Is Coronavirus affecting your travel plans?

[Heather07438]

They're saying that even though the fatality rate is much lower than SARS (1in10 vs 1in50 roughly), it is more serious because people are not showing symptoms yet when they're already contagious. With SARS, patients were contagious only when they had symptoms. That makes it harder to contain than SARS.

Some estimates are putting the epicenter as high as 75k people infected now. China is doing a good job of keeping it contained so far. I wish them the best.

 

[bcla]

I was in China for 2 weeks last year. It is EXTREMELY difficult to get any kind of medications, especially antibiotics, they just don't have them. I came down with a bad cough and sinus infection, ran through my stash of ibuprofen quickly and I couldn't find ANY otc pain/cold/cough meds, nothing. Our tour guide had some kind of powder to mix with water for those of us who were sick but I passed on it. I drank probably 10 cups of tea those days and tons of water and sucked it up. The only thing I found was a pack of Halls in a convenience store, but they were more like candy than medicinal, just fruit flavored, no menthol. Our guide told us most people use herbal and alternative medications when sick, so I highly doubt antibiotics are being handed out like candy over there. They don't have a CVS or Walgreens on every corner like we do here.

Well, I’m thinking of getting access to a medical professional. This friend had shown me boxes of antibiotics (including generic Cipro) that her parents brought over on a visit.

They do have pharmacies, but they’re not like American drug stores. A guide took me to one, where it’s rather difficult to figure out if you can’t read Chinese. Most of the meds were in glass display cases and shelves. I could make out the ingredients if they had the active ingredient list in English. These stores don’t typically sell anything else.

There are some chains in China that are kind of like Walgreen’s, CVS, or Rite-Aid. The big one is the Hong Kong based Watsons. I remember buying some OTC meds at one. However, they don’t have pharmacies per se except for a few newer locations that are run separately.

 

[snappy]

Not liking what the Coronavirus is doing to the stock market today.

 

[RamblingMad]

Not liking what the Coronavirus is doing to the stock market today.

Happens. It’s why I avoid leverage this late into the cycle.

 

[Nick6300]

Sort of. We're tentatively thinking a Sept trip to WDW, and that seems to be a go. We were thinking of doing a tokyo disney after Hawaii in Dec. but wife said that she scared of going anywhere in asia.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

Not liking what the Coronavirus is doing to the stock market today.

It's not just the Corona virus. Just think of it as the trigger that prompted the correction we were due anyway. It almost happened yesterday. We were down 300 at one point on the Dow and came all the way back.

 

[RedAngie]

Nope. I'm in Toronto , flying to Marco island , Fla on Feb 16 for a week then a 12 night Caribbean cruise. Will use common sense but - It is what it is.

I think Marco Island has a small airport for private planes.

We're going in March, but flying into Fort Myers.

 

[ChrisFL]

It's not just the Corona virus. Just think of it as the trigger that prompted the correction we were due anyway. It almost happened yesterday. We were down 300 at one point on the Dow and came all the way back.

Right, let's just say there's some "unrest" in a few countries this week

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Not in the slightest.

 

[kariyava]

It hasn’t affected me yet, but a relative is buying trip insurance for their upcoming trip just in case things worsen.

We will probably do this. We have a long-anticipated trip planned and mostly booked to Asia this summer (not China but close) and while I don't currently don't have any plans to cancel, I am going to look into trip insurance this weekend just in case.

 

[snappy]

It's not just the Corona virus. Just think of it as the trigger that prompted the correction we were due anyway. It almost happened yesterday. We were down 300 at one point on the Dow and came all the way back.

No big drop in the equities markets is due to a single factor. But I suspect the expanding number of cases of and death from the virus is heavily weighing the markets down.

 

[bcla]

First confirmed case in Northern California. Traveled directly from Wuhan to Santa Clara County. There are lots of Chinese expats working in Silicon Valley.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/01/31/santa-clara-coronavirus/
The patient has self quarantined except for medical visits. Arrived back in the US on Jan 24. I know a lot of Chinese expats go back to China for Lunar New Year.

 

[MFL101]

Our family was just discussing this as well for a trip we have next week. Definitely more concerned about planes/airports more than the parks or hotel. Seems to us that risk of contracting is similar to flu. Really on the fence as I suspect many others are.

 

[Brett Wyman]

Its easy to be arrogant about getting sick when you are young and childless. We visited Asia, against the protests of many friends and family, in the PEAK of the SARS outbreak in our early 20s. But now with two young kids we just feel like extra caution is necessary. Its just a vacation after all. We have a February WDW trip that we are moving forward with and a DCL in June that we are taking a wait and see approach with but Im leaning towards cancelling out of an over abundance of caution.

 

[LSUmiss]

Its easy to be arrogant about getting sick when you are young and childless. We visited Asia, against the protests of many friends and family, in the PEAK of the SARS outbreak in our early 20s. But now with two young kids we just feel like extra caution is necessary. Its just a vacation after all. We have a February WDW trip that we are moving forward with and a DCL in June that we are taking a wait and see approach with but Im leaning towards cancelling out of an over abundance of caution.

This is exactly what I was thinking. While I didn’t go to Asia, sars wasn’t even a blip on my radar back then. But now I have a 21 month old & regular flu makes me nervous enough & now this. We also have a wdw trip planned in feb & don’t plan to cancel unless there is some kind of outbreak near WDW.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I'm not changing my plans. I fly to Disney World for a few days next week.

My sister in California cancelled her Southwest LAX flight for today and is now driving to Arizona instead for the big Tuscon Gem Show. Not sure which shows she will be attending (there are alot of them through the whole month of February where vendors and people go from all over the world including China) and I'm not sure how things will work for any vendors or attendees from China.

 

[gotomu212]

Sadly, I do expect the death toll to be higher than is being reported from China, only because of what we know of how they're handling it....millions of people on lockdown without adequate medical care to go around to everyone, though those deaths may not be found or even reported as being related to this.

Beyond that, it seems the rest of the world's numbers aren't going up by much at all so far, and that is a good sign for difficulty of spreading through "normal" means.

Germany’s transmission rate based on their one ”patient zero” seems concerning as a case study. Even though we are only talking 8 people, it all came from the same source and basically doubled 3 times already- including transmission to people who never came in direct contact with the initial carrier (my understanding is one man met with infected traveler coworker, then he passed it on to coworkers, and one of those coworkers also passed it to their child- so there were at least 3 generations of passing, most before symptoms appeared.) With a 2 week incubation period the numbers will take a few weeks of exponential growth for big numbers to show (It’s been in China for almost 2 months at this point).

 

[MFL101]

Looks like first case in NYC. I am with you all who didn’t think twice about this sort of stuff until you had kids. Just don’t know if vacation is worth any risk.

 

[RamblingMad]

Looks like first case in NYC. I am with you all who didn’t think twice about this sort of stuff until you had kids. Just don’t know if vacation is worth any risk.

I'm more worried about catching the flu than the coronavirus.

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

Not for now. We have a trip to California next month, with all 3 kids and the grandbabies, but we are not planning on cancelling. DH will take extra precautions, like wearing a mask in the airport and on the plane, and I'll go wipe down the seats/tray/seatbelt/etc before the flight. I'm not wearing a mask, unless things start getting worse. As always, washing hands (and I'll have handwipes for on the plane, to use after we return to our seats after using the lavatory) will be #1. No air dryers, use paper towels (and if none available, we'll just airdry and use the wipes after leaving the restroom).