Bitcoin Forum

What are the main problems that may arise if all countries close (or almost close) their borders for 1-2 years or more?

Fortunately, it cannot be said that some kind of isolation is felt now, because we can easily call (Skype) a person who lives in another country.
But what problems can arise?

There won't be a problem for countries; there will be problems for people wanting to immigrate. The argument people make for open borders is that open boarders should exist to promote free exchange of labor meaning unrestricted job access. This pandemic is a clear example of why unrestricted immigration is an issue.  Immigration from India to the U.S. is the most classic example of immigration screening based on specialized skills and this is the reason you see jobs in silicon valley dominated by Indians along with other technology sectors. If the U.S. has an abysmal unemployment rate, it's in their best interest to limit immigration to ensure U.S. citizens don't have a further competitive job market.

Most likely, this life will resemble life in the Soviet Union during the Iron Curtain. Many people can no longer withstand the restrictions on movement, although not much time has passed. If this regime continues for a year or more, many people will simply go crazy.

I don't even think that border closure is going to be an issue when discussing the problem of people feeling isolated from one another. The real issue is social distancing and mandatory quarantine -- that's the culprit in the dilemma you've drawn up. I support social distancing and quarantine though, people should stay away from one another to ensure that we're done with this virus ASAP instead of prolonging this and killing more people in the process.


Ugh -- what? The US isn't a country that is restricing the news, social media, etc. You're still going to be able to know what is going on in the world and be able to connect with people online. It's a different world but it's only for a little while and we'll be able to recover if we all do our part.

I misspelled it. In my opinion, every person needs freedom of movement per se without any restrictions and if a person is deprived of this freedom for a long time it can cause many psychological diseases. Neither Internet, nor TV could yet replace a trip to the sea or a rest in a medical and preventive sanatorium.

People are used to freedom already and suddenly this isolation to each other will really lead to insanity.  Border closure has this affect too.
Right now I am only talking to this indoor plant I have. It started yesterday but its only reply was shhhss everytime the wind blows. Give it another week I may be able to post videos here while twerking.

Hope to really return to normal. I don't mind not having a bullrun as long as things normalize. would you AGREE?  ;D

What about the import and export? If borders are closed then imagine the life living in a country like North Korea.

They may stop immigrants into ther country which give issues related to employment, tax, tourism,...

It makes sense that once the spread of the virus is under control in an area that barriers are then established to isolate that area. In practice this is simplest at a national level, because we have national governments. Nations with a federal structure, US for example, can perhaps do so at the state level. In certain cases, and dependent on local geography and politics, these areas can then later be widened, thinking about a single Australia/New Zealand zone for example.

But closing of borders doesn't have to mean no entry, it can - and likely will - just mean quarantining. Any people coming in from an area where the virus is still rampant will need to be quarantined for a period of time (a couple of weeks is I think what China is using) to ensure they are virus-free when they enter. For goods/produce coming in from abroad, there will likely be strict decontamination procedures.

Border closure seems prudent to me. It may cause delays in physical cross-border business, it may severely hamper the transport of perishable goods (especially foodstuffs and certain medicines), and it will likely mean huge reductions in international travel of people, but in the absence of both a vaccine and - crucially - the capability and willingness to administer such a vaccine globally, then border restrictions are an obvious and sound defensive strategy.

So long as some part of the world has the virus, everyone is vulnerable. We all need to work together. Whilst there is always huge opposition to any idea of supranational governance (hello the EU), those concerns now need to be put aside. It has been demonstrated many times that we will not work together out of any sense of moral duty or compassion to less fortunate nations, but we now find ourselves in the strange situation of being compelled to work together out of basic self-interest.

Banning all flights and vehicles in times of pandemic prevents spreading of the virus but it will also isolate all outside help for example if some country has medical kits to donate they would not be able to deliver especially if the virus gets prolonged to 1-2 years and still vaccine still hasn't been created it would damage a country's economy.

If you feel that you are starting to go crazy in self-insulation, try to communicate more with relatives or friends on Skype. This way you can distract yourself from the thought of loneliness and remember that we are all in the same boat now and sooner or later it will end.

I don't think there will be any problems, as long as the products and services can cross borders. Personally I have my family spread over two continents and 4 countries, some I haven't been able to see for years for different reasons, and that doesn't make me crazy or depressed.

this is the proposed plan.

so to put it into example.
if your thinking of go from UK to disneyland paris and fee you will be free to walk around and mingle and join the queues to go on the rides... FORGET IT
however if you want an all inclusive holiday staying on the compound of a hotel. maybe

but generally dont expect to be able to go abroad and roam free for a 2 week vacation
so dont hope for much tourism unless hotels start to provide 'lock-in all inclusive' holiday packages


many sports like football(soccer) are planning to instead of having international game where people dot about into different places each day. they do all european football matches in one country where the football players stay in the neighbouring hotel for the duration of the season. to avoid racing around different countries
yep as far back as 2012 they planned to have 12 nations hosting euro 2020 but now the plan seems to be more likely to be one nation hosting all matches

Ah, this is about freedom of movement instead of just the physical borders. Got it, just wanted to make sure that that is what you were talking about here.

I think this is an extraordinary circumstance where it does make a good deal of sense to deal with these temporary restrictions to ensure the health of everyone in the society. I know that many aren't going to agree with this, and people do think that government is going to grow in power b/c of this (I agree with that) -- but I'd rather have to stay inside for a bit longer rather then have more people die. But that's just me, I know many are going to disagree.

Border closures is real drama!
There are lots of people like me who are nomads, and who travel all the time.
I've been staying in the same f*cking country for nearly 3 months, that hadn't happened to me for more than 15 years!

Besides, I own 2 houses in 2 different countries where I can't travel to, because they've closed their borders...

Sad times.

imagine wanting just a 2 week vacation but being told you will have to remain in the destination countries hotel room for 2 weeks and no touring the area

what i see is that flights will still go.
thus 'legally' the borders be open.

but even if the planes still fly and the airports are open..
the destination restricts movement when you get there, thus ruining your vacation if you did go.
thus forcing people to cancel their flights at their own cost because its not the airlines fault

i have totally written off this whole year of travel.

It's pretty easy to imagine. I'm in a small studio where I was supposed to stay only a month, but I've been there more 3 months. I can't go to my houses, I can't visit my girlfriend, and she can't visit me. So border closures are really painful...

Guys, there's one thing I don't understand. If almost all borders are closed, who are all these flights carrying https://flightaware.com/live? It's not like they're gonna fly empty and burn fuel for nothing.

Majority of the countries relies to other countries for their basic needs like oil, rice and flour, countries will suffer if the border and the trade in are close, of course some big city also relies revenues coming from tourist, so it's going to be a big blow for them if every country close their borders, we cannot last this long, because we need each other help.

Its the worst for those that survive from tourism, but for the rest its usually just people that get denied entry. Fuel and foods will continue moving across most borders, and those will probably be subjected to cleaning and quarantine measures.

For the most part i think countries that start relaxing their forced isolation, will start doing it while leaving their borders closed. And when they start relaxing border closures, they will probably deny people coming from the countries with the most cases where the virus is out of control ie: USA.

World economy is of course hurt the worst and its reflected in the markets. In the meantime bitcoin is performing fine as expected.

The Global economy relies a lot at exports.
And the tourism industry is one of those that are going to suffer the most if the borders are going to close. 1-2 years are already too much. There are so many countries that have a huge portion of their GDP based on the tourism sector.

the reason for reliance on imports and not making their own is political
governments charging licences/tarrifs/taxes for making locally. but awarding credits for not producing

take UK. when in the EU the UK was forced to limit its farming/fishing production because of EU quotas. where it would punish people for making more. but award farmers for not farming and instead doing other stuff.
if you owned farmland. that had a quota of 200 cattle. and you only had 10. you would get rewarded with 190 so that another farm can have more then their quota by paying the cost for the extra

these quota's are a currency in of itself. people buy(fined) or sell(rewarded) their quotas

this is all about not having abundant supply so that they can have an increased demand and cause commodities prices to rise.
its all about limiting production so that wall street can make profits.
its not about not having the physical lack of capability. there is enough land. there are enough unemployed people looking for a job. its just when a farmer earns less than the cost of rearing cows. and gets fined for raising more cows than allowed. but gets compensated if he has less cows than allowed. meaning he earns more for having less produce..
which is the cause of less local produce

the EU buys quotas so that the EU can produce more while the UK produces less

if farmers are allowed to just farm and produce as much meat as they like and sell it at the value of its cost. then farmers would not need to convert to 'airbnb' hospitality to survive. and grocery stores would not have to rely on imported meats

Pretty sure a good amount of federal money (In the US) being given to the airline industry is contingent on them not cancelling mass amounts of flights. That's not to say they're not allowed to cancel flights at all, because they are allowed to do so, but they can't cancel flights without following the guidelines that they've accepted when they're taking large amounts of payroll grants from the treasury.

Here ya go - https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-airlines-bailout-empty-flights-requirement-2020-4

Take a read.

the ghost flights is not about the bailout. but about keeping their 'slots' reserved. as they cost millions if lost.
they WERE told that unless they fly X% of flights they will lose the slots
but then the WHO declared pandemic and the aviation authority relaxed the ghost flight requirement.

..
separately although flightcrew are paid 'payroll grants' the airline still has to pay terminal fee's and plane parking charges. which are not covered be any government grants.
meaning airlines are stil losing money just for having planes parked up

in the UK both BA and Virgin flights want to stop using gatwick airport because gatwick are excessively charging them fee's just to park up the planes and have a ticketbooth at the terminal

but because many of the flight captains and cabin crew have homes in the gatwick area, its easier to sack the gatwick crews and instead employ more crew at other airports that are not over charging.
most of the job losses is baggage handlers, ticket staff, and those who are based in the terminal.
only a few in comparison are actual flight crew(only ones that live in that area)

Things are getting a bit better, I shall try to cross 2 borders within the next few days. I just hope everything will go smoothly, because as of today I'm getting information that I won't be able to return. Very difficult times for travelers like me...

Maybe just wait?

Yes, thanks for advice, I've been waiting quite a lot already, but I shall wait a bit more, as I'm getting contradictory information about a border I had plan to cross (I'm in western Europe, traveling by car). Besides, I'm still separated from my girlfriend who's in Russia. They don't let any foreigners in, and she can't visit me...

Russia is sealed off due to Covid?

Well, Russia doesn't accept any foreigner in, so I can't travel to meet her, while I'm in the EU which doesn't accept people from outside the Shenghen area. So we both can travel to each other's place. We've met in Latvia before, but it's closed to foreigners at this time, so there are no easy solutions...

What a mess.

Main problem here are the people who are working abroad as their main source of income. If they cannot go back to their work abroad, then that's going to be a big big issue.

People who are working abroad are allowed to travel, but it's quite difficult without plane flights.
Though, my friend travelled to Germany by feryy, then by car to Netherlands. And he didn't even had to spend 14 in quarantine - he started to work next day after arrival.
Obviously, borders aren't closed for important and export - it would cause complete collapse of economy which is already hurt seriously. Trucks with good are moving as usual between countries as usual.
Closed borders now mainly affect tourism sector - airline companies, tourism agencies, hotels and etc.

I don't think there will be total closure as the economy will really fall down like very hard. There are still transport of important goods across the borders. If they will not permit such movement of goods, many will really starve as there are a lot of areas that are depending on the supply from other regions and vice versa. Prolonged border closure is not the solution on this pandemic. With the progress on the vaccine trial done by Moderna, I think we are in the direction of slowly opening the economic trade.

https://www.businessinsider.com/moderna-coronavirus-vaccine-releases-first-human-trial-results-2020-5