Travel plans to Cancun - cancel or go?

[raynorfan1]

Influenza is not even close to as deadly as COVID19. The global mortality rate right now is approaching 5%; mortality rate in Italy is getting close to 10%. Influenza has a mortality rate of 0.1%.

If this thing spirals, you could be looking at a total mortality event in the millions of people in the United States. China has successfully limited its mortality rate by taking extreme measures (effectively house arrest) to contain people. Italy didn't take it seriously enough and now has 41,000 cases (half as many as China in a country that's 23 times smaller), doubling every four days, and a total of 5,200 ICU beds in the entire country. Italy's overall event mortality could be more than a million people (twice as many total deaths in WW2).

[LeoLeo99]

The simple reason is math. Flu is steady state. Some years worse than others but it's a known disease and predictable and despite doctors and authorities pleas, many people do not get a flu vaccine yearly. This new virus is growing exponentially. It started in China on or around Nov. 17, 2019 and now it's growing out of control. We're trying to control it so it doesn't kill more people than the flu. It has the potential to kill a lot more people than the flu and all these extreme measures are to mitigate that.

[BMC]

I get all the "uncertainty" on this disease. And, we all should do anything we can as individuals to suppress it.

But right now the score in the U.S is....

Flu 34,000

Convid19 205

We'll see how it shakes out.

[raynorfan1]

This is the problem. It's not "uncertainty" it's certainty.

COVID deaths in the United States are currently doubling every four days. On this pace we will exceed an entire season of flu deaths in about 32 days.

[golfkrzy10]

I would not go. If you are sick and it flares up down there....hospitals and health care not the greatest, also travel restrictions, getting back into the USA. Cancel and go back when the time is good. Sucks for sure, but rather be safe than sorry.....

[BMC]

It's bad, no doubt. We'll see. Right now it's official's "best guess". But, most Americans will either not get it at all, or get a very mild case. Live in fear if you choose.

[Z1ggy16]

You need to weigh the "costs" of potential outcomes. What's going to cost you more, missing out on a vacation or possibly getting stuck in a foreign country with maybe nowhere to stay and/or getting really sick while there.

If anything, it's irresponsible to travel right now simply because you're more likely to pass it to people who could be effected by this by you got back.

If people reduce going out in public by 75%, transmission goes down by like 10-15x than if we did nothing.

[raynorfan1]

You're totally right. Most Americans (more than half) will probably not get it. And most of those who get it will have mild symptoms. In the absence of extreme measures, probably something like 5% of Americans will have significant cases. And something like 20% of them will die. That's only four million people.

[N8dogg2669]

I was supposed to be in Cancun this week. I had a global conference for work to go to, and it got cancelled last minute. Can't say I'm the least bit upset about it either considering what's going on in the world today.

[canonlbp430]

Good job cancelling, had a friend that flew back last night. Luckily those were his initial plans because his resort shut down today.

[Roadking2003]

Because those headlines don't sell the news.