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Flight Attendants and Covid-19

confessionsfromaflightattendant.wordpress.com

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Re: Flight Attendants and Covid-19

#121

Post by rootusrootus »

dragonwriter wrote: post #13
umvi wrote: post #4

Since hospitals are practically empty right now, have we thought of allowing people to voluntarily get infected/quarantined (using a tiny viral load)? Obviously no old, immuno-compromised, or other vulnerable people. But for healthy "essential" workers it would mean not living in fear that they might get it... because they already got over it.

> But for healthy "essential" workers it would mean not living in fear that they might get it... because they already got over it. Coronaviruses don't tend to produce strong, long-lasting immunity, and we have no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 does, and, also, young otherwise healthy people are dying from strokes that seem to be due to the virus: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/24/strokes-cor... So, this woul…

> Coronaviruses don't tend to produce strong, long-lasting immunity

This is a bit misleading. The common coronaviruses that cause the "common cold" do not seem to confer long lasting immunity. But there are very significant differences between those viruses and SC2. The best estimate we have is that immunity will be similar to SC1 (SARS) and immunity to that lasts several years.

Re: Flight Attendants and Covid-19

#122

Post by ryanwaggoner »

downerending wrote: post #114
brenden2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just fear mongering. Life will return to normal. Lots of people swore they'd never fly after 9/11 and yet things did recover.

Maybe. Two very reassuring things happened right after 9/11, though: (1) cockpit doors were seriously reinforced, and (2) everyone realized that if there was a on-board threat, the only rational response would be "Let's roll". Some might also include TSA changes on that list. COVID-19 is different. We're having an extended period of time to realize that we simply don't need to fly anywhere. And that airplanes always…

We're having an extended period of time to realize that we simply don't need to fly anywhere.

I think we're all learning right now that we don't need to do a lot of things, but we still want to.

I can't imagine getting on a plane either, but only this year. I expect I'll be traveling in 2021 or 2022. I wouldn't even be opposed to going on a cruise again in the next few years. If there's not a global pandemic going on, cruise ships really aren't that big of a risk. I've been on 10-15 cruises and have never picked up anything. Norovirus is the typical risk, but you're probably at more risk of catching it on land than on a cruise ship. There's just not the same level of monitoring and reporting of norovirus at places like restaurants.

Airplanes always were flying petri dishes, but so are any place where people gather. It's not just airplanes and cruise ships, it's restaurants and concerts and schools and churches and extended family get-togethers. There's just no evidence that the pandemic will affect those things in the long run.

Once it's safe to do so, we'll be clustering together again, like we always have.

Re: Flight Attendants and Covid-19

#123

Post by ec109685 »

Saaster wrote: post #93
Zigurd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several simultaneous misperceptions I see: First, noted in the article, is a false sense of security. If the Secret Service in the White House can have an outbreak, any workplace can have an outbreak. The pandemic has yet to hit large swathes of the planet, but it will probably do so before a vaccine is available. This is really, really bad, and will be until there is some substantial change. Third is a sen…

If business travel is reduced, you can expect the cost of regular coach class tickets to increase massively as the former pays for the flight and the latter is just there to wring a bit more profit out of the trip. Business travel right now is non-existent and many companies are finding that things still work just fine without it and will not return to previous spend levels.

Tickets to leisure destinations are not out of line from flights on business routes, so I don’t think it’s right to say airplanes can’t fly profitably without business travelers footing the bill.

Re: Flight Attendants and Covid-19

#124

Post by rootusrootus »

walterbell wrote: post #115
rootusrootus wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vaccines are unlikely to work or be scalable Can you back that up with some kind of science? There are >100 in development and several are done with phase 1. Hell, one is already entering production in anticipation of final approval later this year. Short term, we'll probably rely heavily on plasma.

Zero vaccines in the entire history of coronaviruses. For the well-known reason that the viruses mutate, so a vaccine against seasonal variant A does not work against new variant B.

This is a common misconception. Viruses mutate, sure, but most do not mutate very quickly or very much. This includes coronaviruses. Influenza, on the other hand, mutates at a prodigious rate in meaningful ways.

The reason we don't have vaccines against any coronaviruses is because there aren't very many that infect humans and all of them other than SC2 are so mild it isn't worth spending the effort to eradicate them.

Re: Flight Attendants and Covid-19

#125

Post by caseysoftware »

rootusrootus wrote: post #109
caseysoftware wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And scary side thing to consider.. how many corona-virus vaccines have been developed and deployed to date? Even after SARS (another corona virus), there were a bunch of candidates and some preliminary successes but none actually made it to market because interest (aka funding) subsided. The same over and over again. As of Jan 1, there were zero. People predicting "we'll have one in a year!" is based on hope and othe…

There are over 100 vaccines in development, several have completed phase 1 trials, and one is actually in production already so it will be available when it completes phase 3. We didn't need vaccines for SARS or MERS because they were both gone pretty quickly and the number of affected individuals was never high enough to warrant completing the expensive testing required to get approval for a vaccine.

Yes, exactly. I hope a) those vaccines yield useful results b) quickly enough before people lose interest and funding.

Re: Flight Attendants and Covid-19

#126

Post by Marsymars »

maxerickson wrote: post #119
Marsymars wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As is, the prime of my life is effectively being wasted; none of my regular pursuits are possible and I can't visit any of my family or friends. For healthy people in my age group there's roughly a 0.1% IFR and with about six decades of life remaining, that works out to about a three week expected loss of my lifespan if I'm infected. If I were able to visit my parents I could do most of their regular shopping/errands…

The stay at home order here makes exceptions for "family or household members", so people here can go do errands for parents without being in violation of it (it's also not particularly being enforced). The thing is, it's not just a personal decision, increased social contact results in increased spread for everybody, not just a 3 week risk for a given individual. Of course, lots of people are starting from the premi…

Yeah, my parents don't live nearby, I can't visit them without having a plan for a 14-day quarantine on arrival, and then after that, me living with them is more of a risk to them if I haven't been infected beforehand.

I'm not really sure how your other points relate to mine? The point of voluntary infection is that my social contacts then wouldn't be a risk to others.

Re: Flight Attendants and Covid-19

#127

Post by unilynx »

Saaster wrote: post #93
Zigurd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several simultaneous misperceptions I see: First, noted in the article, is a false sense of security. If the Secret Service in the White House can have an outbreak, any workplace can have an outbreak. The pandemic has yet to hit large swathes of the planet, but it will probably do so before a vaccine is available. This is really, really bad, and will be until there is some substantial change. Third is a sen…

If business travel is reduced, you can expect the cost of regular coach class tickets to increase massively as the former pays for the flight and the latter is just there to wring a bit more profit out of the trip. Business travel right now is non-existent and many companies are finding that things still work just fine without it and will not return to previous spend levels.

Ryanair did fine without a business class

Re: Flight Attendants and Covid-19

#128

Post by simion314 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #117
simion314 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will happen again, we knew something like this will happen, isolating China is maybe a solution for some politicians to get some points. Ideally we learn this time and everyone will be prepared with masks, we somehow fix the anti-vacine movement, implement contact tracing etc. Sure in parallel we should see if and who is guilty of what , but this should be a side thing and not the main focus.

> It will happen again Of course it will. For several reasons, not the least of which is that China turned back on the wildlife wet markets already. Just like they did after SARS. We should encourage them to modernize their food supply so this is not necessary.

About the food supply, I would focus on modernizing every country not only China, don't lose the focus of the problem by focusing in the US current preferred target. I can tell you that we still have epidemics that affect pigs here in Romania and markets get to be closed, and infected and uninfected pigs from people households get kiolled in panic(happened this year in my region).

Re: Flight Attendants and Covid-19

#129

Post by downerending »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #122
downerending wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. Two very reassuring things happened right after 9/11, though: (1) cockpit doors were seriously reinforced, and (2) everyone realized that if there was a on-board threat, the only rational response would be "Let's roll". Some might also include TSA changes on that list. COVID-19 is different. We're having an extended period of time to realize that we simply don't need to fly anywhere. And that airplanes always…

We're having an extended period of time to realize that we simply don't need to fly anywhere. I think we're all learning right now that we don't need to do a lot of things, but we still want to. I can't imagine getting on a plane either, but only this year. I expect I'll be traveling in 2021 or 2022. I wouldn't even be opposed to going on a cruise again in the next few years. If there's not a global pandemic going on…

> Once it's safe to do so, we'll be clustering together again, like we always have.

I think we're agreeing. The question is how soon each individual will judge the situation "safe enough". The young (50 and under or so) will soon realize that they were probably never at much risk, and will revert to normal faster.

The not-young will remain quite wary for a very long time, partly because old people are risk-averse to begin with, and partly because they are at higher risk from COVID-19 specifically.

Economic factors will play a large role as well. Most of us are realizing (faster or slower) that we just got whacked financially. Many have lost jobs, had their retirement accounts depleted, or suffered other downsides. And as a society we will be paying for this for decades in terms of higher taxes, lower services and social safety nets.

Re: Flight Attendants and Covid-19

#130

Post by ianlevesque »

gvjddbnvdrbv wrote: post #118
ianlevesque wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entirely this. As someone who has flown with multiple children and/or infants (I apologize to everyone who hates screaming children on planes), most of the time now you buy a separate ticket for your baby and have them in a carseat that is strapped into the plane seat. It's a logistical nightmare.

I've never seen a car seat on a plane. We flew multiple times with ours on our laps.

Sure, you can also not wear seatbelts or bike helmets. It’s a free country.
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