SENATE BILL: Extending Quarantines for New Arrivals Act (Passed)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

SENATE BILL

To extend the legal quarantine requirements

Be it enacted in both Houses of Congress Assembled,

1. This bill may be referred to as the "Extending quarantines for new arrivals Act"

2. All new international arrivals to the Republic of Atlasia shall submit upon arrival a quarantine plan for a length no shorter than 14 days. If this plan is judged to be non-viable by immigration and healthcare authorities, the new arrivals shall be forced to stay 14 days in quarantine in government controlled facilities. If the plan is judged as viable, the new arrivals shall stay for 14 days in their designed quarantine spot.

3. Congress shall, before January 1st, 2021, open a vote on whether to extend this legal quarantine requirement. The vote shall be a simple 'Aye' or 'Nay' on the extension. If Aye receives a majority in both houses of Congress then Congress shall be able to decide on the length of the extension. If no extension is specified before the end of the current length, it shall be assumed to be a 3 month extension lasting until June 30th, 2021. If the extension fails to get Congressonal approval, or if no congressional vote takes place, the legal requirement shall end on March 31st, 2021; unless Congress specifies another date.

4. The Atlasian federal government shall have the power to rent hotel space for these quarantines for new arrivals, in cases where the arrivals have no alternative venue to stay in or where the quarantine plan as specified in point 2 is judged as non viable

5. This bill shall become enacted immediately after passage

[/quote]

Sponsor: Tack for the President
Senate Designation: SB24:10

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Okay, initial debate/sponsor advocacy time.

[Former President tack50]

Ok I am introducing this bill on behalf of President Pericles after a private conversation with him.

Basically this bill would extend the quarantine period for new arrivals until March of 2021, giving Congress the option to extend it further.

I do think a date of March 2021 is rather excessive for stopping the quarantine requirement (irl my own government is planning to drop it starting in July) but that was the date I was told to introduce by the President I belive (and if not he is free to correct me )

In any case I think our initial bill on this is due to expire soon so it is probably a good idea to extend this. Another option could be to just give the president the power to extend it via executive order.

[YE]

Just test everyone.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Just test everyone.

Do we have capacity for that in game?

[YE]

Just test everyone.

Do we have capacity for that in game?

That depends just because there are so many variables to this but irl Austria, Iceland, and South Kore have done this so it’s not far fetched. The variables depend on our testing capacity, how many tests the general population needs (which depends on how successful containment is post-lockdown because even if community spread is low, there will clusters that encounter spikes even though I’m skeptical that they’ll be a second wave), and how many tourists are coming and from where. I think it’s unreasonable to expect tourism to instantly (to give an IRL example, travel to China is still well below normal even though they seem to have legitimately contained the virus).

Also why all the way till the end of the year? What if Oxford has a vaccine by September as they believe is possible (assuming that’d apply in game)?
 

[Pericles]

Testing and tracing are essential, but alone they're not enough. That's the basic idea behind this-if we can't keep the case counts down then our testing and tracing system will soon be overwhelmed. I'm not sure how much capacity we will have anyway, I expect a GM update on this soon.

Anyway, I'm open to arguments for ending it on January 1, 2021 but my preference is March 31. This is because we are more likely to have a vaccine by then, and because on January 1 we might either be in the middle of or about to experience a second wave of the virus. It's pretty unrealistic I think to expect a vaccine this year, it's supposed to be a minimum of 12-18 months before we get one if everything goes right and even that would be pretty unprecedented. If there is a miracle Congress would presumably end it early, I just really fear a scenario where the requirements end prematurely due to congressional inactivity or gridlock. I think the vote on extending the requirements should be scheduled for something more like 2 weeks before the scheduled end as we did with the stimulus, so we are reasonably confident in how things will be by the time of the deadline.

[Former President tack50]

 I know the US are behind Europe in this, but I would expect an August or September stop to be more than enough?

[thumb21]

Its worth pointing out for the sake of this debate that in the first coronavirus bill that we passed, the aim of setting up testing near ports of entry was already prioritised. So ideally, any arrivals would go to one of these testing facilities near their port of entry, get tested, self isolate and if their results are negative, they can leave.

[Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God]

I don't really see why testing and tracing aren't sufficient.  If a person is COVID-free, they should be allowed to move unencumbered.

But if quarantine in government facilities is absolutely necessary, I would hope that we are adequately funding them so that the new arrivals have access to food and decent living standards.  Has this been addressed by prior legislation?  (We've passed so many COVID bills that I've lost track. )

[Esteemed Jimmy]

I'm undecided about this bill at this time.

[YE]

Testing and tracing are essential, but alone they're not enough. That's the basic idea behind this-if we can't keep the case counts down then our testing and tracing system will soon be overwhelmed. I'm not sure how much capacity we will have anyway, I expect a GM update on this soon.

Anyway, I'm open to arguments for ending it on January 1, 2021 but my preference is March 31. This is because we are more likely to have a vaccine by then, and because on January 1 we might either be in the middle of or about to experience a second wave of the virus. It's pretty unrealistic I think to expect a vaccine this year, it's supposed to be a minimum of 12-18 months before we get one if everything goes right and even that would be pretty unprecedented. If there is a miracle Congress would presumably end it early, I just really fear a scenario where the requirements end prematurely due to congressional inactivity or gridlock. I think the vote on extending the requirements should be scheduled for something more like 2 weeks before the scheduled end as we did with the stimulus, so we are reasonably confident in how things will be by the time of the deadline.

As virus cases nationwide go down (which I'm assuming they are), there's less of a demand for in nation tests. Therefore, it is likely that we'll have more resources to test people at points of entry, especially as testing capacity (I'm assuming because I don't see why it'd drop) continues to increase. Until proven otherwise on both those fronts, I don't see why we can't just test everyone.

It is also my belief that there won't be a second wave in the same sense that there was the 1918 influezena just because this virus doesn't appear to be particularly seasonal. That doesn't mean there won't be intermittent flare ups after reopening (because that is certain) which hopefully we'll be able to containt without shutting too many things down ala a SK (which is why it's so important such testing system doesn't get overwhelmed).

As for the timing of the vaccine, the notion of a 12-18 month timeframe comes from Dr. Fauci IRL back in March and fWIW it probably shouldn't be taken as gospel. I doubt they'll be a vaccine by September but with something like 70 vaccine candidates IRL, I wouldn't be surprised if we had one by early January. Though it's also possible we may never have a vaccine for this and regular tests become the new normal (which is a bit of a doomer situation) as we've never developed a coronavirus vaccine before. But honestly this is something that at least IRL shouldn't be regulated that far in advance just because of how many variables there are.

[YE]

After some thought, the real solution here is to tie mandatory quarantines to testing capacity tbh.

[Deep Dixieland Senator, Muad'dib (OSR MSR)]

The great nation of Australia has a similar policy and are trending toward being Covid-19 free. This is a good bill to ensure the safety of the nation.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

After some thought, the real solution here is to tie mandatory quarantines to testing capacity tbh.

So then we need testing benchmarks for certain levels and extent of quarantine. How will those be determined?

[Pericles]

Well if you really insist I'm ok having it be until the end of the year. But I think we need this in the short-term and it's too big of a risk to take to neglect from putting these requirements in asap. We can't just make positive assumptions and count on those being accurate, many countries have suffered greatly already due to that attitude.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Well if you really insist I'm ok having it be until the end of the year. But I think we need this in the short-term and it's too big of a risk to take to neglect from putting these requirements in asap. We can't just make positive assumptions and count on those being accurate, many countries have suffered greatly already due to that attitude.

Indeed, we cannot become victims of wishful thinking here.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Is there an amendment coming forward on the testing capacity aspect? I am concerned about a covid bill languishing without action, all the previous ones were treated with a level of urgency and while it is not my desire to bum rush people's concerns, I do need some consistent movement towards the end goal.

[Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God]

If there's not a formula in mind, it might be easiest to give immigration authorities the power to quarantine new migrants if it is determined by the CDC/Health Department that not enough testing kits are available.

[At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder]

If there's not a formula in mind, it might be easiest to give immigration authorities the power to quarantine new migrants if it is determined by the CDC/Health Department that not enough testing kits are available.

I think this idea would be preferable for executing this policy if we must quarantine new arrivals.

As for the quarantining itself, I feel like it's too late for it to help the situation here in Atlasia since the virus has already spread throughout the country and would not be worth the damage to our economy to not allow travel into the country.

What works for New Zealand and Australia is not going to work as ideally as expected in a country like ours which isn't on an island that can easily be quarantined.

[YE]

After some thought, the real solution here is to tie mandatory quarantines to testing capacity tbh.

So then we need testing benchmarks for certain levels and extent of quarantine. How will those be determined?

Leaving them up the GM might be the simplest solution but I don't want to create more work for Lumine.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

So how do we put it into the bill text then?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

So how do we put it into the bill text then?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

We either need some answers on how to achieve the solutions requested or we need to move forward. This is the longest a covid bill has languished and most of the time it has been in silence.

[Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God]

Alright, with the election wrapped up let's try to get this done.  Here's my proposal:

SENATE BILL

To extend the legal quarantine requirements

Be it enacted in both Houses of Congress Assembled,

1. This bill may be referred to as the "Extending quarantines for new arrivals Act"

2. All new international arrivals to the Republic of Atlasia must consent to a COVID-19 test.  Those who receive a positive diagnosis for COVID-19 shall be placed under mandatory quarantine for no shorter than 14 days.  If it is determined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that an insufficient number of testing supplies are available, new arrivals shall be forced to stay 14 days in quarantine in government-controlled facilities or until such time as testing might be available, on a first-come-first-served basis.

3. Congress shall, before January 1st, 2021, open a vote on whether to extend this legal quarantine requirement. The vote shall be a simple 'Aye' or 'Nay' on the extension.  If Aye receives a majority in both houses of Congress then Congress shall be able to decide on the length of the extension.  If no extension is specified before the end of the current length, it shall be assumed to be a 3 month extension lasting until June 30th, 2021.  If the extension fails to get Congressional approval, or if no congressional vote takes place, the legal requirement shall end on March 31st, 2021; unless Congress specifies another date.

4. The Atlasian federal government shall have the power to rent hotel space for these quarantines for new arrivals, in cases where the arrivals have no alternative venue to stay in upon testing positive or where an insufficient number of testing supplies are available.

5. This bill shall become enacted immediately after passage