WHO says countries should keep borders open despite coronavirus (2020) | Hacker News Reader

WHO says countries should keep borders open despite coronavirus (2020)

reuters.com

36 pointsapsec11212 comments

I worry about a new wave of nationalism and loss of solidarity. Over the recent decades Europeans have been encouraged to visit their neighbors, see what's there, meet people. But now all those opportunities for cross-border interaction will be prevented for up to two years, and the economic fallout from the crisis might be an end to the cheap transportation that allowed that travel to even the lower middle class. That can't be good.

Add to that the fact that weimar republic inflation of the 1920s was a factor behind the rise of nationalism, and every country is printing money right now at unprecedented rates.

Collapse of Roman Empire led to creation of European nations because it left huge vacuum space. Rest is history; Europeans fought nonstop for power and domination. It is in human nature to compete and dominate, nationalism is no different.

My understanding is that this advice wasn't based on keeping Coronavirus numbers low but on reducing the damage caused by economic loss to parts of the worlds population. My country, Australia, has done amazingly well at containing the virus locally but I'm sure that a number of smaller, less economically developed countries nearby have citzens that are feeling the economic damage. How many children in these countries are going hungry?

Not only economic damage, but environmental damage as well. According to an anecdote I read by someone who works with wildlife-conversation efforts in East Africa, the loss of income from tourism in 2020 and 2021 is going to impact those efforts. If leaving the land untouched isn't generating income from tourists, then poaching and illegal landuse increase.

Similarly, if Chilean Patagonia isn't doing well from tourism to its natural beauty, there is less resistance to industries coming down from Santiago and building hydro infrastructure all over the region.

On the flipside the constant airplane tourism is destroying nature on a global, not a local scale.

I would personally guess that the environmental impact of 0 tourism would be much better on the global scale.

A fully booked jetliner is consuming less fuel per traveled distance than a car with one person in it. They're not as bad as you might think they are. The amount of delivery driving has definitely increased with corona, but there's less people commuting to work.

People don't routinely drive thousands of kilometers with their cars to go on vacation, they do however fly thousands of kilometers, because it's so fast.

In delivery I agree with you, even with boxes, it's much more efficient for one delivery truck to drive to 1000 households than 1000 households to drive into the city, even with public transit.

People do however drive tens of thousands of kilometers a year in their cars. My point isn't that less flying isn't good, I don't even know what my point is, probably just that there are many points to consider

This was written exactly a month after Taiwan had started adding more stringent border controls. The world could learn a lot from how they handled the situation.

Well that’s settled then.

Yeah. About that...

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