@Kath9
Hey Kath9,
I appreciate your view here and I can see you did some work to get the policy language on 3 30 2020. On that day, you're right, the policy for extenuating circumstances contained the language "Epidemic disease or illness ". Exactly as you said.
The thing is, I ( and I would bet you, as well) didn't sign up as a host in March 2020, but actually well before that.
The URL that existed on that day for that policy on their site, is this one:
https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1320/
This one was there as well, and didn't change between 3 1 2020 and 3 17 2020:
https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1320/what-if-i-need-to-cancel-because-of-an-emergency-or-unavoid...
Something did happen to that policy, however, between 11 8 2019 and 3 1 2020. This is what that first site said on 11 8 2019:
"Endemic disease or illness that suddenly affects a region or an entire group of people. This doesn’t include existing diseases that are associated with an area—for example, malaria in Thailand or dengue fever in Hawaii.
Travel restrictions imposed by a government, law enforcement agency, or military that restrict travel to or from the listing or experience location."
Today, on the site, this is what that policy says: ( 6 18 2020):
"Epidemic disease or illness that suddenly affects a region or an entire group of people. This doesn’t include existing diseases that are associated with an area—for example, malaria in Thailand or dengue fever in Hawaii. Any updates to our policy regarding the outbreak of a disease, and the scope of policy application, will be determined based on announcements by the World Health Organization and local authorities.
Travel restrictions imposed by a government, law enforcement agency, or military that restrict travel to or from the listing or experience location."
Same thing for the shorter URL: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1320/ (6 18 2020):
"Epidemic disease or illness that suddenly affects a region or an entire group of people. This doesn’t include existing diseases that are associated with an area—for example, malaria in Thailand or dengue fever in Hawaii. Any updates to our policy regarding the outbreak of a disease, and the scope of policy application, will be determined based on announcements by the World Health Organization and local authorities.
Travel restrictions imposed by a government, law enforcement agency, or military that restrict travel to or from the listing or experience location."
There are two noteworthy things about the shorter URL:
1. It CHANGES to the longer one right now, when you enter it into a browser, but not immediately...so...if you choose the short version, today at least...you end up with the longer one. AND....
2. The Shorter url, https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1320/ , didn't even exist before Mid March, 2018. But at least from around 3 18 20 to now, it does, except for now it POINTS TO the longer one.
How do we know all this? The internet archive, AKA, the WAYBACK machine, which records the history of the internet:
https://web.archive.org/web/20191108153338/https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1320/what-if-i-need-t...
"Saved 34 times between February 8, 2018 and June 11, 2020".
https://web.archive.org/web/20200101000000*/https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1320
“Saved 8 times between March 18, 2020 and June 6, 2020".
What difference does all that make? Well, because it raised questions about the policy and transparency with AirBnB.
OH, and BTW, there is DEFINITELY a difference between an ENDEMIC DISEASE and and EPIDEMIC DISEASE OR ILLNESS. See this:
https://intermountainhealthcare.org/blogs/topics/live-well/2020/04/whats-the-difference-between-a-pa...
"Let’s start with basic definitions:
AN EPIDEMIC is a disease that affects a large number of people within a community, population, or region.
A PANDEMIC is an epidemic that’s spread over multiple countries or continents.
ENDEMIC is something that belongs to a particular people or country."
Also:
"Epidemic vs. Pandemic
A simple way to know the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic is to remember the “P” in pandemic, which means a pandemic has a passport. A pandemic is an epidemic that travels.
Epidemic vs. Endemic
But what’s the difference between epidemic and endemic? An epidemic is actively spreading; new cases of the disease substantially exceed what is expected. More broadly, it’s used to describe any problem that’s out of control, such as “the opioid epidemic.” An epidemic is often localized to a region, but the number of those infected in that region is significantly higher than normal. For example, when COVID-19 was limited to Wuhan, China, it was an epidemic. The geographical spread turned it into a pandemic.
Endemics, on the other hand, are a constant presence in a specific location. Malaria is endemic to parts of Africa. Ice is endemic to Antarctica.
For some reason, without telling us about it, the policy changed and a new URL appeared, which didn't exist before, right between November 2019 and March 2020. This involved changing the language from AN ENDEMIC (which we signed on for, as you said) and AN EPIDEMIC (or a PANDEMIC), which we didn’t sign up for.
None of this gets into the refunds before we were notified, either, but that’s been discussed ad nauseam.
So….Why did they change the policy from ENDEMIC to EPIDEMIC without telling us?
I think there must be a reason, don’t you?
Thanks and hope this helps create some solutions that will lead to greater togetherness through openness and transparency from here on; at least we can hope. 🙂
Thanks!
Mark.