I am super hosts in Amsterdam area and have been hosting about half year.
recently I have a lots of guests worried to come to Netherlands or even EU, and want to cancel their reservations. I gave them full refund, as I knew how bad is corona virus, and what my guest lose from this (flight cancellation, room reservation, etc).
all my guests coming, have been travel to other EU countries (including Italy), now you see how bad in Europe now. how fast the virus is spreading.
last Sunday (Mar 8), my husband's colleague has been confirmed with coronavirus, his company's HR told him to stay from home and work from home for next 14 days. so I think the best to cancel the reservation for the guests who are going to come In March. so I did that. my guests all agreed, and I will give them full refund. however, airbnb penalized me for such cancellation, even though I am trying to do something good for my guests.
I have been struggle to get so called "medical certificate" to prove that my husband need to be isolated from medical point of view and meanwhile we are so worried that my husband and I were infected, and monitoring our body temperatures every day. I met GP, GP said for corona virus, is all done by GGD (public health), so I called the hotline of GGD, they said there is no such thing for isolation, they never give, and said airbnb is so strict on this.
even worse that airbnb customer service told me, I should not tell the guests we are isolated, and continue hosting??? OMG, what if my guests get infected, who should they blame to.....
I am so disappointed for airbnb, how they treat this epidemic, there is high risk for guests and host to get infected. I ask them what airbnb will help hosts and ensure the health during corona virus outbreak, is it going to cover by so called "host guarantee", they said "no", there is no update on this, as coronavirus is new. so basically means. hosts, you have to take care yourself. as you are not insured at all by airbnb, same apply to guests...
I raise this topic, just to get some advice from other hosts, what you are currently doing? are you worried? especially to the guest who are currently hosting in EU countries. we need to raise our voices high to get attentions from airbnb.
as now airbnb will only waive penalty if have medical certificate. if you are worried, you cancel, then it is your own problem, but we talked about our health here as hosts...and our worries for our guests...
according to me, airbnb should waive for anyone who is afraid to travel or host, as this is natural disaster, should not base on country policy or etc. it is so bad that they still charge guests / hosts for their worry of health. do not have any mercy on this. so disappointed. .....