CaliforniaSunshine wrote:
An explanation as to how US tourism decision was reached.
https://ticotimes.net/2020/08/26/visit- ... s-touristsThanks for the reference. Finally at least a semblance of an explanation! And it turns out to be the one that Zeos surmised in another thread on "coronavirus concern" - namely that they were considering cases per million people (or cases per 100K people, depending on how you want to count). I'll repeat below what I said in that thread, but updated with today's numbers:
If you're going to use new cases per million people as the primary criteria for entry, then compare Costa Rica's numbers to the US numbers. As of the time of this posting, the latest reported daily new cases in Costa Rica were 1002 (and rising). Costa Rica has a population of about 5.1 million people. So that works out to about 196 cases per million people. (Or 19.6 per 100K, if you're counting that way.)
By that yardstick, 44 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are now in better shape than Costa Rica. Only 6 states have higher incidence: Mississippi (288), North Dakota (271), Georgia (231), Tennessee (203), Alabama (200), and Iowa (199).
With a positivity rate exceeding 40% at present, Costa Rica's real numbers are likely much worse (i.e., much higher than 200 per million), and it's probable that the entirety of the US is now in better shape than Costa Rica when it comes to coronavirus - at least by this yardstick.
References for this data:
https://delfino.cr/2020/03/covid-19-en-costa-rica and
https://covidactnow.orgEven though Costa Rica may reopen, the real limiting factor in tourists coming back may not be the restrictions on states, the insurance costs, or the ability to get PCR test results within 48 hours of take-off. The real limiting factor may be that Costa Rica's infection rate may be so high as to keep folks from going there (and possibly encountering quarantine on return). Costa Rica's numbers are presently on the rise and not looking good at all. And this cannot be logically blamed on tourists as tourists have been locked out while these cases have risen internally.
I wish the news was better - and it will be someday. But at present it looks, unfortunately, like Costa Rica is now going to take its turn at being a "coronavirus hot spot".
P.S.: If you view the Costa Rica data at the website
https://delfino.cr/2020/03/covid-19-en-costa-rica, I recommend that you not use the Firefox web browser. I don't know why, but for some reason the graphs do not display. I have found that for me the site works fine and the graphs are visible using Edge or Chrome.