主题：2020年的黑天鹅 -- 红军迷

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老大河待整

2020年的黑天鹅

特朗普政府刚宣布，除非是美国公民和绿卡持有人及其直系亲属，所有其他人等如14天内曾往中国则拒绝入境美国。本星期日下午5时生效。

此次事件对于中国和世界的影响，虽比不上911对美国和世界的影响，但目前已经朝那个方向走了。特朗普此举的实际及象征意义也让我想起911之后小布什政府举动所产生的后果。咱们看看中国政府的应对怎么样。前车之鉴不可不察。

我在河里另一个楼下发言怼了楼主的言论。他从莆田系医院送口罩这件事居然得出“千疮百孔的中国……上上下下都烂完了”这种结论。我是认为其心可诛的！

另外，我在那个楼里说了：“今天纽约一位同事在朋友圈说，火车上坐旁边的白人乘客先坐下，然后不安地起身，又坐下，但三分钟后终于还是跑到隔壁车厢去了。同事将此称为至暗时刻。同事并没有戴口罩。鉴于现在的气氛，我倒觉得对该乘客未可多加责备。但stigmatization的阴影已然飘来。恐慌是有传染性的，能把灾害的损失扩大十倍。所以我还是要出来怼一怼这位危言耸听的楼主。本来这几天一直看，没想发言的。”

黑头发黄皮肤的各位，要做好思想准备啦。这不，特朗普发禁令后，有美国专业人士提出反对意见。结果好嘛，文章下面的评论（特朗普拥趸）就开始拿“中国人”说话了。其中一位说：You people would rather wipe out humanity with a plague than let Trump be right about something. Go fly to China if you want to be around Chinese people so badly（“作者们宁愿让瘟疫灭绝人类，也不想承认特朗普对一件事的做法是正确的。你们要是这么渴望跟中国人在一起，那就飞到中国去吧”）。另一位说：These people would literally rather die than appear racist（“作者们宁愿去死，也不想让人觉得自己是种族主义”）。大家可以发挥一点点想象力，接下来会演变到何种地步？

这是文章及读者评论的原文：

Health experts warn China travel ban will hinder coronavirus response

By MEGAN THIELKING @meggophone and LEV FACHER @levfacher

JANUARY 31, 2020

The Trump administration’s decision to ban most foreign nationals who had been to China in the last two weeks from traveling to the United States amid an accelerating outbreak of a novel coronavirus there was preceded by calls for similar policies from conservative lawmakers and far-right supporters of the president. Public health experts, however, warn that the move could do more harm than good.

The administration’s public health emergency declaration also requires U.S. citizens returning from China to undergo some level of quarantine, depending on where they had been in China.

Before the announcement Friday, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) had called for a ban on all commercial flights from China, and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) said the government should consider “implementing a temporary travel ban on travelers from China until the threat is resolved.”

Beyond Capitol Hill, Mike Cernovich, a prominent conspiracy theorist and early Trump supporter, had agitated on Twitter for a Chinese travel ban, as has Michael Savage, another conspiracy theorist and a radio host with white nationalist beliefs. “QUARANTINE! STOP TRAVELERS FROM CHINA NOW!” he said on Twitter last week.

The ban comes on top of moves by major U.S. airlines halting flights to and from mainland China.

The outbreak has sickened nearly 10,000 people, mostly in China, and killed more than 200. A few countries have responded by imposing full or limited travel bans. The Philippines, for instance, has banned travel from the city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. Countries including the Bahamas, Mongolia, and Singapore have banned all travel from China.

Public health experts have warned that travel bans are not effective at stemming the spread of a virus and can make responding to an outbreak more challenging.

“From a public health perspective, there is limited effectiveness. And then there are a host of other reasons why they can actually be counterproductive,” said Catherine Worsnop, who studies international cooperation during global health emergencies at the University of Maryland.

The World Health Organization, which declared the outbreak a global health emergency this week, has recommended against any travel or trade restrictions in response to the outbreak. Member countries, however, do not have to comply with that guidance.

“Although travel restrictions may intuitively seem like the right thing to do, this is not something that WHO usually recommends,” said Tarik Jašarević, a WHO spokesperson. “This is because of the social disruption they cause and the intensive use of resources required,” he added.

Experts said travel bans could lead to a slew of downstream effects and risk complicating the public health response.

“There’s not only the financial toll on a country that is dealing with this outbreak, but this can discourage transparency, both in this outbreak and in the future,” Worsnop said.

Travel and trade restrictions can lead to dire economic consequences for countries involved, creating a disincentive for them to quickly disclose potential outbreaks to the WHO or other nations. They can hinder the sharing of information, make it harder to track cases and their contacts, and disrupt the medical supply chain, potentially fueling shortages of drugs and medical supplies in the areas hit hardest by the outbreak. They also send a punitive message, which could contribute to discrimination and stigmatization against Chinese nationals, experts warned.

Any effort and money spent crafting and enforcing travel and trade restrictions also take away already-stretched resources from public health measures that have been proven to be far more effective, experts said. Those measures include providing assistance to countries with weaker health systems, accelerating the development of a vaccine or rapid diagnostic test, and clearly communicating with the public about when and how to seek care.

But for politicians, those responses might not feel as tangible an action as enacting a travel ban. During the 2013-2014 Ebola outbreak, there was a flurry of calls for a U.S. ban on travel from the affected countries, including from Donald Trump, then a private citizen.

“People want their government to do something when these outbreaks are happening, and adopting a border restriction is a visible policy that people think works,” Worsnop said.

Enacting such a ban would go directly against the recommendation of the WHO, which has said countries must inform the organization of any travel restrictions they put in place.

“Adopting these restrictions undermines the cooperative approach we need to respond to this kind of outbreak, specifically by undermining the authority of the WHO, which has recommended against these restrictions,” Worsnop said.

Worsnop said she is hopeful that the WHO will be able to hold countries accountable for disregarding its guidance, including pressing countries for scientific justification for their travel policies and calling out governments that have gone against its recommendations.

“Unfortunately, [governments] face domestic and international pressures, and have faced few costs in the past for not following WHO recommendations,” she said.

Megan Thielking

Reporter

Megan writes about health and medicine, with a focus on mental health.

[email protected]

@meggophone

Lev Facher

Washington Correspondent

Lev Facher covers the politics of health and life sciences.

[email protected]