Booked to go to Amsterdam on 15 to 17th of March. What with everything going on with the Corona virus and it spreading to different countries, Would you chance it yourself ? Do you think it will affect the trade of the girls or do you think Dutch government will shut them down for the safety of the girls and to further stop the spread. I'm only in Ireland and can book again at a later date so not too worried about the loss of money on flights and hotel.

There is no advice to keep away from the Netherlands at the moment. I was there a few days ago and there is absolutely no difference. Similar to the UK even though we have actually had a handful of cases.

Your travel time is also very short and straightforward. I wouldn't change your plans at all but obviously keep track of any issues within the Netherlands in the next couple of weeks before you travel.

I am arriving from the US on Sunday. No concerns at all.

Watching the news would worry anyone.

Just go and enjoy.

In Frankfurt i have seen one person wearing a mask.

I don’t buy into the fear. I’m on another board for Toronto, and the lunatics there are absolutely losing their minds over this thing. There are guys claiming that this was an engineered bioweapon, guys claiming that everyone in the world will get it and we’ll be in this Mad Max world where women are trading sex for food and shelter (because I guess some of these morons think women are wild animals who just wander the streets and have no home of their own), there was one guy a while back claiming that he had an expert source who said we’d have over a million dead by February 20th. One guy was showing sketchy videos supposedly sourced from Wuhan claiming that this was some sort of zombie virus and people were eating each other. It’s all completely absurd.

The media does this every time. There’s always this hype job to create a panic cycle. The media, especially the American media, thrives on panic and conflict. If people are scared, they read articles, and if they read articles, the sites publishing these articles are getting ad revenue. We saw this with SARS, bird flu, swine flu, west nile, ebola, zika... all were supposed to be extremely serious things that were going to cause massive calamities and change the face of the world as we know it. All fell well short of the apocalyptic predictions. Bottom line: the people who actually know who they’re talking about, the WHO, the CDC, various epidemiologists, are all saying more or less the same thing. They’re not particularly concerned about the first world, most developed countries have plans in place, the virus does not seem to be as contagious as the media is claiming (it is not airborne, it is spread through droplets and only seems to be able to survive on surfaces for a short time), and that the overall mortality rate is quite low. The vast majority who have died thus far were elderly and/or had other health problems. For people with no major health conditions under the age of 60, the mortality rate seems to be about 0.2%.

Frankly, I’m far more concerned about someone doing something tragic and awful because of all this irresponsible fearmongering. The odds that this thing will kill me are slim to nil. The odds that some jackass will fly off the handle and do something crazy are essentially a certainty the longer this artificially-driven panic continues.

I think the absolute worst case scenario is the possibility of a flight being cancelled, or possibly being put into temporary quarantine if you’re displaying flu-like symptoms, and even those are pretty unlikely.

I agree with the last post. Remember 2 or 3 years ago when the North Korea guy was going to nuke LA? In my opinion, whoever is in on this, these monsters have meetings to conjure up the new "crises of the month" and before the ball starts rolling, they short the stock market and are making untold millions moving numbers around a computer. Im going to Amsterdam middle of March and visit my lady friends.

Bollocks to Corona Virus

Go & enjoy, doesnt worry me one bit

regards

You should be fine , unless you are old or have a compromised system. Probably most people in urban areas will get the Corona virus , some will have it and never know.

There are worse things in Amsterdam to get you , you might get get hit with a car and fall in a canal and drown.

I’m not even sure that most people will get it. The numbers we’re seeing currently seem high, but there are 7.5 billion people on earth, it’s a drop in the bucket. We’re not currently seeing an exponential spread, in fact in many areas, there are less new cases week by week. There were outbreaks in South Korea and Italy, of course, though those seem to be being contained fairly effectively. China has been seeing far fewer new cases. There is the outbreak in Iran, but that’s more due to the incompetence of their government and general lack of infrastructure, and poor sanitation. Things might get a bit dicey in the U.S. because many people there don’t have paid sick days, have no savings, and have no or insufficient insurance, coupled with the fact that Colonel Clusterfuck is telling people they can go to work if they have the virus.

I think in other developed countries, though, there are pretty sophisticated healthcare systems with procedures in place. Many countries learned a lot from the SARS outbreak, agencies were formed and protocols were drafted just to deal with exactly this sort of situation. There’s also the fact that this virus is an enveloped virus which typically tend to be quite vulnerable to heat. I know Trump got a lot of mockery for claiming that once spring rolls around, the virus will be finished, and that mockery is deserved, because that’s a gross oversimplification, but anecdotally, we’ve seen that the virus doesn’t seem to spread well in hot, tropical climates like Thailand. Warmer temperatures likely won’t end the outbreaks entirely, it could still spread through droplets, but it does mean that the virus won’t be able to live as long on surfaces (and its lifespan on surfaces already appears relatively short), which should significantly limit its ability to spread. We also haven’t seen any cases in Africa yet and very few in South America and Australia, which further lends credibility to this theory.

I think there are a lot of very smart people (who unfortunately in many cases work for very dumb people) who have been preparing for something like this for decades. I think most developed nations are far better prepared than the media would have you believe (because obviously that’s not very sexy and won’t generate clicks). I think if you live in a developed nation, there’s very little risk to the average citizen, and even in areas where there have been outbreaks, I think if you’re under 60 and in reasonably good health, you have very little to worry about.

Window girls don’t really think you’re super handsome, there’s no treasure on Oak Island, and the Coronavirus isn’t going to kill you.

I had booked a trip to Ams, De Wallen, RLD, 17-20 Mars.

I just cancelled it. Flight, hotel, buss.

The infected numbers are exploding, every day both in the Netherlands and in my country. When this thread was started there was 0 cases in Netherlands, yesterday there were 128 and 1 dead. I'm surprised if the authorities in Amsterdam don't shut down De Wallen soon temporarily.

I just didn't want to be stuck there in an expensive hotel with no girls.... waste of money.

Also in these times you should stay away from crowds and airports.... just better to stay at home for now and visit another time when it gets better.

I just want to point out, the vast majority of cases in the Netherlands were contracted in Italy most likely (it’s a common vacation spot for Dutch tourists), only 2 cases are confirmed in Amsterdam currently, and the patient who died was in his 80s and already in poor health. I wouldn’t call it an “explosion” yet, it seems more like there were a bunch of Dutch tourists in Italy who likely arrived before the outbreak there happened and they brought it back with them. Almost all of the confirmed cases can be traced back to this source, and all current cases are accounted for and in isolation.

Not trying to downplay things or anything, just trying to keep things in perspective. 128 cases still is not a lot of people and is still at a point where it’s easily containable. Now personally, I wouldn’t book a trip there now (though if I’d already had a trip booked, I’d still go), but that’s just because of the very real possibility that my flight could be cancelled, or that travel in general could be restricted. I’m not worried about the virus at this point, I’m worried about taking a hit on a cancelled ticket. That and the fact that the Euro’s shot up like 8 cents to the Canadian dollar in the past couple weeks. I still plan to go probably in October or November, I’m just going to wait and monitor the situation before I book. Kinda sucks because it’ll cost more to book closer to the date, but probably worth it.

I have a trip to Germany via Amsterdam planned for May and I am not reconsidering but rather thinking about upgrade opportunities. The exchange rate sucks but I can afford that.

I've got a trip book for the end of April and will be going to the Formula 1 motor racing so big crowds, But I'm not overly concerned.
The media would have you believe the world's about to end. Some people in the UK seem to have lost there minds, people are panic buying toilet rolls. I've been in two different supermarket's this weekend and they'd sold out of toilet rolls, Lol....

I have a fancy Japanese toilet with a bidet and an air dryer. Joke’s on them!

Greetings Micers - have a trip planned the week of the 15th, spanning St. Paddy’s and Champions League ties, but have been debating. After consulting with the owner of Society Service - so good if you want to spend the $$$ - who gave me the most rational response that says business continues in A’dam, I am planning to go still. I have the travel insurance so can change anytime, but as someone who travels to odd places for a living, no flu +++ is going to put me off (although I will be seriously put out of some overzealous TSA or Airline decisión screws me getting home after).

https://www.societyservice.com/blog/cor ... rtservice/

Nellie

Each person has to answer for himself.

I'm cautious because I'm 60+, had a serious smoking-related cancer, and it takes me about a day or two to adjust to even travel 6 time zones under normal trips to Amsterdam---my body defenses and GI system really get beat up by airplanes and the physical toll of traveling on my own, etc.

If you're young and healthy, I think you'll be fine.

Enjoy. And report back on the scene and zeitgeist.

Trams. Watch out for Trams. They love to sneak up behind you (from the British perspective).

The reason this virus has and will continue to spread rapidly is partly because of people thinking "I'm safe I'm young" or something similar. Young healthy people may not die from the virus, but they can certainly help spread it.
IMO, if people don't start taking this way more seriously we will see this spread in a big way.
Please think not only of yourselves, but also of the people in higher risk groups that you could easily infect if you happen to get it, your parents, grandparents etc.
Better to be scared and healthy than to be brave and sick!

It’s not that simple, though. Yes, we shouldn’t be cavalier, be cautious, follow the advice of the WHO and other medical professionals, wash your hands, all that stuff, but there’s a balance that needs to be struck. The director of the WHO said that the stigma is far more dangerous than the disease and he’s absolutely right. We’ve already seen idiots buying up things they don’t need (toilet paper, masks, other supplies). We’ve seen massive economic consequences from the irrational panic the media has been spreading. There was an incident aboard a plane recently where several passengers had to be restrained because they attempted to assault an Asian passenger who was coughing. Fear is not helpful. When people are afraid, they are irrational, and irrational people are dangerous.

Absolutely we need to be cognizant about not spreading the virus, but we also need to be very careful not to incite a full-on panic. We live in a global world, we can’t stop people from travelling, and even if we did, we can’t shut down global trade. Bottom line: while this certainly isn’t nothing, we can’t shut the entire world down over a virus that’s killed fewer people than have died from Influenza in the same time period in the U.S. alone. Destroying the entire world’s economy, not to mention all the other fallout caused by the panic this thing is evoking will negatively affect far more people and probably in a far more significant way. Again, perspective is very important here.

Op here, I've decided I'm going to to give the trip a miss. I know I've as much chance as getting it at home as I do in Amsterdam but to be honest I just don't feel like going. The excitement I would normally have a few days before going just isn't there for me. I will live to monger another day and when all this is over it will be all the better. Kudos to anyone traveling in the next while and have some fun for me.