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.

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

You don’t need Airbnb in Iran. Walk down 2 block of Tehran and by the end one or more people will have offered you their homes, for free..

You only need to book somewhere to stay for downtime/private time.

>Walk down 2 block of Tehran and by the end one or more people will have offered you their homes, for free..

Wait what? Is there more to this?

They've been under US embargo for decades. In the US, Blacks historically couldn't use commercial hotels which were Whites only. They had to arrange to stay at private homes to travel.

I imagine it's sort of akin to that.

Iranians are very nice and friendly people is my guess.

Actually you’re right, they don’t do Iran.

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.

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).