Airport Security Becomes Social Distancing Nightmare As Travelers Crowd Checkpoints On Memorial Day

We’ve seen social shaming of airlines for failing to block middle seats. Oddly people are shocked there would be others sitting near them on a plane. They’re surprised the airline was selling them a ticket and selling tickets to other people, too.

The truth is that if you want to guarantee an empty seat beside you, you can buy one. And if you are concerned about sitting near other people it may not be a good idea to fly right now. Airlines are in a Catch-22 because they can’t make money with social distancing on planes, but many customers won’t buy tickets without it either.

Delta and JetBlue are blocking middle seats, American is blocking some middle seats, and United will try to tell you in advance if your flight is full so you have the option of changing (though many routes won’t really given you enough flights nowadays to change).

A new front in the traveler shock and frustration over crowding in the coronavirus era is the airport security checkpoint, which became a big deal today at the end of a three day weekend despite travel still being down over 80%.

Airports aren’t built for social distancing. Each inch of space in the terminal has a high opportunity cost. Not to the same extent as on the aircraft itself, but rents in airports have historically been substantially higher than in their associated downtowns.

In fact most airports weren’t even designed to accommodate post-9/11 security protocols. We often see TSA screening ‘squeezed in’ using suboptimal spaces. Nowhere is this more evident than at the New York LaGuardia Marine Air Terminal, or at Washington National in the B/C terminal where you check bags at the airline desk and then carry your own checked luggage around to be screened after being tagged by the airline.

Adapting makeshift airport security layouts for a COVID-19 distancing world, where there hasn’t been the space built for this, isn’t going to happen efficiently in the short run.

TSA staffing has been reduced. That’s meant fewer security checkpoints open. They didn’t scale back up for people traveling home at the end of Memorial Day weekend. TSA staffing frequently conflicts with the facts on the ground.

Do you really think that adding additional time into the screening process for likely illegal temperature checks, when people are bunched together like this, will be making air travel safer?

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. One way to expand the distance between pax in the line is to wear a big, puffed out backpack and push your wheelie carry-on out at arms distance.

    Another way is to have a constant coughing fit.

  2. I just can’t see all of those people being medical personnel and people with dying grandparents.

  3. This sort of thing is going to get worse. Face mask shaming folks using social media and adding in exaggeration to boot. Basically if you feel unsafe sitting on a full plane where people may or may not wear a mask then don’t fly. This will turn off pro-mask and anti-mask folks making it unpleasant to fly. You think flying was bad before all this hype it will be much worse now. People will avoid flying and airlines will suffer financial loss as a result for some time. https://pointmetotheplane.boardingarea.com/american-airlines-flight-no-social-distancing/?utm_source=BoardingArea&utm_medium=BoardingArea

  4. @Gene
    Travel is not great, and yet some are willing to put up with this, and I am one of those who can not wait to get on a plane
    People need to realize that social distance will not be possible 100 pct of the time 100 pct of the places and so the sooner people realize that the sooner we all can get back to some kind of normal

  5. See now you’re focusing on an actual problem versus whether the housekeeper Cloroxed the remote control. If you don’t want to get sick, don’t get near living, breathing people.

  6. I know every media outlet and government entity is pushing the narrative that social distancing works, but has there been one reliable resource/study that supports this?

    Two painkillers will reduce your fever enough to pass any check point, so i do not believe that will make air travel safer.

    We have a at least one trip planned for every month in 2020 and we are intent on taking them. If people are worried about social distancing on planes and airports, maybe they should stay home. Or buy an RV.

  7. Reminds me of the horror of traveling after 9/11, except back then the nightmare pretty much ended when you left the airport. Now you have people crowding all over without concern and certainly without masks. If they would only get themselves sick through their disregard of safety, I’d be okay with that. That’s personal freedom. Unfortunately that’s not how this works.

  8. @deltahater
    +1
    You are right, but some will never get the idea of risk tolerance
    One of the consequences of this virus is how idiotic people have become
    Not denying the virus is out there, just pointing out the levels of disproportionate fear instilled in the people

  9. deltahater, there has never been a reliable study that keeping your distance from a fire keeps you from getting burned either. Consequently, one should sick one’s hand in a fire.

  10. @Doug @Deltahater Wrong. There have been plenty of studies that show exactly how, how far and under what conditions the virus can travel when it leaves your unmasked pie hole. And because most Americans confuse common sense with an attack on their personal liberty, or are just lazy and stupid, they won’t wear masks. And that’s why you need to stay six feet apart.

  11. @berisha
    Not disagreeing, just saying it is impossible to do so all the time
    Therefore people will need to evaluate risks and decide what their tolerance is

  12. By the end of June this will turn into chaos at security and fights breaking out. Mark my words. Forget on the plane. The first line of aggression will be security. Unlike 2001 when people tolerated it with patience as a way to unite and fight back against the aggression of others on our lives and our freedom, we now have only one enemy left, each other. This, thanks to Trump making sure he reminds everyone that we are all enemies instead of countrymen.

  13. When the going gets tough, Americans now turn into angry, petulant ragers who spit at each other, demonstrating grossly how little they care for each other. Though in reality, somewhere between 60-70% of people are actually considerate, careful and OK with continued restrictions.
    The rump third are messing it up for everyone, and in particular, some fringe 10% or less are the spitters, mask-deniers, and general ‘my freedom exceeds your existence’ selfish louts.
    I love to fly (most of the time), I love to travel. The next year will be very circumscribed for me. Not because I ‘live in fear of nothing’ but because I believe in the existence of a complex, hazardous virus. And the narrow slice of Americans who want to brazen it out make returning to some semblance of normal actually harder. I resent that.
    I am frustrated that by not bearing the minor inconvenience of masking, risks go up.
    Of course, we’ve all seen the bare feet on plane walls or the rude arguing over seat recline, so it’s no shock that masking is asking too much of some.
    Car trips will be the thing for at least a year. So be it.

  14. @doug. Well said!

    @gene. I missed you too!! :-*

    Flew home Saturday from Colorado.
    Supposed to fly out Wednesday to finish all 50 USA states, but delta cancelled everything – was looking at double connections to go to South Dakota… no thanks.

    I’ll get a week off, then back at it next week.

    Yesterday booked 2 flights into west Africa this fall, grabbed cheap Biz class on TAP down to Mozambique and today – a few hours ago, snagged QSuites on JNB-DOH this winter!

    I think there is one week the rest of the year I won’t be flying.

    I’ll hit… 30-40 new countries in the next 11 months. It’s amazing time to be booking traveling and in the air. It’s… god. We will talk about these times for decades to come. Easiest and most rewarding travel of my life.

  15. @RaflW

    I think your empathy and desire to be a ‘good person’ is admirable. And, I think the compassion that people want to show for others – is really heartening. I think it’s cool. Honestly.

    That said, you have made a false choice, by being fed incorrect data.
    The very first peer reviewed medical studies are under way NOW – and the preprint (ie, the preview of the findings) have started coming out.

    The first legit, real, scientific study, showed an IFR of .34%.
    And, they site in their work, it is likely significantly Lower than that (and they explain why it showed high in their study)

    The normal flu, is around .1%. So, if Covid19 ends up around .15-.25% as most of the data is showing… that’s statistically the same as the flu.

    This is, strangely, exactly what I suspected, and what a lot of scientists said.
    But what happened, is, you had bogus reports like the Ferguson one from the UK, and all the ones in the USA. that scared people with (omg, IFR is like 3.5%~!!!! everyone will die).

    And, if it was CLOSE to that, lockdown was smart.
    But, as suspected, it’s like the flu.

    Yes, there is no vaccine yet, but, most of the US population doesn’t bother getting the flu shot every year. So, a vaccine is only as good as the distribution of it.

    The problem is ‘better safe than sorry’ – as people like yourself decided was the mantra of the day.
    Actually backfired.

    And, it looks like that will have hurt, killed and injured far more children, and regular people, that all the coronavirus deaths combined.

    You can read the data yourself as it comes out from germany, here are two links:
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/23/lockdown-saved-no-lives-may-have-cost-nobel-prize-winner-believes/

    https://unherd.com/thepost/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-the-covid-19-epidemic-was-never-exponential/

    *In particular, not the comments about ‘panic virus’ – and how epidemiologists contributed to this, by trying to scare people into compliance, by vastly overestimating the initial data.

    And, that, with social media, a 24/7 news media – pushed group think to a spectacular level never seen by society before.

    So – don’t take my word for it. Read the data.
    Actual, scientific, peer reviewed data.

    As it comes out, we’re starting to see the truth.
    And, uhm, the truth is we killed a LOT more people locking down our world, than would have died from Covid-19

    As the nobel prize winning Stanford Professor is quoted above:
    “There is no doubt in my mind, that when we come to look back on this, the damage done by lockdown will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor.”

    The BEST thing you could do, is get on a plane, get back to normal, and help rebuild our world.
    Not live in fear, but, go forth in peace, with knowledge as your ally.

  16. George, you do realize that absolutely no one on any of the blogs you troll has any doubt that you are some very sad person living with your mother who harbors travel fantasies and delusions of grandeur. You are not even good at this. Go play fortnite. You might actually fool a few people there that are even bigger losers than you.

  17. @berisha… can you please quote one of those studies? I would REALLY love to see one of those. Follow the science, right?

  18. @RaflW.. we are under 100K here due to the Chinese Virus. Obesity kills 300K every year… for decades. Where have your empty cries have been for the cause to ban spoons? Do you realize how hollow your comments feel?

  19. @Stuart-

    Lol, not only do I not care what you think, but, it’s funny that you would have to attack me, instead of offer a rebuttal with facts.

    I’m 36. I retired in December, and I am on a quest to visit every country in the world.
    I don’t do social media, but, you can see my photos here 🙂

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/121178693@N07/

    @All – I posted a very long reply, but, it either got deleted or something else.
    But, basically, the peer reviewed medical journals are starting to come out.

    And the first one has an IFR of…. .34%. (flu is around .1%)
    They list many reasons why they think they got a *higher* number, and suspect the actual number will be much lower. .1% to .2%

    ie, statistically not different than.. the flu.

    Not political, just medical data.
    This is what is turning the tide against the people who were scared and terrified for months.
    Facts. And good data.

    And yes, the realization that locking down the world hurt many more people than it saved :/
    But that’s opinion at this stage.

    The data is showing (real data, not garbage data from Fox or NY Times), that… yeah, it’s not that deadly.

    You can read the UK Telegraph about it from 2 days ago. I don’t know if it was front page, but, Nobel Prize winning Stanford Professor Michael Levitt predicted all this, got it right, and the data coming out of Germany for peer reviewing is backing it all up…

    Just facts team. Not politics, not personal.

  20. @ Ken

    “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”

    Dean Wormer

  21. @Jaymar totally agree. so go finish high school, stop drinking Stroh’s and quit eating donuts. Then grow up and we can have an adult conversation.

  22. Since these photos are from CLT, worth noting that North Carolina’s Covid hospitalizations hit a new high today.

  23. CDC states that if you can’t social distance, make sure you are wearing a mask. This prevents 75% of spread. People need to understand the rules and not listen or read social media or listen to the President. People need to calm down, grow up and learn how to act in crowded situations.

  24. @Stuart – Leave him his fantasies. Sure he’s being a troll and what you say is almost certainly true, but is he actually hurting anyone with the inane drivel? We’re supposed to show sympathy toward the unfortunate, and that includes the psychologically disadvantaged. If George wants to think that he’s flying to 40 new countries next week, so what? Be the better person here. Offer him your thoughts and prayers.

  25. If those of you commenting negatively don’t like states with reduced lockdown restrictions like NC, then stay in a state that keeps you in your basement until there is a half-working vaccine in another 8-18 months.

    The last time I went to Florida (March), was to get my at-risk uncle out of a bad nursing home – so don’t be so quick to assume that everyone is taking Memorial Day booze trip either.

  26. @Ken – clearly you have lived your entire life in Dumbfuckistan. Analogizing obesity to Covid-19 is about as retarded a comment as I’ve seen in many years. How many people can a fat man or woman infect with obesity? 100,000 deaths means nothing to you because people die of other things all the time? At the rate of 100,000 every two months?! Just to do the math for you, Einstein, that’s over a million per year. And this has been growing exponentially so God knows where it stops.
    Some areas have managed to crest and are beginning a downward slope. But imbeciles like you are why second waves will come.

  27. And as the thread unfolds…… of course… we see the problem.

    Every comment chain deteriorates into people calling each other idiots. Saying stuff about each other that’s not nice.
    Why? Because it’s fun to snipe I guess.
    It requires no intellectual honesty.
    It’s easy.

    ‘huh huh huh, you’re not on my team, you SUX!!’

    It’s this type of behavior that
    a) stymies intellectual curiosity
    b) pushes people to tribalism

    now, that’s not, in and of itself, a disaster…

    but
    c) this online mob (particularly on social media) – applies disproportional pressure on politics to ‘DO SOMETHING’

    So, they do something. And even if that something is exceedingly dumb – at least the populace is placated until the next item distracts them…


    So, data and facts now… are the enemy.
    Because, if they don’t fit a narrative that someone wants to hear – they just ignore them.

    ‘hey bro, you suck and live in a basement because you have a different opinion. I don’t believe you – because I don’t want to change my mind. I like this side’

    People on the internet, the most vocal ones often…. express intellectual curiosity in the same manner that they vote for their home team – they don’t bother. They have already made up their allegiance.


    My whole point here….. is that THAT overlay of ‘if it’s not my side, it’s wrong’ leads to increasing non-civil discourse. Increased sensationalism and party politics instead of facts.

    While it’s interesting to note (and some of us don’t bother with social media specifically to avoid this ugly scene) —- NOW it has cost lives.

    NOW it has really had a massive impact on the world, in a very negative way.
    And, unfortunately, it looks like facts and logic aren’t going to change people’s minds about this virus.

    They made up their mind – emotionally and because they have a side to defend.
    So, more people will die, and more damage will be done, because facts aren’t popular anymore…

    This is, how the empire dies. The thunderous applause..

  28. @George – sounds fine and dandy, the problem is that one side uses facts…and the other uses, ahem, “alternative facts”…can’t quite get past that divide.

  29. But the alternative facts are all coming from George…

    What are the real facts? 100K deaths so far in the US, 1.7M diagnosed cases, so a direct measured mortality rate of 6%.

    We all know both the numerator and denominator of that calculation are inaccurate. There are people who die of Covid at home, undiagnosed. There are also people who die of Covid in the hospitals that would have died anyway without getting the disease. Increased mortality rates indicate around 150K US deaths so far.

    There are also millions of undiagnosed cases in the US, because testing isn’t that prevalent. But to get to a 0.3% mortality rate, you’d have to believe there are 50M Americans walking around who have or have had Covid- basically 1 out of 6. Look around you on that plane row of 6 people full- does one really have Covid? Doesn’t make sense, and not supported by the semi-random antibody studies done so far, like the Stanford one indicating a 4% antibody rate.

    By the way, Levitt teaches Chemistry, and first started graphing mortality rates a few months ago. No thanks- I’ll stick to the epidemiologists.

  30. @M (and others) – people are free to travel now to most domestic locations (all of you are OK w quarantine). Travel isn’t just “medical personnel and people w dying grandparents”.

    Obviously everyone has to make their own decision but I’m considering a flight in June to a casino that is now open. Pure elective trip but that is my right!

    If you stay home fine but don’t shame those that elect to fly

  31. @Bill – I live in N.C. and our restrictions are tighter than many nearby states. Also, even in the most restrictive states (CA, IL, NY) airports are open and no state order prohibits people from traveling to an airport or taking a flight. There may be encouragement to stay home and avoid unnecessary trips but I assure you that you can fly in and out of these places so anyone saying The airport issue at CLT was due to lighter restrictions in our state is absolutely clueless!!

  32. Oh Ralphie

    The point being made is that obesity kills more people than the Covid drama. So the response is disproportionate. Think about that for a second.

  33. @George
    On your trip to Doha, how did you get to JNB?
    What business were you in that allowed you to retire so young?
    Covid deaths are now around 100,000. When will this outbreak end?
    How many more deaths do you expect in the U.S. before this is all over?
    Can you get the Stanford professor to contribute to the View and keep us posted on Covid?
    Finally, are you a genius in scientific analysis or mathematical equations?
    Thank you for your honesty!

  34. @Truthful George
    You’re honestly sound like a flat-farther when someone bothers to show them data that the earth is round.

    ‘Those are alternative facts man!’
    ‘My facts say it’s flat’, durrr’!

    Listen, I have to assume people like you can do math.
    It’s hard to talk to you if you can’t grasp math.
    And, unfortunately, it appears that …. you can’t….

    My data comes from sited medical source here is one where part of the researchers (epidemiologists, so you will like it now…)

    ” the study conducted by Professor Hendrik Streeck of the University of Bonn is so significant: a representative sample population within Germany was tested and examined in great detail to determine what percentage had already been infected with Covid-19.

    The headline result is that 15% of that population was infected, which implies an Infection Fatality Rate of 0.36%. This would put him somewhat in the middle of the previous experts we have spoken to. Professor Streeck was keen to point out, however, that he still believes this is a conservative estimate, and thinks it may be closer to 0.24-0.26% and may come down further still as we know more. ”

    Since you didn’t read ANY of my links to medical studies, you can follow this one. It has a VIDEO!
    https://unherd.com/thepost/german-virologist-finds-covid-fatality-rate-of-0-24-0-36/


    This is the IFR, the first one that has been scientifically studied properly.

    100% of a population don’t get a virus… that’s now how it works…
    God. I can’t handle this level of ignorance.

    @ .26 IFR, or lower, makes it close to the same lethality as… you guessed it… the flu.

    These aren’t ‘alternative facts’ – they are data that is in a journal that is being peer reviewed by the best doctors in the world.

    To use that number in context: if 50% of the USA population was exposed to the virus over the course of a year or two. ~396,000 would die in the USA.

    Which is… .12% of the entire USA population (330,000,000).
    .12%
    Mostly old people, or people who would likely have died of *something* in that time frame.

    This isn’t eating people’s faces, or turning them into zombies man.
    It overwhelmingly targets the weak.
    It doesn’t give you rabies man…

    Have you even talked to anyone who has gotten it?

    So, if half of the country got it, full on, we’d lose… .12% of our entire population.

    Your panicked over that?
    .8% of the US population dies off normally EVERY YEAR.
    2,800,000 million Americans die every year.
    And if CV was attributed to 400,000 of those. It would probably crack the top 10.


    The fact is, this is not only nothing to panic about – but BECAUSE we panicked, more people will suffer and die.

    That’s what you don’t get. And math doesn’t help a lot here.
    The UN estimates several hundred thousands children could die because they won’t get measles vaccines.

    But, you’re ok with that, I’m sure, because…. the earth is FLAT – you can pound your fist in rage and defiance.
    Facts be damned! We don’t need those, I’ve got this book that says it’s FLAT!


    Site your facts, credit to peer reviewed journals or seriously, stay home and be quiet.
    Your nonsense doesn’t get an equal voice to facts and logic and reason.

    All the data is coming in now. It all agrees.
    This killed a lot of people.

    And so did cars.
    Heart disease killed about 10x more
    Diabetes 5x more..

    But a VIRUS is new and scary and the media can make a ton of money selling you a story about it with a death counter.

    You got hoodwinked and had. Remember, 60,000,000 people die a year. Even if 3Million died of CV this year (we’re at around 400,000 with draconian measures). it’s 5%….

    If you want to ruin the lives of others for 5% who would have likely died of *something* anyway… well, that’s exactly what you did. Congrats. You win. You ruined more lives than coronavirus! Hooray

    I can’t keep siting facts and medical journals anymore if people don’t read them or actually say ‘hmmm, interesting, yeah, that peer reviewed journal shows a much different IFR than what the media was telling me’

    Decide for yourselves, but for gods sake, look at the data and not just the television anymore….

  35. @Rog

    I’m trying to visit every country in the world. There are 196 of them… so, I’ve got a while to go.
    I am moving to Lisbon this fall – which allows me to hit West Africa and most of Africa actually, easily.

    So, to answer your question: I’ll do LIS-MPM, and then drive to Eswantini likely fly to JNB, then over to Lestho, back to JNB before flying to Doha. (I have only booked LIS-MPM on TAP and yesterday JNB-DOH on Qatar, the rest I’ll figure out later)

    If you want to see, these are the flights I’ll take over the 11 months: https://tinyurl.com/y8dejeza

    You can see my photos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121178693@N07/
    I generally post one per country.


    Business, I won’t say. It’s nothing glamorous. One in the US and one in Europe.
    But I started the main one 15 years ago, and it worked out. So, I left in December to travel full time.


    Math, no, I’m actually bad at it, which makes this SO much more frustrating, since most people are clearly worse.

    I’m college educated (barely…), but not particularly smart. I just always hired people smarter than myself.

    This entire thing has me mad, because of the illogical way in which people let emotion override facts and data.

    Someone screamed fire !!! in a theater, and there was more damage done from the panic than the actual fire…
    That’s what we are seeing here, I believe, and I’m spending some free time to understand the human factors behind it. Which is why I have the time to post here, I don’t, uhm, have a job at the moment, like 30Million other Americans, but for different reasons.

  36. Just do what NYC hospitals did to COVID positive nursing home patients. Load them up on Tylenol and then ship them back to the nursing home. Ton of Tylenol will get you under that magic 100.4.

  37. This is what many selfish, ignorant jerks don’t get (because you choose not to): if everyone WOULD wear a mask and do their best to socially distance, the risk of travel would go down and most of us could travel again. It’s precisely BECAUSE of the idiots who care only about their rights and no one else that the sane among us are stuck at home.

  38. @George I would not drive to Eswantini.
    After visiting all 196 I think you’ll understand why the U.S. Is the greatest country in the world and you won’t have to wear a red hat to prove it.
    Are you going to keep voting for chump even if he goes for 4 terms?
    I think you’re wrong about theatre fires. Thousands have burned up in enclosed spaces where exits are closed or locked making it impossible to get out.
    What do you wear on planes to keep from getting burned in case of fire?
    I’ll check out your flight paths and pics later. Are you going to develop a blog for your trip or post photos on Instagram?
    Thanks.

  39. @Rog

    Eswantini, have you been?
    Seems an easy drive from Maputo.
    I drove from Dakar down to Guinea-Bissau this year (well, hired a driver), through The Gambia and all that. Driven around Ethopia, Djibouti, Kenya and SA. So, can’t be that bad. (Guinea-Bissau was the worst)


    I’ve never had any social media, and have zero intention of starting. T
    witter, Facebook, Instagram… uhm, no thanks.

    So, no, no blog, I don’t really talk about it much, just do my thing and post a picture from each country.


    Trump, didn’t vote for him, have never voted republican before, actually.

    I think with the economy, and standing up to an awfully biased media, I am going to vote for Trump this year. (I live in a super liberal city on the coast where no one votes for him)

    More than anything the system is broken, and I find the left far far worse than the right.
    The right is crazy, but, the left seems demented to me.
    Telling me what words I can use? Shouting me down because I have a different opinion (which I generally express fairly calmly and kindly?)

    Yeah, that’s liberals now. I’ll take the crazy religious people over the fascists any day of the week.

    Sad indictment of the reality of life in America these days.
    I’m working to fix it though, someone has to stand up to this garbage.

  40. Originally we wanted to flatten the curve. This meant spreading out the number of infections over a longer period to ensure that our hospital system had enough beds to accommodate Covid-19 patients. We wanted to have time to build capacity like they did in New York. Two weeks of distancing should buy us the time we needed

    Somehow the objective changed into avoiding every single infection and every single death, which is not realistic. Most places in the USA have enough ICU capacity to handle increases in new cases and should be able to open with proper guidelines. Most people recover… even people on TV like Chris Cuomo and George Stephanopoulos..

  41. @hjb
    Talk to the relatives of those who didn’t make it. See if they buy your argument.
    What is it now 100,000? Tomorrow, how many?
    Glad to hear many places have enough equipment.
    Can you name most places so we can check?

  42. @org
    It sounds harsh, but the goal was never to save everyone from the virus as it is impossible- even if you wrap people in a bubble. People pass away from the flu or other viruses as well. In this case, there was a fear that the virus would infect so many people so quickly that hospital capacity was not enough. If you watched Gov Cuomo in his briefings, you may have noticed the solid line indicating hospital capacity. Initially , it was about hospital beds, ventilators, equipment and New York created new hospitals, brought in staff etc..
    At no time, did anyone say that social distancing was preventing all infections. It was designed to buy us time to prepare. We talked about 14 days and then added 30 more. And now the mission is accomplished

    Regarding most places.. check hospital capacity in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, Houston and you will find that hospitals and ICU beds are far from capacity.

  43. Sickening…people traveling at the height of this deadly (I say again, deadly) virus, but that doesn’t seem to jive with people. If you need to return home, don’t. Seclude yourself to a hotel until this blows over, or genius idea, don’t travel in the first place. People are selfish and arrogant and for most, it comes easy to them. Despicable. Sitting here in my residence city, haven’t traveled, only go out to get or do essential errands and staying healthy, while other people are acting as if it’s a regular holiday. Pisses me off

  44. @Nope – how long will you stay confined at home ? You mentioned “until this blows over”, which is very vague – who decides when it has blown over? Are you looking at 0 infections to be the metric?
    Maybe you are fortunate and have unlimited funds or can work from home. Waiting for a vaccine may be an “unfulfilled hope” for 12-28 months or even longer.
    You are also aware that getting infected with the virus is not a “death-sentence” – most people survive and many don’t even show symptoms, correct?
    Last but not least, these measures were implemented to “flatten the curve”, which means that we wanted to spread the number of infection over a longer period (rather than having a huge spike in a short time frame) to ensure that hospitals would have capacity to treat sick people. The intention initially was not to avoid every single infection or death as it is not realistic
    Life is inherently dangerous and there are other communicable and deadly diseases that may impact us

  45. @Nope @hjb
    Entitled White people think they can get away with anything until death stares them in the face. Oops I screwed up.
    It’s only a matter of time for some folks who walk around thinking they won’t get it.
    Flattening the curve is not working in my area as cases are going back up.
    I go out with a mask and I still feel at risk wondering if I’m next. So be it.

  46. @Rog – let me try to explain one more time: “flattening the curve” has worked as it created a situation where hospitals have enough beds and capacity to treat patients. Flattening the curve was never intended to decrease the number of infections. It was only spreading the same number of infections over a longer time period.
    We will see new cases – a large increase in new infections may indicate that “social distancing” is not working or that people are not wearing masks. Distancing, masks, washing hands are the tools we use to accomplish the goal of flattening the curve. All the measures we put in place in the USA have still resulted in more infections and deaths per capita than Japan (actually most Asian countries) where the shutdowns were not as severe as in the USA. Masks, not shaking hands/ kissing/ hugging and a better isolation of sick people seem to have had more of an impact than closing shops and restaurants.
    Even if you get infected, you have a very good chance to not have any or only mild symptoms and an even better chance to survive (unless you are in one of the at risk groups due to other health conditions)

  47. @hjb Sorry, but I didn’t get your last post. All I got was a few words and then &amp&amp and a few words and & amp and so on. Can you run all that by me one more time? Something wrong with my I-pad or your server?

  48. @Rog – let me try to explain one more time: “flattening the curve” has worked as it created a situation where hospitals have enough beds and capacity to treat patients. Flattening the curve was never intended to decrease the number of infections. It was only spreading the same number of infections over a longer time period.
    We will see new cases – a large increase in new infections may indicate that “social distancing” is not working or that people are not wearing masks. Distancing, masks, washing hands are the tools we use to accomplish the goal of flattening the curve. All the measures we put in place in the USA have still resulted in more infections and deaths per capita than Japan (actually most Asian countries) where the shutdowns were not as severe as in the USA. Masks, not shaking hands/ kissing/ hugging and a better isolation of sick people seem to have had more of an impact than closing shops and restaurants.
    Even if you get infected, you have a very good chance to not have any or only mild symptoms and an even better chance to survive (unless you are in one of the at risk groups due to other health conditions)
    Hope you are getting the entire post now – if still a problem, it may be your device

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