Delta Air Lines has instructed flight attendants testing positive for COVID-19 to “refrain from notifying” people they’ve worked with, and not to post to social media about it.

“Please refrain from notifying other crew members on your own,” read the email, which was sent at 2:20 p.m. Eastern time. “Once you have completed the reporting procedures listed above, leaders will follow the established process to notify any impacted flight attendants.”

…“Please do not post on social media (including SkyHub) about your health status.”

…Delta said it posted an update on its employee intranet asking that flight attendants allow management to handle communicating new infections because “we take the responsibility of notifying all of our Delta people seriously and have a strong protocol in place to ensure we get in touch with anyone potentially exposed to provide support.”

Delta is now promising not to penalize anyone who breaks the protocol and shares information about their health with colleagues, however. But the airline has encouraged some flight attendants who have been in contact with others testing positive to continue working (“We have evaluated your level of exposure, and because of this, you may continue to fly while self-monitoring for symptoms for 14 days.”).

Less than three weeks ago American wouldn’t let flight attendants wear masks. They parroted the CDC line about it not being necessary. I kept on the issue, and I was thrilled that the airline reversed course under these special circumstances.

There also haven’t been enough gloves on board for flight attendants to do their jobs. That’s become less of an issue with less service to provide, and less trash to pick up. There aren’t many passengers, and food and beverage are now very limited.

However flight attendants are reportedly raiding catering carts and emergency kits for masks and gloves.

Gloves, masks, and hand sanitizer are tough to get. Just like toilet paper if you tell people it’s available they go on a frenzy. One blogger keeps posting Amazon links to offers that seem to always be immediately dead. But he gets referral income from whatever else you buy after you’ve clicked.

American has promised supplies are on the way. They’ve been tough to get for everyone. Delta had 250,000 masks stolen. Some flight attendants have pillaged the planes for supplies,

[F]light crews [emptied] dining and drink carts of gloves and even raid airplanes’ emergency equipment.

… “We had two to three masks on the airplane, in our emergency kits. But of course they were pillaged at the moment this started going down. So those have disappeared.”

It seems to me that there are enough non-working flight crew right now, with reduced schedules, that little harm comes from encouraging self-quarantine of any individuals that have been exposed to people testing positive for COVID-19.

And the need for personal protective equipment goes beyond hospitals – although certainly their need is greatest when working directly with COVID-positive patients, and to protect their health generally so the system doesn’t become overwhelmed. That’s the problem with the current policy restriction exports of medical supplies overseas during this crisis: most of what’s needed here is produced abroad.