kill off tourism, an industry which is hurting
| pretty bad because of covid (see TSA arrivals screened
| https://www.tsa.gov/coronavirus/passenger-throughput)
|
| No tourist would be interested in coming over to stay two weeks
| on their own dime locked in a hotel, only then to be able to do
| some actual traveling.
| jedberg wrote:
| I don't think a lot of tourists are interested in coming
| right now anyway, given that our virus load is most likely
| worse than their home.
|
| That being said, this obviously needs to be paired with a
| relief bill that helps those businesses survive.
| cbg0 wrote:
| If you've recently had covid, it might be the
| perfect(cheapest) time to do it.
| jedberg wrote:
| Maybe, but it's still not clear if a previous infection
| stops you from being an asymptomatic carrier, and we
| don't want more asymptomatic carriers.
| vecinu wrote:
| I suppose I haven't read definitive literature on the
| topic to be convinced but can you not catch it again,
| especially a different strain?
|
| It still feels awfully risky to travel at the moment.
| oblio wrote:
| The anecdotal evidence I have says that you can be
| reinfected. I don't know if it was with different
| strains, but it's still troubling.
| NationalPark wrote:
| Haha, maybe if you want to go camping or something? Not
| too many tourist attractions are open these days...
| us0r wrote:
| Tourists have been banned since March I believe.
|
| This was international arrivals at LAX August 11 (the worlds
| third busiest airport):
|
| https://imgur.com/a/fFsVSXf
| totalZero wrote:
| If you've stayed in a hotel during the pandemic, you know
| that the tourism industry is doing abysmally anyway.
| Fernicia wrote:
| But there is no tourism in the U.S. right now. ESTAs and
| Visas haven't been approved since April.
| josephg wrote:
| Speaking as an Australian, I'm not allowed to travel to the
| US at all right now, unless I'm moving there permanently.
| Keeping everything open (and thus keeping covid rates high)
| isn't doing your international tourism sector any favours.
| flukus wrote:
| > No tourist would be interested in coming over to stay two
| weeks on their own dime locked in a hotel, only then to be
| able to do some actual traveling.
|
| Depending on where they're coming from they'll have to do
| that on the way home, so they're not interested in coming
| anyway.
| deanclatworthy wrote:
| I think is a case of a little too late. There's probably a
| higher risk of a traveller coming to US leaving with it, than
| arriving with it - currently. If this had happened 9 months
| ago, there might have been a chance of this working - with
| better leadership in other areas - as other child comments have
| pointed out.
| usremane wrote:
| Hope the two random phone calls are video calls and not just
| audio. Otherwise people would leave the phone with someone at
| home to answer for them.
| SulfurHexaFluri wrote:
| I assume this is combined with some kind of mandatory GPS
| tracking. The GPS tracking knows the phones location and the
| call confirms the user is next to their phone.
| josephg wrote:
| We do that in Australia too and its worked great. (Well, except
| for a notable quarantine breach 6 months ago due to
| mismanagement.)
|
| The problem is all this is closing the fence after the horse
| has already bolted. The average person arriving into the united
| states is less likely to have covid than a resident. Currently
| 2.7% of the US population is infected with covid19, compared to
| 2.4% of people in the UK, 0.9% in Italy, 0.2% in Canada, and
| ~0% in Australia, NZ, Singapore, India, China, etc.
|
| Almost all new infections in the US come from domestic
| transmission.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| Because this is a violation of the 5th amendment and the 1st
| amendment right to peaceably assemble.
| jedberg wrote:
| The Supreme Court has already ruled that neither of those
| apply at the border. Nor does the 4th.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| Would you agree with the court when it determined that the
| rights of black people were different between northern and
| southern states, or that internment of the Japanese was
| legal during WWII? The supreme court has been wrong on many
| issues for decades on end throughout US history. They
| haven't all of a sudden become infallible in the last 20
| years.
| jedberg wrote:
| They certainly aren't infallible, and were wrong on those
| rulings. But until someone with standing brings a new
| case, that is the law as it stands.
| chillacy wrote:
| If you're hinting that what is legal is not necessarily
| right, it seems odd to fall back to this position when
| the original comment about the 1st and 5th amendment are
| legal, not moral.
|
| Instead of just mentioning the 1st and 5th amendment, it
| may have been better just to say that the US has a
| culture of privacy and personal freedom.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| You are taking jedberg's comment too literally
|
| > The Supreme Court has already ruled that neither of
| those apply at the border. Nor does the 4th. reply
|
| This is an extremely overbroad generalization.
|
| The supreme court may or may not rule that forcing
| someone to be surveilled by federal agents in order to
| travel by plane is unconstitutional, or it may not. And
| it may be right or wrong. My qualm is legal and moral.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| It's fairly straightforward: leadership matters, and a lot of
| people who were supposed to be helming the ship were clearly
| asleep at the wheel.
| wrs wrote:
| They were not asleep, they were deliberately letting the car
| drive off a cliff because they thought admitting there was a
| cliff there would make them look weak.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Also (to extend this metaphor to all three modes of
| transport), they were sure that - should any cliff present
| itself - the greatest nation on Earth will not fall down
| it, but will boost off and fly towards the sunset.
| SulfurHexaFluri wrote:
| Probably also contributed by the fact that the opposition
| pointed out that they should avoid the cliff so the only
| option left is to intentionally drive off it.
| 24gttghh wrote:
| Nah they weren't asleep, but they were standing on the wrong
| ship, looking backwards.
| iamEAP wrote:
| This would require a level of coordination and leadership at
| CBP that we just haven't seen, at least under the current
| administration.
| balozi wrote:
| By now people can purchase negative Covid PCR test results at
| many international airports, sometimes for as little as $0.50.
| Entrepreneurial spirit is hard to tame.
| ghshephard wrote:
| I don't at all see how this is relevant to the United States in
| 2021, when COVID-19 is almost completely prevalent, and we
| require universal vaccination to exit out of the pandemic -
| International travel restrictions seem meaningless to me now -
| though they would have been invaluable in January 2020, and maybe
| even February 2020 - right now the major risk of COVID-19
| infection is _inside_ the United States. A handful (or heck, even
| hundreds) of people coming into the country won 't make any
| difference when we have thousands of new cases a day regardless.
|
| There's a reason Epidemologists don't put much stock in travel
| restrictions once a pandemic is well underway around the world -
| they don't do much good.
|
| _But_ - generally, having widespread (ideally very sensitive)
| COVID testing for _any_ type of travel outside of the home is a
| good thing. We should have it universally available. Ideally
| <$10, something that everyone could do weekly, or even daily if
| they travel a lot.
|
| Just unclear what the focus on international travel is all about
| here.
| cactus2093 wrote:
| I think all domestic and international travel should have this
| requirement at a minimum. Nobody should be on an airplane
| without a recent negative test. Or working in a factory,
| hospital, or other indoor environment for that matter, it would
| be great if essential workers could all routinely get tested
| once or twice a week, though maybe that's not feasible.
|
| I don't really get the international focus of this either, but
| it seems like a step in the right direction.
| solarengineer wrote:
| Some rationale for blocking international travel - preventing
| the spread of international variants, and preventing the
| destination country from being overloaded by incoming
| infections.
|
| Most nations aren't getting the vaccines yet. Vaccination
| distribution and delivery require complex logistics. Nations
| that don't have a good public healthcare infrastructure need
| time to gear up. Vaccinations have just started and are being
| given in a phased manner. Blocking International Travel (or at
| least mandating a 14 day quarantine) helps keep variants in
| check.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Just so silly. More theater. We're already seeing millions of new
| cases per week including the strains with mutations to the target
| spike proteins - what problem does this solve?
| gojomo wrote:
| In order to stop seeing "millions of new cases", every source
| of new cases should be reduced.
|
| International travel is an orderly place to apply a filter,
| just as hospitals test all admits (even those without
| symptoms).
|
| Blocking all visitors from specific places - even places with
| lower rates of prevalence than here! - was silly theater. This
| is actually well-targeted to reducing the interactions of the
| likely-infected with the uninfected.
|
| (If a city or state/province even wanted to set up internal
| borders, & require on-the-spot quick antigen tests to enter
| regions of actual or attempted-infection control, perhaps even
| anonymously, that'd also be a well-targeted intervention far
| better than the other theater we've been fed so far.)
| sonotmyname wrote:
| > just as hospitals test all admits (even those without
| symptoms).
|
| Some may, but that's a county/state decision.
| Exmoor wrote:
| Well, it would've decreased the chances of a more infectious
| strain becoming widespread in the US if it had been implemented
| months ago. It could decrease the chances of worse strains that
| might originate outside the US becoming established moving
| forward.
| outworlder wrote:
| Problem is, new strains can develop anywhere. They don't have
| to come from abroad.
|
| Adding this rule but allowing people to run maskless because
| "muh rights" is not going to accomplish anything.
| Exmoor wrote:
| Sure they can, but reducing the geographic spread would
| reduce the chances of those randomly occurring variants
| spreading quickly around the world. I would expect other
| countries to require testing of international flights for
| the same reasons.
|
| The US is performing badly when it comes to controlling the
| virus, but it could still get significantly worse.
| briga wrote:
| Probably would have solved maybe problems--that is, if it was
| implemented half a year ago. As it is now it seems like too
| little too late.
| jtdev wrote:
| I'm all for this, but I'm somewhat surprised that this isn't
| being railed as "xenophobic"... wonder why we've suddenly had a
| change in heart on these topics?
| [deleted]
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Most US states already require a negative test or quarantine,
| with some exceptions. The only issue is that almost no one is
| enforcing it (maybe some airports do, I'm not sure). It makes
| sense if it becomes like visa where airlines wouldn't let you
| board the plane without it (until things are under control). It
| can be an issue for emergency travel though. Thinking about it,
| this should be of interest of airlines to protect their staff.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Right. Santa Clara County, California, has a mandatory 10-day
| quarantine for anyone arriving from more than 150 miles from
| its borders. This notice is posted in the airport but aside
| from that there is no framework for enforcement. It is not even
| all that easy to figure out what territory is outside this zone
| and the county does not provide a map.
| f430 wrote:
| Are these PCR based tests? What is the accuracy rate? I was told
| it is far from 100%.
|
| So is it possible that someone might test negative but then is
| actually asymptomatic?
|
| This is exactly what happened last year in South Korea. People
| were tested many times and they were negative but turned out they
| were asymptomatic that the test kit failed to pick up.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Nothing about the virus is going to be 100% effective. It's a
| matter of compositing things that are 60% effective and 90%
| effective and 50% effective.
|
| If they require testing which is 80% effective, and masks which
| are 80% effective, and get vaccination up to xx%... etc etc.
| You eliminate vectors for the virus one at a time and
| eventually there aren't enough vulnerable people contacting
| each other in ways that are contagious.
|
| (Percentages are guesses)
| f430 wrote:
| It isn't even 80% effective from the scientific journals I've
| read last year, the best they can do is 40% and lower, I
| think there is some inherent limitation in its accuracy.
|
| I'd like to point out that many countries aren't running
| multiple tests to make up for this low accuracy like South
| Korea. _It is the general consensus among experts that the
| actual case numbers are far far higher than what is reported_
|
| So if the 40% rate is true then the law of large number
| suggests the screening test is completely useless because it
| misses the 60% of the time. It's just like the Casino where
| the virus has a huge edge over our detection and prevention
| measures.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| You are missing the point.
|
| Every time you block some percentage of spreaders, you are
| reducing the reach of the virus. Even if a measure is only
| 20% effective, it's worth investing in.
|
| If it's 40% effective and masks are 40% effective,
| collectively they are 64% effective together. This idea
| that measures need to be 90% effective is bunk.
| Incrementally we can improve the odds significantly.
| tim-- wrote:
| How did you come up with the 64% number?
| f430 wrote:
| In most other situations I would agree with you but this
| virus has a transmission R0 of 6!!! [1] This means even
| if you block 40% that remaining 60% that slipped by will
| overwhelm your medical infrastructure like what's
| happening in Japan now who didn't follow South Korea's
| standards (out of pride? so many countries chose to
| ignore Taiwan and South Korea's advices in the early
| days).
|
| This is why you have extreme disparity between countries
| like Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam vs America, Europe,
| Japan.
|
| 40% doesn't mean you are catching 40% of the viruses
| here. It means your detection is only at 40% capacity,
| like your vision.
|
| I'm arguing for multiple PCR tests spread out over a few
| weeks to make up for this low accuracy. I doubt many
| people will put up with it like they did in South Korea
| or Taiwan. Especially North America where the individual
| rights come before the well being of society.
|
| I actually thought that North American and Europe were
| anti-fragile, this virus quickly proved otherwise. How do
| you force individuals to comply with rules that is
| designed for the greater good when they've been told all
| their life their individual needs come first and the rest
| of society has to accommodate them?
|
| Even getting people to wear masks is still an issue. I'm
| utterly disillusioned after 2020, the racist attacks from
| both sides of the political spectrum, the misinformation
| built upon centuries of stereotypes and exceptionalism,
| and a politically divided environment to boot.
|
| As soon as we get more data on the vaccine's
| effectiveness on dealing with mutation variants over 1 or
| 2 years, I am getting the fuck out of North America and
| taking all the jobs with me.
|
| Because this isn't the first pandemic and it sure as hell
| won't be the last, and I highly doubt people will have
| learned their lesson. Conspiracy, memes, and other
| incompetent thinking that arises from laziness. People in
| North America and Europe have lived comfortably for a
| long time post-WW2, relying on economic hegemonies,
| military intervention, immigration to do the dirty work,
| and I believe they are in decline now. Sure America will
| remain #1 military superpower but front lines have simply
| shifted away from trenches to our minds where you can
| conquer and control how people think in foreign
| countries. This is what unrestricted warfare looks like
| and we are seeing the fruit of this labor to the delight
| of its enemies.
|
| [1] I recall reading Dr. Feigl-Ding's twitter last year
| which pointed to an American journal that cited this
| figure back in 2020 but I can't find it right now.
| sonotmyname wrote:
| Your R0 number is waaaay off. Like 2-3x higher than
| generally observed.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Maybe I was misunderstanding your original point.
|
| Are you suggesting closing international flights entirely
| or tighter restrictions should be required?
|
| I've just heard quite a few people suggesting that if
| some counter-measure isn't "good enough" we shouldn't
| bother with it. I thought that's where you were going
| with this.
|
| I don't object to tighter measures or double tests at
| all.
|
| Also, I understand what you meant by 40% effective.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Measles has 6, where are you getting this number from?
| slumdev wrote:
| > So is it possible that someone might test negative but then
| is actually asymptomatic?
|
| No, with PCR, the opposite is true. It is most likely that
| someone who is "positive" but asymptomatic has such a miniscule
| amount of virus in their system that they're not infectious.
| f430 wrote:
| > asymptomatic has such a miniscule amount of virus in their
| system that they're not infectious.
|
| https://www.advisory.com/daily-
| briefing/2021/01/11/asymptoma...
|
| 60% doesn't seem miniscule
| [deleted]
| slumdev wrote:
| > the researchers presumed that 30% of individuals who
| contract the new coronavirus never develop symptoms but
| remain 75% as infectious as those who do develop symptoms.
|
| They made up some numbers and played with the math. It's
| conjecture, not research.
| top_post wrote:
| The country most ravaged by COVID-19 where the spread is entirely
| localized, requires international passengers... good thanks.
| mrfusion wrote:
| It Seems like a good idea but I worry about the slippery slope
| effect.
|
| Can they require this for flu? How will they handle false
| positives? What about something like HIV? What if you need to get
| home for medical treatment or a family emergency?
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _Can they require this for flu?_
|
| I think they should. But the flu isn't as virulent as COVID.
|
| > _What about something like HIV?_
|
| You can't get HIV by someone breathing on you. How many people
| do you usually share needles with on airplanes?
| root_axis wrote:
| The slippery slope argument is generally regarded as a logical
| fallacy because the argument can be applied to anything. You
| should at least offer an explanation of why believe the
| slippery slope is a risk in this case. What interest would the
| U.S. have in requiring Flu or HIV tests for travel? The reasons
| for requiring a covid test are obvious unless you're a person
| that believes covid is equivalent to the flu.
| kevinmgranger wrote:
| None of those are really considered pandemics.
| renewiltord wrote:
| HIV/AIDS is definitely frequently considered a pandemic, and
| at least a global epidemic. In any case the obvious
| difference is that it isn't as contagious.
| snakeboy wrote:
| Specifically, it's not airborne, which is the only relevant
| mode of spread in an airplane.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Serious question - is it allowed to travel to Europe or Asia
| right now from the US for non-relocation purposes?
|
| I'm always stunned when I see these questions because I am like
| "People are traveling internationally - test or no test????"
| netsharc wrote:
| Most if not all of Europe is closed to tourism:
| https://reopen.europa.eu/en
|
| But they'll let people in who have long term residency permits,
| or to visit long term partners, sick family members, or e.g. if
| their young children live there.
|
| For Switzerland I know there's even a clause that lets you in
| if you have to go there for business. Kanye West was spotted in
| the country last month, I guess he was allowed in because he's
| building a villa there.
| 6nf wrote:
| All countries have various levels of business travel, for
| example obviously all courier services and shipping still
| happens and other exceptions are made all the time depending
| on the situation. Diplomats can still travel. Kanye West can
| probably come up with a legitimate reason to travel to
| Switzerland even if he spends half his time on the ski
| slopes.
| addicted wrote:
| This makes sense. The only question is why this wasn't done as
| soon as travel was restarted and tests became readily available
| across the world.
|
| This is at least 6-9 months too late.
| jen20 wrote:
| > The only question is why this wasn't done as soon as travel
| was restarted
|
| I'm not sure there was a point where travel was ever _stopped_?
| At least not for US citizens or residents. This is not to say
| the test requirement should not have been imposed (much)
| earlier, however!
| nostromo wrote:
| Covid testing hasn't been, and still isn't, universally
| available. Mexico, to pick one neighboring country with a lot
| of cross-border traffic and cultural ties to the US, has done
| 97% fewer tests than the US has, for example.
| [deleted]
| graeme wrote:
| Do you mean per capita? If mexico did 97% less as an absolute
| number that would mean they test more than the US per capita.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Population of Mexico is 38% of the population of the US,
| not less than 3%.
| doubleunplussed wrote:
| How do you figure? Mexico and the US's populations only
| differ by a factor of ~2, and Mexico is the smaller one.
| cush wrote:
| > why wasn't this done as soon as travel was restarted
|
| Half our country's leadership being science deniers is a start
| peytn wrote:
| I recall that the science deniers were the ones in favor of
| border restrictions. Besides, I don't envy anybody whose
| position is so weak they must resort to finger pointing. A
| scientist would let the data speak.
| us0r wrote:
| > A scientist would let the data speak.
|
| Yet many schools in the US are still closed.
| peytn wrote:
| It's clear through this all that we've seen great power
| wielded. Regardless of who you support, I hope anybody
| reading this remembers that there are more important
| things than winning. The government has a monopoly on
| violence. It doesn't need you that much. Our kids are the
| losers when we allow ourselves to be pitted against each
| other.
| baybal2 wrote:
| That's an irony. USA is pretty much a fortress for as long as
| border security goes, and it had the best chance of any nation
| to avoid Covid impact by shutting itself off from the world
| using mechanisms of border security only.
|
| Yet, for some completely unfathomable reason, it didn't.
| generalizations wrote:
| The US did try and close the borders.
|
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-
| actions/proclamation...
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/02/us/coronavirus-us-travel-
| rest...
| throwaway7874 wrote:
| Unfathomable? People do have short memories. Remember this?
|
| https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/nancy-pelosi-visits-
| sa...
|
| Trump floated the idea of cancelling flights, initially from
| China, cause that was the only hot spot, back in Winter only
| to be called a racist.
| bufferout wrote:
| Can you explain what Pelosi's Chinatown visit has to do
| with flight cancellations. And also who called Trump a
| racist for proposing flight bans.
| zaroth wrote:
| You would need more than just a pre-travel testing
| requirement. You would also have needed an arrival quarantine
| and post-arrival testing.
|
| I wonder what percent of asymptomatic positive cases pre-
| arrival testing actually catches. I'm sure that number also
| changes depending on how many days before traveling you're
| allowed to get the test.
|
| And to actually prevent COVID from entering the US, I think
| you would have needed all of that fully in place in January,
| or perhaps earlier.
|
| Effectively what this would have meant is a total border
| closure for several months at the beginning of the year. I'm
| not sure if that would have literally been impossible, but I
| think it's totally fathomable why that didn't happen.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > You would need more than just a pre-travel testing
| requirement. You would also have needed an arrival
| quarantine and post-arrival testing.
|
| Yes, and those are what US has in abundance, but does not
| use for some reason.
|
| I believe every international airport has quarantine zones,
| and US has quite extensive TB quarantine infrastructure it
| could've reused.
|
| Lastly, it could've finally put its incarceration industry
| to some good use.
|
| It's very much like US found it had many months worth of
| PPE stockpiles laying forgotten in diffent institutions
| long after US spent hundreds of millions to rush order it
| from China.
| SulfurHexaFluri wrote:
| Australia has had these measures in place for a while now
| but quite a while after January and they work pretty well.
| I think one of the very effective tools Australia has is
| the ability to close borders with other states. In the US
| even if one state is doing pretty well, it doesn't matter
| because people from other states will come in and ruin it.
| ghaff wrote:
| In January, outside of China (possibly elsewhere in Asia)
| absolutely everything was business as usual. I was
| traveling in Europe for 3 weeks at the end of
| January/beginning of February and everything was 100%
| normal.
|
| The absolute earliest I could see significant shutting down
| in the US would have been early March which is when
| companies started canceling events, etc.
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| The Chinese were low key buying up as much medical
| supplies in Europe as they could get their hands on and
| flying them to China. This didn't raise any alarms.
|
| The West displayed an enormous level of incompetence same
| as the Chinese authorities but you can at least
| understand why the CCP cadre in Wuhan was so negligent.
| There is something in the human brain that makes people
| incapable of recognizing danger until they experience it.
| jcranmer wrote:
| I don't have exact date timelines, but I know the large
| company I work for decided that the US was a coronavirus
| hotspot somewhere around the end of February and the
| beginning of March and banned business travel to or
| within the US. It was only in mid-March that they shut
| down the offices themselves, a couple of days before
| state or local governments began locking down.
|
| I believe the current estimate is that there was
| uncontrolled community spread in the US by late February,
| and closing the borders to international travelers
| wouldn't have done anything to prevent its spread in the
| US.
| ghaff wrote:
| I was at a relatively smallish (maybe a few hundred
| people) tech event in Phoenix the first week in March.
| There had been _some_ consideration to canceling but they
| went ahead. They were cleaning surfaces, doing elbow
| bumps instead of handshakes but no masks, distancing,
| etc.
|
| I was supposed to head on to another fairly small event
| in Tahoe the next week but the Thursday before, they
| canceled it. Which TBH seemed excessive to me at the
| time. (Though CA was starting to see an increase in
| cases.) I got home, did some shopping before everything
| went crazy but about a week later offices were closing,
| etc.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Yes, that's about when it became politically feasible to
| close the borders in New Zealand, as well.
| [deleted]
| pishpash wrote:
| The reason is the US has more infections than almost anywhere
| else so the enemy is already inside.
| [deleted]
| Supermancho wrote:
| > USA is pretty much a fortress for as long as border
| security goes
|
| More like a maginot line than a fortress.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| By unfathomable, I suppose you mean political?
| [deleted]
| InTheArena wrote:
| I don't know if you remember, but when Trump started to cut
| of china, it was immediately taken to be yet another
| xenophobic action.
|
| Then it was a matter of rapid COVID tests not being
| available. It probably should been a few months ago.
| chillwaves wrote:
| Except that's not what he did.
|
| https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/the-facts-on-trumps-
| travel...
| amluto wrote:
| It was. A sensible policy would have restricted all entries
| -- at the time Trump restricted entry from China, there was
| no credible reason to believe that it hadn't spread
| elsewhere.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| The UK is and island and they didn't do it either. It's
| learned helplessness: the world has given up on the idea that
| it's possible to contain the virus.
| notadev wrote:
| Perhaps it would have been considered xenophobic?
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| President Trump has never shied away from xenophobia from
| the day he announced his candidacy [1] to today when he
| gave a speech in Alamo, Texas [2] What Trump has done is
| try to minimize public concerns about COVID-19. [3]
|
| [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
| fix/wp/2017/06/16/th...
|
| [2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/01/12/a
| lamo-...
|
| [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/40-times-
| trump...
| vkou wrote:
| Only if implemented in an inconsistent fashion - where
| travel from some areas with high levels of COVID is
| permitted, while travel from other areas with much lower
| levels of COVID is not.
|
| Which is currently the case. For example, travel from
| Russia to the US is currently allowed, despite Russia
| having >3 million COVID cases, but travel from Finland
| (>37,000 COVID cases) and China (>97,000 COVID cases) is
| prohibited.
|
| It's not even a quid-pro-quo, because Russia has banned
| travel _from_ the United States ( >22,700,000 COVID cases,
| FYI.)
|
| If you want to stop travelers spreading COVID in the US,
| the first thing you should do is ban domestic travel, and
| the second thing you should do is to update the travel ban
| to include infection data from any point past ~April 2020.
|
| If you're not willing to require someone flying from New
| York to Nashville to have a negative COVID test before
| getting on an airplane, you probably shouldn't spend too
| much time wringing your hands over someone flying from
| Hanoi to LA without one.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > Which is currently the case. For example, travel from
| Russia to the US is currently allowed, despite Russia
| having >3 million COVID cases, but travel from Finland
| (>37,000 COVID cases) and China (>97,000 COVID cases) is
| prohibited.
|
| China is doing great if those numbers can be trusted.
|
| But Finland having 80x fewer cases when they have 25x
| fewer people isn't a big enough difference that I would
| say "much lower levels".
| sokoloff wrote:
| That first person could drive from New York to Nashville
| perfectly freely. The drive from Hanoi to LA is much more
| difficult.
| vkou wrote:
| The first person would, most of the time, not bother
| making the drive, which would have the same mitigating
| effect on COVID transmission.
|
| The real reason for why domestic flights don't require
| negative tests is because it's politically inconvenient
| for the government to ask for them, and because it would
| gut airline revenue. "Controlling the spread" plays
| second fiddle to matters of political expediency and
| money.
|
| That, and it's much easier to impose restrictions on
| foreigners, even if, as of January 2021, those
| restrictions don't accomplish much.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| If implemented in a xenophobic fashion, sure.
|
| "We're testing all international travelers" is gonna be
| hard to tag that way. "We're banning people coming in from
| China but allowing in US citizens or permanent residents
| untested and unscreened on those same flights" looks pretty
| dumb from an epidemiological standpoint.
|
| https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/the-facts-on-trumps-
| travel...
|
| > "There's no restriction on Americans going back and
| forth," Klain said. "There are warnings. People should
| abide by those warnings. But today, 30 planes will land in
| Los Angeles that either originated in Beijing or came here
| on one-stops, 30 in San Francisco, 25 in New York City.
| Okay? So, unless we think that the color of the passport
| someone carries is a meaningful public health restriction,
| we have not placed a meaningful public health restriction."
| mikelward wrote:
| Australia only allows citizens and residents back in. AND
| they have to quarantine in designated facilities for two
| weeks.
|
| This is seriously failed leadership in the US. I haven't
| heard from anyone on either side calling for such
| measures.
| chris11 wrote:
| I don't really remember medical experts were saying in
| early 2020, but I would have supported banning specific
| countries if it was based on a framework that adjusted
| bans as the number of cases changed.
|
| I remember being unimpressed with the timing, starting
| the ban right after the super bowl was over was a bad
| idea. And the US should have immediately started working
| towards testing all travelers.
| cma wrote:
| When Trump banned China he put in all the press releases
| and announcement speeches that he also wanted to ban
| Mexico (0 known cases at the time). This easily led
| people to believe the whole thing was xenophobic.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Don't forget his earlier travel bans against primarily
| Muslim countries, excluding countries that he personally
| does business with. A history of xenophobic actions from
| Trump means that he reasonably lost the benefit of the
| doubt for later cases.
| [deleted]
| FuckButtons wrote:
| Pretty sure the trump administration wasn't concerned about
| that.
| paxys wrote:
| Not likely, considering the side which calls border
| controls xenophobic was the one pushing for more
| restrictions to stop the spread of COVID.
| cavisne wrote:
| The US has two huge land borders that people regularly
| commute and trade across (not to mention cross illegally).
|
| The only success stories with this strategy are Australia and
| New Zealand, which are island nations completely isolated
| from anywhere else.
|
| Even single breaches of their 100% quarantine of all arrivals
| caused outbreaks, and they also closed state borders.
|
| This requirement begins to make sense now there is a vaccine,
| as within the US the curve should bend down vs the rest of
| the world, without the vaccine it wouldn't have achieved
| anything.
| k0stas wrote:
| > The only success stories with this strategy are Australia
| and New Zealand, which are island nations completely
| isolated from anywhere else.
|
| I don't know why it is ignored, but Vietnam (population
| 90M) is a large country with many land borders, including a
| border with China, and it has done spectacularly well
| containing the coronavirus.
|
| Not to take anything away from the island countries but
| having no land borders makes limiting the influx of Covid
| much simpler.
|
| I don't know much about Vietnam's borders and how much
| crossing there was in pre-Covid times but perhaps it should
| be the Covid success model that all non-island nations
| emulate.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| The land border with Canada has been closed (at the
| Canadian government's request) since March. Only trade is
| allowed, no personal travel at all. So, no, I don't think
| it's impractical at all. Trump did complain a lot about us
| closing it, though.
|
| Air travel, however, has been permitted all along, and
| mostly from what I can tell because of the fact that the
| airline industry would go bankrupt otherwise. So there's
| still people coming into Canada from the US constantly by
| air, and likely breaking their 14 day quarantine period,
| too. I know of some personally.
|
| International travel is still being promoted heavily by
| airlines, despite governments giving official guidance to
| not go. Big scandals here in the last couple weeks about
| politicians taking off for tropical vacations, after
| instating tough lockdown rules and telling the public not
| to travel.
|
| Canada also instituted the negative test on arrival rule in
| the last week or so. The caterwauling from our airlines was
| just ridiculous.
|
| The federal governments in both Canada and the United
| States failed to make moves against travel early on, and
| they just let it coast for months, as if this virus was
| just going to go away on its own, because they were afraid
| of bankrupting the airlines.
| sonotmyname wrote:
| > Canada also instituted the negative test on arrival
| rule in the last week or so. The caterwauling from our
| airlines was just ridiculous.
|
| The negative test requirement is _only_ for air travel,
| and in spite of your assertion, there is (limited) non-
| trade travel allowed across the border. I 'm driving
| across the border in a few weeks, and for some reason
| don't need a test that I'd need if I flew.
| kbar13 wrote:
| you can close land borders just as you can close air
| borders. the threat model is average joe unknowningly
| carrying the coronavirus on their vacation / business
| commute, not some special op team sneaking into the
| country.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > The only success stories with this strategy are Australia
| and New Zealand, which are island nations completely
| isolated from anywhere else.
|
| Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam have all had good overall
| success.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/16/thailand-
| cambo...
| zkms wrote:
| > The only success stories with this strategy are Australia
| and New Zealand, which are island nations completely
| isolated from anywhere else.
|
| Taiwan is another such success story (7 deaths total, zero
| domestic cases for over 200 days) and it's not exactly that
| isolated from, well, the place where the pandemic started.
| koolba wrote:
| > Yet, for some completely unfathomable reason, it didn't.
|
| Let's not forget that President Trump's order for closing the
| borders with even just the source nation of the contagion was
| labeled by the incoming President-elect as xenophobic[1]:
|
| >> " _We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus.
| We need to lead the way with science -- not Donald Trump's
| record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the
| worst possible person to lead our country through a global
| health emergency._ "
|
| [1]: https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1223727977361338370
| dizzystar wrote:
| The relationship between border towns is very tight. You
| would ruin the entire southern economy if you banned cross-
| border travel entirely.
|
| Back in the day before Mexico required passports to enter,
| many people lived in Tijuana and worked in San Diego. I'm
| sure this still happens today, and of course, you have to
| consider that many migrants work in US farms, etc.
| flukus wrote:
| Border closures don't have to be all or nothing. In
| Australia we closed borders between states but allowed work
| permits in some places and had fuzzy borders (people within
| 100km could cross) in others.
|
| No measures are 100%, but they don't need to be.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| San Ysidro is still the busiest border crossing in the
| world. It's nominally 'closed', but still open for trade.
| In normal times you don't need a full passport, either-
| just a passport card is fine, and realistically a CA
| driver's license will get you through without trouble. It
| kind of has to be that way- Tijuana and San Diego are far
| too closely tied together for much else.
| [deleted]
| foolfoolz wrote:
| testing capacity couldn't support it. no use doing this when
| the results come a week later. if this was a requirement
| earlier everyone would have complained it was just theater and
| not helping
| netsharc wrote:
| In most countries they just want a negative test from the
| origin country, so the country being visited doesn't have to
| spend a test for the tourist. But it's not bulletproof, if
| someone tests false negative and flies and infects a few
| others.
|
| Other countries (Taiwan, NZ?) quarantine you for 14 days on
| arrival, and also test you...
| srfvtgb wrote:
| NZ currently requires a negative test if you are coming
| from the UK or US as well as 14 day quarantine for arrivals
| from anywhere (with more tests). You can also only return
| if you are a NZ citizen or permanent resident or you get
| some kind of special dispensation (notable recipients of
| these include film crews and America's Cup sailors).
| what_ever wrote:
| India has had this requirement for a long time now (more than
| 6 months IIRC). If you don't have the negative test, you need
| to quarantine at preselected hotels near the airport after
| arrival. Most international airports now also offer on
| arrival tests.
| peytn wrote:
| I'm certain we could have figured out something earlier. We
| spend several billion dollars annually on an organization
| with a singular mandate to do so.
| wendyshu wrote:
| I'm pretty sure people would have understood that requiring a
| positive test before entry is not just theater.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > requiring a positive test before entry
|
| Negative test, not positive test (by the most common usage
| of the phrase).
| jaynetics wrote:
| Maybe politicians should bite the bullet sometimes and do
| stuff that will not be immediately understood by every
| citizen.
|
| Even without tests being widely available it would have been
| wise to require all arrivals to quarantine, as Taiwan has
| done with great success.
|
| Yeah, sure, that would have been a nuisance for quite a few
| people and painful for the airline industry, true, but
| nowhere near as annoying and painful as things have ended up
| now.
| MartianSquirrel wrote:
| Long term benefits? check
|
| Good for our constituants? check
|
| Good for whoever pays for my campaign? check
|
| Oh, you say it will jeopardize my reelection?
| _fuggetaboutit_ /s
| anonunivgrad wrote:
| There's really no point. Hundreds to thousands of people are
| contracting covid every day in every city across America. Over
| the course of five days in December, there were one million new
| cases. People coming in on international flights is basically
| irrelevant. That could start to change if the vaccine causes
| community spread to plummet.
| gibrown wrote:
| They should do it for all air travel whether international or
| domestic.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that there is enough domestic Covid that this is
| pointless now?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Right this second, probably, but it'll become relevant again as
| vaccines start to clamp down on the spread.
| standardUser wrote:
| It's not clear to me how this works. What if you've recently
| recovered from a confirmed case of COVID-19? People can still
| test positive up to 90 days after recovery, even though all
| guidances say they stop being contagious 10 days from the onset
| of symptoms (assuming symptoms have improved and no fever).
|
| And what about people who have been vaccinated. Wouldn't proof of
| vaccination be sufficient and spare limited testing capacity?
| raverbashing wrote:
| > What if you've recently recovered from a confirmed case of
| COVID-19?
|
| Then you wait until your test comes clear
|
| > People can still test positive up to 90 days after recovery
|
| In very rare cases
| standardUser wrote:
| A positive test result from > 10 days ago and a temperature
| check should be sufficient. Otherwise, we're just asking
| people to get tested over and over (and most guidances say
| _don 't_ get tested within a few months of a positive
| result).
| 6nf wrote:
| The vaccine question is going to be interesting. On one hand,
| if I'm vaccinated then I should be able to fly right? But no
| vaccine is 100% effective so do I need to get tested anyway?
| Are we just gonna have to get used to supplying a DNA sample
| every time we buy plane tickets?
| karmasimida wrote:
| Then they shouldn't go on a flight. Simple as that.
|
| Traveling to another country is not a right but a privilege,
| many of HN commenters always like to throw this line.
| vmchale wrote:
| You'd be more likely to catch it here than pretty much anywhere
| else in the world lol.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Why?
| redflame8 wrote:
| How do you know the tests are legit
| asah wrote:
| Which direction? /s
| harigov wrote:
| They should have done this when there were far fewer cases. It
| was really surprising to hear that you don't need any tests or
| quarantining when you travel from other countries. Better late
| than never, I guess.
| surge wrote:
| Well, got to remember, when there were far fewer cases, tests
| were still in prototype phase, not widely available, and in
| some cases unreliable (I think a lot of the Japanese cruise
| passengers that got the WHO test tested negative, then later
| came down with it after being released).
| vorpalhex wrote:
| We were also trying to test existing populations in busy city
| centers and concerned about not having enough tests.
| [deleted]
| chris11 wrote:
| Yeah, but we could have done more. There was a lot of supply
| chain issues the government just ignored. I remember in early
| 2020 when masks were unavailable a couple domestic mas
| manufacturers were saying they weren't comfortable producing
| more. They could scale up production, but they didn't want to
| deal with suddenly firing people when things went back to
| normal.
| what_ever wrote:
| Japan cruise case was in February 2020 which is about a year
| ago now. Testing became more reliable a long time ago.
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