Tag Archives for coronavirus.
The federal government is considering new rules “that would allow border officials to temporarily block an American citizen or legal permanent resident from returning to the United States from abroad if the authorities have reason to believe the person may be infected with the coronavirus.”
However they’d do this based on their best guess – and not testing – and they’re considering doing this now after the coronavirus barn door has already been left open.
For anyone going to Disney World, the relevant question is what would they be doing if they weren’t at Disney? In Florida numerous bars remain open despite restrictions, and gyms are open.
Disney is probably a safer activity than alternatives, which means that Disney being open likely reduces spread of the virus.
As Brazil tops 100,000 reported deaths from Covid-19, its President Bolsonaro urges citizens to “get on with [their] lives and try to find a way of getting away with this problem.” He suggested as well that his country’s governors were inflating fatalities “to panic the population.” So blame the pillows?
Airlines are engaged in hygiene theater, cleaning surfaces and promoting electrostatic spraying. I appreciate the cleanliness and hope it sticks around after the pandemic. But the CDC and other research suggests surfaces aren’t a key vector of Covid-19 spread.
Social distancing guidance was based on the idea that large respiratory droplets are the primary way that the virus spreads, and those droplets fall to the ground quickly, so staying six feet apart from others is a good prophylactic. Masks help with large droplets. However increasingly researchers are concerned with aerosolized spread or airborne transmission.
If the passenger who hadn’t traveled to Wuhan did pick up the virus inflight, what’s remarkable is that with 15 people that had been in Wuhan in January ultimately testing positive for the virus only one other person on the aircraft got it. What’s remarkable is the lack of spread, rather than that there’s spread, considering the number of infected persons on board.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby talked during his airline’s earnings call about the airline expecting to plateau at 50% of last year’s revenue ‘until there’s a vaccine’ and then expecting recovery to come very quickly to the airline business. American Airlines, too, talked about a vaccine for Covid-19 in its earnings call.
I’ve already written about a vaccine not being a silver bullet, that it’s likely not to be 100% effective and not everyone will take it. That means the virus will continue to circulate, people will still get infected. A vaccine may help – but perhaps less than you think – and isn’t the ‘trigger’ for travel everyone hopes.
When the travel recovery comes, CEO Scott Kirby says “the recovery is going to be quick.”
This is a tale of two travelers. They both started out making a smart decision about their flying during the pandemic. They’re both flying Delta first class, but they look very different.
Is it just the guy who’s in the wrong here, are these two passengers illustrating both ends of the spectrum of American reactions that helps to explain why we’re so polarized and cannot seem to get anywhere?
Many readers have said consistently throughout the pandemic that they will not travel until there is a vaccine. I think it’s the wrong paradigm for thinking about future travel both because a vaccine won’t be the cure all many people expect and because travel itself seems pretty safe, the issue is what you find at your destination.
We know a lot more about Covid-19 than we did three and four months ago. Much of what we think we know is still speculative. There’s learning which suggests real optimism, even as the virus spreads rapidly through much of the country (especially the southern portion). But the idea that we’re just hanging in for a vaccine, and once we have one everything goes back to normal, no longer holds up as we learn more about what vaccines against the novel coronavirus can do. At the same time it’s one part of a tool kit that will bring life and travel back to what it once was – and taken together likely even get us most of the way there in the first half of 2021.
The Bahamas is trumpeting their re-opening plan to welcome tourists. Americans can visit with a negative Covid-19 PCR test and filling out a health screening.
The Covid-19 test just has to be within 10 days of travel. That’s convenient given how backed up testing is in the U.S. But it’s also useless – in fact a positive test that’s 10 days old might be better!
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 »
