Yes, I fly airplanes.
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It’s official. D20’s Birthright Israel trip is postponed, future date TBD.
It is disappointing, but maybe it’s for the best. I was starting to worry that D would arrive in Israel, then test positive (all of a sudden it feels like every third person I know is Covid+) and then spend the entirety of the 10 day trip in quarantine. 
She must be hugely disappointed even if she understands why.
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There have been huge lines at NYC testing sites. The city is opening a bunch of new sites tomorrow with instant and PCR tests available: COVID-19 Testing - Coronavirus
Well, it’s been fun recently.
In February of 2020 I bought flight tickets/made reservations to head to Culebra in July of 2020.
Then… the Covid shutdowns really got going. Still, we were on schedule to spend the vacation on Culebra, and then one week prior to departure, the Puerto Rican gov’t decided to shut down Culebra entirely to anyone who was not a resident of Puerto Rico. That soooooo sucked.
So we decided to make the best of it, and spent the week in San Juan. That was still open.
This past summer, undeterred (I am stubborn…), we did get to go to Culebra. It was pretty sweet.
With Europe basically still shut down (or at least, difficult…), we have set our sights on a trip to Antigua in May – after the prices drop but before the really wet weather comes. Looking forward to it!
There seems to be two worlds that are going on at the same time. The first are the people who are very concerned about the newest wave of the virus. They are cancelling travel plans, diligently masking, testing, and boosting. Then there’s the rest of the world that seriously is going on as nothing is wrong. That’s why the airports are packed and concert venues are jammed with thousands of people shoulder to shoulder. I live in Colorado and most people I know are traveling or having family travel here. Their ski vacations are going on as planned, and several of my neighbors are leaving on cruises.Stores, restaurants, and other venues here are packed. Travel is continuing. It’s really weird to read this thread and feel like I’m living in an alternate world. I feel that the media does not reflect what a vast majority of Americans are actually feeling or doing.
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As we traveled from PA to VA today along typical highways/roads, one can’t see that anyone has stopped any plans. Perhaps more are driving rather than flying? Usually we could pick a Tuesday and not encounter as much traffic. At least southbound didn’t have major backups during our hours of travel. They did earlier than we traveled according to Google. Northbound folks had a lot of super slow or stopped traffic.
We had our favorite Gyro place to ourselves around 1:15pm though. I hope they’re doing enough business to stay in business. There were a few take out orders while we were there at least.
And we still find it interesting how mask wearing differs based upon location. Where we live it’s rare. Perhaps 5 or 10%, sometimes ranging down to 0%. Never ranging higher in public. Where we ate (VA) it was 95% or so (there are other restaurants and stores around), and this is what we saw from people walking outside as well as those who came in for Take Out. Those working in the restaurant (2) weren’t wearing masks. Customers, including us when we were waiting, were.
We didn’t stop at any rest areas to see what folks were doing there.
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H and I are flying early on 12/25 to visit S1 in CA. Hoping people will be where they want to be by then, and that PreCheck will get us through TSA quickly. We have seats together on a 2-person row. S1’s community is 75% fully vaxed and requires masks. These numbers are similar to our community (79.3% fully vaxed). We’re staying at his house, may do some hiking, but no restaurants or museums. S2 has been very cautious throughout. I’m nervous.
We’re not going down to see my family as usual; vax rate is 44%, and we’d have to drive eleven hours through four states with sub-50% rates. My sister’s stepsons refuse to get vaxed (they’re in their mid20s). Not taking chances.
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I found visiting Seattle and Oregon - to be very different than here in rural Colorado. I cannot speak for Denver. Here they are acting like it is 2019. I was shocked in November at the difference between there and CO. Utah and ID was similar to rural CO. I keep up with Covid deaths in this area and it is shockingly up. The surrealistic feeling is back.
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In our state, still about 95% wearing masks correctly indoors. VAX rates >70%. Have to show ID and VAX cards to dine at the few restaurants where we dine (outdoors). Waikiki had many more unmasked faces but not sure what it’s like now with Omicron.
I feel like there are quite a lot of people that feel they are willing to live their pre-Covid lives and just figure if and when they get Covid, it will be mild and they won’t get long timer Covid and thereafter have sone immunity.
They feel that the rest of us have to come around to their way of thinking and go on and dine out and travel, like them.
Or not, but then also not expect everyone else to (be forced to) make allowances for those who are more cautious. I don’t think anything close to a majority of the population is prepared to countenance permanent restrictions, not even permanent mask mandates in most settings. Given how much electoral opinion affects politicians’ decisions, I would be surprised if federal mask mandates for travel aren’t withdrawn before the Nov 2022 elections.
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Agreed. I won’t travel now due to my own risk status, but I have no objection to my 20-something kids doing so, given the low level of risk to them. And I am glad they are able to do so with precautions.
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I’ll admit that this is us. We are done with the restrictions. I don’t care what others do. If someone else wants to be more cautious, that’s fine with me.
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Upthread I talked about my son’s brush with a close contact while on an overseas work travel assignment.
Son had a coworker who tested positive on a test that was needed to fly home. Coworker retested and tested negative as did my son. Coworker took a train from Belgium to Paris for the weekend and flew home.
Coworker gets home (based on the rapid negative test) but becomes sick enough that he ends up in the hospital with complications of Covid. Coworker was doubled vaxxed, no booster as boosters weren’t available for his age group at this point (early November).
So the question is was coworker actually positive with the first test but after a negative test, traveled and flew home to the states? Or contracted Covid sometime later?
I think the nature of testing and traveling is very fluid and can be problematic. False positives, false negatives, the whole gambit.
Son continued to test negative so he was fine.
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From that article.
" What are the risks of infection during a flight?
Whatever the risk was with delta, we would have to assume the risk would be two to three times greater with omicron, just as we’ve seen in other environments. Whatever that low risk – we don’t know what it is – on the airplane, it must be increased by a similar amount."
There’s no actual data there, it’s speculation. The article admits that traveling by air is safer than being in crowded indoor spaces. The article states that most verified cases of transmission were from March of 2020.
We would have to ASSUME Whatever the LOW RISK. Those phrases speak volumes.
It goes on to say that leaving seats open is basically futile too. Makes sense as an airborne virus traveling an extra two feet us no great feat.
There’s risk in everything. I’d rather see a data driven comparison of risks than basically an opinion piece.
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What’s the total timeframe of each of the tests and him feeling sick? After he arrived in the US, what’s the timeframe?
Omicron is so new that no one can expect we’ll have data on on-board transmissions. However, it’s not unreasonable to assume that Omicron is such a different animal that our previous assumption about transmission onboard aircraft may be invalid.
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This is what my son told me so it could not be accurate. Coworker’s wife had a baby in the interim so it’s been crazy.
First test, Thursday, positive. Next test Friday, negative. Took the train to Paris flew back to the states Sunday. Negative test within 72 hours so the Friday test was the one used to fly home. That’s my understanding. He reported symptoms on Tuesday, went to the hospital on Thursday. But my son really doesn’t know when he really felt the onset on symptoms, that’s what he was told.
Son’s employer had them test before they left, again on Monday at the start of the conference and then on Thursday to fly home. Son tested again on Friday and Monday in the US to go back into the office. Worked remotely until the PCR test came back negative.