[heligate229]

Can't overemphasised. The fine print of the travel insurance is very important!

However, I don't get why cancellation policies will be a major reason of the spread. Your explanation on sunk cost fallacy and cancellation seems to be missing. Airbnb has a clause to refund under "Epidemic disease or illness"

[graeme]

The link says you can only automatically cancel for mainland china and korean trips.

So any trips to Italy, Iran, Washington State etc can’t be refunded. It encourages people to still go.

Sunk cost fallacy: people might not take a free trip to italy now, but they may go if they previously paid for one.

[xiphias2]

Ticket prices are getting lower to Italy, and I see more and more articles that this is the best time to go to vacation because it's so cheap. People don't care about spreading the virus, because they don't care about other people.

The only way to be protected is to stay home and not follow the herd.

[sjg007]

I would be surprised if Airbnb does business in Iran...

[ghaff]

I'm not sure that qualifies as a sunk cost fallacy. Most people have limited budgets for vacations. If they already booked a trip to someplace and cancel it without a refund, they may not be able to afford going somewhere else. On the other hand, if they haven't booked anything they can go somewhere that's of perceived lower risk or just hold off for the time being.

[netsharc]

If I were a billionaire I'd tell these people, "Fine, I'll refund you out of my pocket, stay home and don't be an infection vector!". Obviously I'd make them sign a contract to make sure they stay home (or the contract would stipulate that they'd have to pay me back, plus a punishment on top).