Airbnb in the time of coronavirus

I am usually a host, but today I am on the other side as a guest.

I am staying in an Airbnb condo (not in China). The condo association has just announced that they will be taking the temperature of each person who enters the building and denying entry to anyone who scores above 37.5 (Celsius).

The gentleman assigned to take temperatures is a nice guy, but is certainly not a doctor. He probably won’t understand/care that a body temperature above 37.5 C is more likely to be caused by the fact that it is 40 C outside than by coronavirus. Again, I am not in China.

Although I am a guest in this case, I look at the situation with the mind of a host.

What should be my response if stopped?

“Tell him yes. Even if you are dying of fear, even if you are sorry later, because whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life if you say no.” (accept being turned away from my bed and my stuff)

“But when a man decides to sleep in his bed, there is no wall he will not scale, no fortress he will not destroy, no moral consideration he will not ignore at its very root: there is no God worth worrying about.” (ignore them and run for the condo door)

“He would defend himself, saying that going to bed, no matter what else it might be, was a natural talent. She would say: You are either born knowing how, or you never know.” (tell them that they don’t know what they are doing)

“Be calm. God awaits you at the door.” (Call the host and complain)

I have absolutely no clue what you are talking about @bluecoat in terms of your suggested responses :slight_smile:

By the way it’s a ridiculous measure and won’t by itself be any indicator of the virus at all.

What did the host say when you spoke to them about it.

1 Like

Hmmmm … doesn’t sound like an enforceable policy and can’t imagine that airbnb would support the host on this.

Not sure what country the stay is in, but I can’t imagine that a condo association has this type of authority.

1 Like

I forget whether the OP’s other posts have been bonkers. :crazy_face:

I’m quite surprised by all this. This morning at about 6.30 I had a news alert on my phone saying that this virus had ‘claimed its 1000th victim’. (Admittedly it was the Daily Mail — nuff said…)

It is now over three hours later and during that time, in the United States, roughly 200 - 250 people have died of heart disease. In the US. Evidently (says the World Health Organisation) someone in the States dies every 37 seconds of cardiovascular disease.

So I’m not going to work out how many people in the USA have died of heart disease since the first person died of the coronavirus but it’s obvious that the figure is many times higher than 1000.

Yet no-one is standing at the doorways of Dunkin Donuts or pizza shops or whatever.

I might be wrong, I often am, but would that be lizards and so forth? I thought that one of the good points about the human being is that they maintain a pretty static temperature regardless of the climate?

4 Likes

By the way, @bluecoat, nice play on the words of Gabriel García Márquez in the subject line.

1 Like

Oh, I didn’t notice that! The coronavirus isn’t anything like as bad a cholera used to be. :slight_smile:

1 Like

I get it , bluecoat (all the Marquez quotes), well played.

2 Likes