U.S. Reportedly Considering Travel Restrictions For California And Washington State

The President of the United States is said to be considering travel restrictions between California, Washington, and the rest of the country. I’ve heard rumors of this, and it is certainly not confirmed and not at this point certain to happen.

Donald Trump is considering extending travel restrictions to domestic travel between California and Washington. There is no confirmation and no details from the president on this yet.

Meanwhile it appears that travel restrictions haven’t been effective in stopping the spread of this virus. (HT: Marginal Revolution) They’ve been a ‘barn door already shut’ policy.

The travel quarantine of Wuhan delayed the overall epidemic progression by only 3 to 5 days in Mainland China, but has a more marked effect at the international scale, where case importations were reduced by nearly 80% until mid February. Modeling results also indicate that sustained 90% travel restrictions to and from Mainland China only modestly affect the epidemic trajectory unless combined with a 50% or higher reduction of transmission in the community.

In other words, since the virus is already out beyond the areas where travel is limited, restrictions won’t stop the virus. Slowing the virus matters so that health care resources aren’t overwhelmed with older patients in respiratory distress (the way that hospitals in Wuhan and Italy have been). What matters though is rapid testing and social distancing and the U.S. is still failing at testing.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. Having the CV crisis allows POTUS to shut down our borders so Homeland Security and our military can focus on keeping peace. Also, POTUS said everything with the CV will be over in April. He said it because he knows it is fake and they plan to take action in March and by April, the American public will be informed of what has occurred and why.

  2. Dennis Dunham, you are an idiot! The secret of the magnitude you claim could be kept hell if rumors only of Russian collusion went crazy secret like this would be out of control in the news? It is impossible to fake everything unless you’re on the left then just spread a bunch of lies and everything work out just fine! As to the rest of doom and gloom Sayers yeah you’re really helping the situation! Talking about how social distancing doesn’t work just encourages people not to do it which makes it worse, it doesn’t come up on the press to sometimes just shut your effing mouth!

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