>All reductions in (non-essential) travel are good in a pandemic.
All travel is essential to somebody. All restrictions on movement also have a cost, and any analysis that only looks at the benefits of something without looking at the costs cannot hope to be correct.
I'm curious to the downvoters, do you generally believe it's a good idea to make public policy decisions without considering the downsides? It's like people who want to ban encryption because it could marginally increase the number of terrorists caught.
Of course we should consider the downsides when we make public policy decisions. In fact, if we weren't, we wouldn't be making decisions at all but merely reacting.
But we can consider the downsides and decide that we want to restrict travel.
I don't actually need to go visit my rellies. I want to, but I don't have to. On the other hand, if I go on a voluntary trip, I probably have to return home because I can't really afford a hotel indefinitely into the future.
So it's obvious to me that there is some distinction between necessary and nice to have.
I genuinely have been underwhelmed by the reaction to this disease through much of the world. It is necessary in a constitutional democracy to react sometimes to maintain the trust of the voters - or they might say "A democracy is fine when things are going well, but when the chips are down we need a strong leader who can make the decisions we need". Saying "those entertainment business can't open during this outbreak", "keep your tables at least a metre apart" and "don't travel" are reasonable reactions in this circumstance. And we need democratic leaders so that they can know when it's gone on for too long and they have to accept we can't stop it - something a "strong leader" can't tell.
What about to your job, if you don't have a job that you can do remotely? Employers generally don't like paying people who can't make it in to work, and it's hard to pay for food without money.
Aye, just got back from walking there. Pretty essential to doing IT for several hours, though, IMO.
But OPs point stands -- unless you're working from home and never going out to eat / get groceries / not go crazy from cabin fever you have to travel somewhere
I haven't tasted coffee in a decade, and I'm doing just finezzzzzzzz....~
Restricting routine trips to just home-to-work, work-to-home, and large-scale resupply missions is still acceptable at the moment. Make use of your local grocery's picker service with delivery to the parking lot, if you can.
Consider switching your dining-out trips to ordering via phone, fax, or electronic ordering system, and doing drive-through, carry-out, or parking-lot pickup. Pay electronically, in advance, instead of handling cash at the point-of-sale terminal. If you get cabin fever, and need to socialize, do it through screens.
It is essential for Starbucks to serve customers in order for them to stay in business. You don't have to stop going. But you can put in your order via website or app; walk into the retail location only when it's ready; pick it up without speaking to, breathing on, or touching anyone; and then leave immediately. It is possible to minimize the duration and intensity of contact, without eliminating it entirely.
It is better to be in contact with your regular friends, acquaintances, and business associates--that are all the same people every day--than to have a lot of transient contacts with complete strangers. It is slower to traverse a social network one connection at a time than to hit a lot of random, unconnected people all at once with a brodcast.
All travel is essential to somebody. All restrictions on movement also have a cost, and any analysis that only looks at the benefits of something without looking at the costs cannot hope to be correct.