Shipments From Europe?

Does the President's ban on flights from Europe affect merchandise as well? Assume it does. Hopefully ebay will post clarification soon.

I've posted elsewhere on this, a supplier was sent a supply order two weeks ago. DHL tracking has been showing not shipped all that time, it looks that the seller notified DHL to expect the shipment and that's where it's been all this time. Seller won't respond to requests for clarification. Probably they fear people will want refunds on affected shipments.

Sounded like it. I don't think it will effect international mails. International shippers like: DHL, Fed Ex, UPS, may be another matter. It all depends on how the directive reads. I suggest checking US Customs or Homeland Security for updates.

Update:

"Trump also appeared to correct himself on a ban on cargo. In his speech he said, "There will be exemptions for Americans who have undergone appropriate screenings and these prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo, but various other things as we get approval. "

A few minutes ago, the President tweeted, "...please remember, very important for all countries & businesses to know that trade will in no way be affected by the 30-day restriction on travel from Europe. The restriction stops people not goods."

Travel ban is for people not mail.

Europe has "failed to take the same precautions as the US" to deal with this "foreign virus". True in an odd way, of course ... I suspect the trade/cargo ban was something else that the White House really, really wanted, but felt obliged to row back on.

In my opinion it is not odd. As of March 11, the EU has a total reported 15,769 confirmed cases, the US has a total of 696 confirmed cases. (Source statista.com).

The villain here is China when they refuse to acknowledge the problem and cooperate with the WHO and the rest of the world. There was an opportunity to contain this to the Wuhan region but the Chinese were too busy forcing the doctor who first reported it to sign documents saying he was wrong for sounding an alarm. Then there was the missed opportunity for the Chinese to share the early DNA samples of the virus with WHO and the rest of the world so researchers could get started on tests and vaccines.
Don

Excuse me, my friend ... but the world is shaking ... the coronavirus is a plague ... and you are worried about news from ebay? For the business? Is that the important matter?
Kind regards from Spain
Eduardo

Of course, in the US, there were apparently only eight tests done yesterday (CNN) and a total of 8550 tests dome as of 9 March. In only seven countries of Europe, about 115,000 tests had been done (worldometer.info). So my confidence in the number of US cases is not high.

The facts are actually different, as of yesterday over 11,000 people have been tested in US. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/201...g-in-us.html
I would recommend not getting your 'news' from CNN (which of course leads with 'only 8 test done yesterday). The CDC is handing off the majority of the testing to public health labs and there is a lag with gathering the numbers from the large amount of labs across USA.


‡ Data during this period are pending.

In my opinion, the media (all media no matter which 'political side' it is on) no longer delivers the news. Void of any objective content, rather than 'inform us' they strive to 'affirm us' (depending upon your political leaning). In other words, the majority of the media content has spin played to their target audience. I also think that the media vets very little in this day and age, in the crush to be 'first' with 'breaking news' and to fill the 24/7 news cycle the reporters and editors often just push the content without proper verification.
Luckily the internet allows us to by-pass the spin filled media and go directly to the source (in the case of how many tests in the US it is the CDC).
Don

Eduardo, I posted about the specific issue of the status of shipping on a purchase. That does not mean I am indifferent to what the world, including Spain, is going through right now. That does not IMO make me selfish.

I wish you well.

Yes, Don, I agree that CNN is not the most reliable of sources. Someone once said that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

South Korea tests more people every single day than the US has in total to date, and as a result their number of new cases has been declining steadily. The lack of testing, both early in the cycle and continuing today, means the US will probably be facing a situation similar to Italy's - overflowing hospitals, total lockdown of society - within weeks. I do think the panic is probably a bit overdone, but people who dismiss it utterly aren't being real, either. The mortality rate could actually be similar to the 1918 flu (which was about 2-3%) which killed hundreds of thousands in the US alone. Medical professionals' current best guess is that this is around 1%, which means it probably won't be quite as bad as 1918, but still bad enough if a large percentage of the population ends up infected, which is likely at this point. And of course mortality is much higher among the elderly or those with other health problems (including obesity, for example).

The horse has left the barn, it doesn't matter which or how many barn doors you shut now. Patching more screen doors on the submarine won't help much, either.

There is no comparison to the 1918 flu. There were no antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections. Personal hygiene was at best severely lacking. Hand sanitizers were non-existent. There was no internet to connect people and provide data, guidance and information. There were no health departments/agencies in every area of the United States. There were no vaccines period. Testing kits? Not a chance. There are legion other differences but the point is that a comparison is very ill advised.

Of course the inevitable finger pointing and blame game are still alive and well and partisan politics cannot take a break. In fact some will and do see what could be a human tragedy, if you are affected by Covid-19, as an opportunity to score political points and stuff spending bills with pork and ideological driven program funding along with a few laws sprinkled in.

Constructive criticism is fine and healthy. Using a pandemic to score ideologic points is just plain reprehensible.

Edit: Doubtless there are some that will actually be disappointed if the response to the virus is effective. Heck, some entertainment/talking head types and "news" orinizations were rooting for a recession not long ago pre-virus. Good times.

Indeed, this is partly why medical pros think the true mortality rate will be more like 1% vs the 2-3% for the 1918 flu. Had this same virus been around in 1918, the mortality rate probably would have been similar, although different demographics would have been hit. The 1918 flu hit adults in their prime particularly hard, this time around healthy young and middle aged adults probably don't have much to worry about. The worst part about the current coronavirus is that it is very contagious, and people can be spreading it for days before they're even aware they have it. Other recent deadly outbreaks, such as SARS or MERS, although deadlier to a higher percentage of people, weren't contagious until a person was already showing symptoms so they were easier to isolate and thus stop the spread.

For what it's worth, Italy has been seeing a 6% mortality rate (850-ish deaths among about 10,000 confirmed cases). I haven't heard anyone saying worldwide mortality will be that high, but we really won't know for months yet.

As much as people want this to blow over, we are only at the beginning of this - we've probably got a minimum 2-3 months, probably more, before it dies down. In the meantime, even if you're someone with little to worry about, it's best to be cautious because you could still spread it to someone for whom it could be fatal.

Personally, I don't care where it came from or who's to blame. What matters is what happens going forward.

In early stages of this kind of thing, the mortality rate is typically biased towards a higher rate. This is because the early numbers are missing a significant amount of people who have gotten it, recovered, and never reported anything. I concur with Artful, it is now appearing that some people can get it and be asymptomatic. But without the population of folks who do not report, the early mortality rates are higher then it really is.
Don

I do care where it came from and who is to blame, China to be exact. China's behavior and actions led us directly to where we are now. It serves no purpose to ignore that fact other than perhaps to be politically correct or to avoid being called a xenophobe which is just plain ridiculous. We need to learn from this. Hopefully one change will be to our supply chains and reliance on China for critical prescription drugs and their ingredients amongst so many other critical items, which by the way China's Communist Party threatened to cut us off from just last week.

This was echoed last week by Xinhua, Beijing's official news service and mouthpiece. After asking the world for an apology for putting an onus on China over Wuhan virus, the media organ warned, "If China retaliates against the United States at this time, in addition to announcing a travel ban on the United States, it will also announce strategic control over medical products and ban exports to the United States."
"If China announces that its drugs are for domestic use and bans exports, the United States will fall into the hell of a new coronavirus epidemic," Xinhua continued.