What are your thoughts about travel in the time of Covid?

No!

That’s too bad! :slight_smile: I guess due to worries about safety. Not like the good old days.

The last highlighted portion… :joy: I guess flight attendants pick their battles; on a recent flight, no one except maybe us did what the mandate stated, but FA were not tossing people off the plane. Every pax would remove their mask completely to eat or drink then put it back on. We invented a better way to comply though. We wore disposable masks and shoveled our cheese plates under the masks. :joy: Asked the flight attendant if they had any straws… sipped our wine through paper straws routed under the masks. When we were done, we changed the masks. :slight_smile:

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When I flew recently I did not put my.mask on while chewing. I also did not see others around me doing that. It was never even mentioned in the pre-flight tslks. Obviously people were wearing their masks otherwise but honestly constantly removing and replacing the mask while eating seems a little ridiculous and perhaps pointless.

Airlines have not been shown to be a major contributor to spread. The reality is spread on airlines, while it can and has happened in certain instances, is still a rarity.

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Great news and fingers crossed!

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/senate-passes-bill-to-lift-restrictions-on-seattle-to-alaska-cruises/

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I would love to visit New Zealand, maybe Australia, Japan, maybe Iceland, and go back to revisit Europe. I will wait until more of the world has the covid virus under control.

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For those of you looking at train travel…I just did the three day cross country haul; California Zephyr to Capitol Limited. I rarely left my roomette because people were so poor about masking. I tried to hang out in the observation car each day and only lasted five minutes each time! The folks in my sleeper car walked the aisle unmasked to use the bathrooms. I ended up only brushing my teeth once a day and dreading needing to use the toilet.

I am fully vaccinated otherwise I would not have done this at all. I still ended up feeling more paranoid than I thought/hoped. Sadly the windows do not open! I didn’t think the roomette was very clean…first thing I did was wipe down everything. I used so much hand sanitizer those three days my hands were trashed.

I ate in my roomette for every meal. I believe that regular dining car service will be restored when I am scheduled to return to CA via Boston but I simply will not be able to do it. I have considered flying home - six hours of exposure versus three days. But I hate flying and I’d probably be jammed in between people refusing to mask, so at least with the roomette I can kid myself I’m breathing cleaner air.

Sorry to sound so negative! Being at a hotel and eating at a restaurant has been challenging too. I’m sure hoping that vaccine is doing it’s job…

Don’t know when you are returning, but masks are required on airplanes until September.

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I’ve heard stories of people who basically refuse to mask by eating or drinking the entire flight. I figure it’d be my luck to sit next to one of those folks.

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I think it’s been found that the virus isn’t spread by fomites. So there’s really no need to do all that wiping down of surfaces.

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At this point, I doubt my MDs would approve of my flying until 2022 at the earliest. I don’t believe I’d feel comfortable either.

I hope it’s restored before August when we go. We’ve been venturing out post vaccine and I don’t mind a bit. It’s nice getting back to normal. I’m hoping mask restrictions are lifted by then too TBH. Time will tell. (We still mask for the time being where it’s warranted, but don’t mind skipping it if all involved don’t see the need - whether vaxed or choosing not to.)

I’ll admit I feel safer knowing my blood has tested positive for antibodies post vaccine. If not, I’d have been more worried about breakthrough cases I think.

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That’s likely true, but it gives me a (probably false!) sense of having some measure of control over the situation. Also the surfaces just aren’t that clean in general so I figure it can’t hurt (except my poor hands),

The reality is it’s not hurting anything to clean those surfaces. If it makes you feel better then why not do it. We all have different comfort levels and different ideas. You’re not forcing others to do this, you’re just taking extra precautions yourself. I say have at it, not that my opinion matters.

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I agree 100%, it’s nice getting back to some semblance of normal. I am fully vaccinated and I was able to go into a grocery store sans mask yesterday and it was eerily therapeutic. I was happy to be able to breath freely while following the CDC recommendations and feel protected. I have eaten inside restaurants, travelled by plane, and met with family. The vaccine has made these activities safe again. I look forward to enjoying more freedoms.

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D1 was traveling for work a lot up until 2020’s lock down. She traveled cross country and to Europe. She said she always wiped down her seat and tray. She also sprayed stuff in her nose to help block viruses. She said people sneezed and spilled on the food tray, and back then the airlines weren’t doing a lot of cleaning. It is just good hygiene.
I am going to travel more, and will continue with a lot of good hygiene I have picked up during Covid.
If I were traveling on an overnight train ride, I would want my own bathroom and room.

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@oneofthosemoms you could buy two or three seats on a plane for the price of a roomette. My daughter is flying across the country and I got her a window seat plus the middle seat, both ways. Earlier this year we had contemplated booking a suite in business class, a single seat row with plexiglass around it, but prices have gone way up for that. Again, you could consider that as the price of a roomette may be similar (Jet Blue Mint was our choice).

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I absolutely understand your point. I would be scared too! About sanitizing the whole room, you may want to watch out for something called antimicrobial resistance. I do not know if you have heard of the term (you can stop reading if you have…).

Antimicrobial resistance is when a bacteria or virus has a random mutation to allow it so survive alcohol purges, Clorox, lysol, and all of your regular cleaning items. Now, this happens more often in viruses as they are smaller, simpler, and often do not have the facilities to correct their mRNA. When you wipe down the surface, you kill all of the pathogens without the mutation but leave just the ones that do. So say, in a population of bacteria, 1% have a mutation to allow it to survive antimicrobial purges. After cleaning, the percentage may be around 90% immune to cleaning. Then, those bacteria will reproduce COPYING their DNA over into their offspring. Some bacteria can multiply alarmingly quickly. After some time, you will have a large pile of bacteria that are all immune to cleaning devices. This is why hospitals are actually some of the dirtiest places on the planet. Now, the reason I am saying this is not because I don’t believe in cleaning… but because I know many people (including my mom) clean everything. I bet that roomette you stayed in had numerous people before who sanitized top to bottom with the most pungent chemicals. What I am saying is that it is possible that the cleaning did not do a lot. But then, I could be wrong (hopefully I am, I do not like the sound of smart, immune viruses and bacteria :nauseated_face:) Thanks for reading!!

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I know people who cleaned surfaces pre-Covid because they knew how much “stuff” could be on them. I say do whatever you feel better with. You’re hurting no one.

We live on a farm, so our bodies are quite accustomed to all sorts of various particles everywhere, inside and out. I like to think it strengthens our immune systems!

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That’s true, I hadn’t considered that option. I had thought about first class but you still are likely to have someone next to you. Alas my roomette ticket is already booked for the trip home and at this point Amtrak will only give me credit (not refund) for 75% of my ticket cost. So I’d need to work out airplane seating using a few credits I have out there for previously canceled flights; that limits my options.