How International Travel Can Be Safer than Domestic
by Robert McGarvey
My trip across the Atlantic looms and a big question popped in front of my eyes: how crazy am I? Everywhere I look people are cancelling international trips, even some domestic travel, mainly as fear of the delta variant spreads fast across the country and hospitalizations, ICU usage, and deaths are all climbing. Is it nuts to cross the water?
And then I remembered the numbers and as I parsed the math I realized what is nuts is staying in Arizona.
About 53% of us in the US are fully vaccinated. My home state of Arizona comes in at 49% (yeah, a lot of dummies in the desert).
Spain, my European destination, is 74.4% fully vaccinated. That is right. Three in four Spaniards are fully vaccinated and they are taking the same good, high grade vaccinations we are in the US.
Better still, Spain now requires US residents who are travelling to Spain to have proof of full vaccination. No proof, no entry.
And the US requires us to present a current negative test result to re-enter the country.
Think what those facts mean. On my flight from JFK to Madrid it is reasonable to assume most passengers will be vaccinated. On the flight from Madrid to JFK, ditto for a preponderance of vaccinated and definitely everybody has a current negative test result.
I am safer on the international flight than I am on the PHX to JFK leg and god help me if that routing were to get shifted to Atlanta where anti vaxxers are boisterous and plentiful.
That is right: selected international travel just is safer than domestic.
Sure, I know the White House has unleashed a push to get many more of us vaccinated but even optimists believe it will be some months before we can match Spain’s present number (and by then Spain probably will be over 90% vaccinated).
The anti-vaxxers are creating our travel miseries. The blame is theirs.
And some are rising to slap them down.
Some airlines – Qantas is a for instance – say they will require all international passengers to be vaccinated. Canada is requiring similar of air passengers effective at the end of October.
Right now, no other airline has a broad requirement for vaccinations among passenger – but many countries now do. Expect more countries and airlines to join these lists. Travel just won’t truly restart until there are broad vaccination mandates and as airlines eye the many empty seats in their international flights you can bet that they will begin to agitate for vaccination requirements.
Don’t the unvaccinated have rights? Perhaps. But I have a right to not want them on my flights, in my hotels, or in the restaurants where I am eating. And many of us are beginning to share that thinking.
Even with my confidence about the health of my fellow travelers on the international legs of my travels, I will be wearing upgraded KF94 face masks which are a sharp step over conventional cloth masks (which I still wear in stores but some airlines have banned them and I am fine upgrading my air travel masks).
What about eating inflight, and bathroom use? I believe I will skip eating and as for the toilet I’d like to say I won’t use it at all but doubt that is realistic for a 7 hour flight. Stay masked, wash hands, maintain distances from other passengers and very probably this will be a safe trip.
But I wouldn’t have the same confidence about a flight to Wyoming or Alabama.
It’s domestic travel that I now see as risky. Talk about a paradox.
Look who you are flying with! And check the vaccination rate of states into which you are flying.
Yes, I know the CDC advises us to avoid ravel to Spain – and many, many more countries. I am just counting on my ability to stay health by traveling smart, avoiding the unvaccinated wherever possible, and also I come to this fully vaccinated and as a Covid survivor who probably has many antibodies from the actual disease swimming around my veins.
I am betting I do okay.
We’ll find out if that is a smart wager.
I felt MUCH safer in Portugal a few weeks ago and on the international flights than I do in the USA and on the domestic connection I had to take. Europe is way ahead of the USA on vaccination and requiring proof of vaccine or testing to enter hotels etc.
Used same calculus in deciding not to cancel trip to Spain, where we have been bouncing around country, mainly Cantabria for cooler temps, now in SE (Murcia) for 2 mos in our apt there. Much of country has still got plenty of outdoor seating for bars/restaurantes/tascas/mesones etc. Just went back to my regular barber this am, felt a lot safer than going to get a haircut in home county in CA where vax rates are in low-mid 40’s. Also did 1st major grocery shopping, customers still all masked and distanced, avoiding bunching up in checkout line. Went to Prado and Natl Anthropological Museum while in MAD for a few days, same thing – masks, distancing, extra long queue for entry ticket window. You’re damn right you should be safer here, and I hope you enjoy it. There are some antivax wingnuts here, too, but not as many, and when I go to sit outside my favorite coffee joints and peruse La Opinion de Murcia in the mornings, I don’t see daily hyperventilating news stories about the latest idiot claims from them. In fact, a local judge for the autonomous region of Murcia just handed down an opinion in a case where one member of a divorced couple wanted to keep an eligible child from getting the vaccine, stating that fear of the vaccine on part of that parent “was not a medical justification,” and that only a showing from a competent medical authority as to inadvisability of vaccination would be sufficient to justify withholding the shot. And no blasted certified juice therapists or homeopaths either. Once you’re in Spain, you can stay for 90 days, as we do twice a year in normal times, a plan we hope we will be resuming with this trip. I would see if you can’t go for 90 yourself, hoping US will be a bit safer by then. Cordialmente, etc.
Ditto my experience on Philadelphia-Ireland trip. (Got back 9/16 from three-week visit.) IE has 90% vax rate, vax card checks at pubs and restaurants and other indoor high density spots. There may be mask fatigue but I witnessed none of the anti-mask attitudes found in some US locales. Safer than home (and Philly has decent vax rate and mask acceptance compared to US as whole). I felt comfortable regarding virus protection during entire trip, including connections at FRA (ugh,) and YYZ.
Follow the science. Instead of focussing on the vaccinated, focus on the IMMUNE.
There is vaccine-based immunity and recovered immunity. Nearly 100 Million Americans have had Covid and have recovered. They have much stronger immunity than vaccine-based immunity, based on multiple studies (antibody levels, infection rates, etc. ). The recovered are as safe or safer than the vaccinated, and for longer.
Regarding masks, again, follow the science. Cloth masks are useless (like trying to stop a mosquito with a chain-link fence). Surgical masks only stop 10-20% at most, of what you exhale. N95 or equivalent is the only mask (respirator) that offers protection.
PS. I have safely flown trans-Pacific multiple times in the past two years.