This week was spring break for our schools. Tons of families I know traveled south for a warm weather vacation.
It will be interesting to see if there is a surge in the coming weeks. Most of the adults were fully vaccinated, but not the under 16 year old kids.
That page about the 47 passengers from one flight testing positive for COVID-19 says “The fact that 22 of the 47 cases were only caught after 12 days of quarantine (and not before departure or upon arrival) suggests that many of the infections were likely fairly recent, meaning there was likely spread on the flight, shortly before the flight, or perhaps even in the quarantine hotel (with families staying together).”
The page does not say how many of them were symptomatic, or when before 12 days after arriving they were tested previously.
Testing three days before an event like an airline flight may be theater in a lot of cases, since someone can have a negative test at -3 days, but still have become infected any time from about -5 to 0 days before the event (maybe even several days before day -5 if you had a slow infection that did not become test-detectable for longer than the typical time frame).
Yes, the article doesn’t have answers but does suggest that flights may have people on them that MAY have covid, even tho they test negative within 72 hours of the flight and that passengers MAY get covid in transit or at a hotel while traveling.
It is definitely a risk to fly in these covid times, where some folks may be asymptomatic and many may not be vaccinated, particularly in longer flights (New Delhi to Hong Kong is about 5 hours).
I was feeling pretty relaxed about air travel because I wrongly assumed that people weren’t really traveling all that much. I recently flew east for a few days and both flights were packed, completely sold-out. I’m fully vaccinated and wore my N95 mask the whole time but I was anxious and uncomfortable being so close to other people. I won’t be flying again anytime soon.
Yes, at the lanai birthday party I attended yesterday, the guest I spoke with had just flown in from SF and said her flight was packed to capacity as well. We are having huge #s of arrivals in our state, which makes people happy AND upset. The visitor industry and restaurants need customers but MANY refuse to mask and are not following the rules. It’s an uneasy relationship.
My S deliberately chose flights that were not crowded. He flew from DC to SF to HNL.
Was everyone on that super spreader flight masked up and adhering to mask wearing rules? Also, we have no idea what sorts of tests were used and whether the “results” came from a legitimate test or were faked. If this was a flight to Hawaii which has similar 72 hour pre-flight testing requirements, I would be very alarmed, but so far, I am not aware of any reports of massive superspreader events like this on flights from mainland to HI. There have been cases of Covid positive people knowingly boarding flights to HI (and then nabbed upon arrival) but it appears they did not spread the virus to other passengers.
Speaking of mask wearing, at the place we stayed, everyone behaved… except the second time we visited, we spotted a handful of maskless males hanging around the hotel yard… I even said a few stern words to a couple of these idiots. Mask compliance seems to be inversely proportional to the amount of tropical drinks sold.
My fil did the same, until his flight was cancelled and then two flights were combined into one. New flight had not one empty seat.
When I had to fly, I deliberately chose red-eye flights which tended to be less crowded with fewer passengers eating on board.
We traveled last week and had a great experience. We drove to Savannah for a few days, then a night in Beaufort, SC, a few days in Charleston, and then a day in Gettysburg on our way home. Also got to have a late lunch with our D, who is at school. Mask compliance was excellent everywhere we went, and we only ate in outdoor restaurants, so we felt very comfortable everywhere. I have no qualms about traveling as we take the same precautions as at home, so we consider our risk to be the same (low).
We haven’t travelled in over a year. D and I had a trip to Costa Rica cancelled and I haven’t felt confident trying to travel. My immediate family is now fully vaccinated, still masking and socially distancing, so we will be driving up to DC for Mother’s Day weekend. Crossing my fingers that all goes well.
I also live in a state dependent upon tourism so I understand the dilemma. Our mountain towns desperately need tourist dollars during high season (winter/summer), but it’s infuriating when people come here and forget their Covid manners. They rank right up there with people who don’t respect nature and leave litter and/or graffiti in our forests. This was quite amusing to us locals last year:
Some people evidently think that once they get vaccinated, they can forget their COVID-19 manners in public (as opposed to being able to do so in private gatherings of vaccinated people), not realizing or ignoring that:
I don’t honestly know when I will feel safe traveling again. We used to fly at least 4+ major trips/year but being on a plane for 5+ hours to get from HI to nearest other state is not appealing to me.
H and I are fully vaccinated but are at high risk in case we are unlucky enough to get breakthrough infections.
The idea of wearing a mask for hours in airports and on the plane to travel will be challenging, especially while using supplemental O2. 
I just don’t trust the airlines because it’s not in their economic interest to be transparent about Covid risk. I know the filtration systems are good but really? In what other environment would people pack in, or even be allowed to pack in, in those numbers for any length of time?!
You’ve summed up my feelings 100%! My D attends school in UK and we’ve traveled there quite a bit. She’s on a gap year right now but I’m concerned about all the traveling back and forth once she returns. She’s considering transferring back to the US so we will see how it all shakes out.
Typical masks, typically worn, may stop about 2/3 of outgoing virus and 1/3 of incoming virus to the wearer (estimates do vary, and it does matter what quality of mask and how well fitted it is).
If we use this estimate, let’s say that T is the time needed to be infected for a given type of presence (e.g. adjacent seat in an airplane). Then the time needed to be infected is:
If T is 10 minutes without masks, then both the other person and you wearing masks would extend the time to infection to 45 minutes… not enough for any other than the shortest airline flights.
Now suppose that you wear a tightly fitting N95 mask, giving your 20 * T time if the other person is not wearing a mask, or 60 * T time if the other person is wearing a typical mask. That would be a little more than 3 hours to 10 hours if T is 10 minutes without masks. But unless you are a health care worker in a COVID-19 ward, you probably are not accustomed to wearing a tightly fitting N95 mask for many hours.
Note at the bottom of that page, it mentions that the exposure risks are not just in the airplane. Waiting in various queues (check in, security, immigration and customs for international flights) could put you in the presence of the same other nearby people for a significant amount of time.
I’d estimate time from getting out of my car to getting into my rental car at the other end of my flight in the nearest state (CA) is 9-10 hrs if there are no undue delays. That’s a lot more exposure to lots of people. Much more than I’m currently comfortable with, since only about 1/2 of the US adults have received 1 vaccination so far. Longer time of exposure increases chances of breakthrough infection.