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Since Biden just instituted a one-day-before-you-come TEST policy for international arrivals - effective Monday somehow, as if other nations are prepared to do same day testing for all of the folks already there, here are some USA airline facts.
(If you need the math - I can supply it - but this was already a long post.**)
ALL airport mask-wearing is about a single contagious person in an average airport. 1. Not 1 percent. 1 person. In Larger airports (say, Atlanta) - it's more like 10 people. So folks fearing airports - you're really worried about nothing. Do not fear the airports.
80% of passenger planes have zero COVID contagious persons on them. The rest have 1 person. Not 1 percent. 1 person.Do not fear flying.
100% of international arriving passengers are vaccinated - statistically, the "old" 3-day test window prevented about 60 contagious people from boarding a plane. Not 60%. 60 total, of about 400,000. By reducing it to one day, we weed out a farther 40 people. 40, across 4000 arriving flights. Nearly 99% of arriving international flights already have zero COVID contagious people on them.
Some medical-smart person can help me here - but, in 400,000 same day "rapid tests" - how many will be false positives...and how many will be false negatives? If either number approaches 60...WTF are we doing?
In the time it took me to write this - 1000 folks crossed the border at El Paso legally - no test required.
Every 30 minutes. 24/7. 1000 people. One city. No tests.
Even me - a conspiracy nay-sayer - have to ask - What in the name all that is Travel Holy is this new restriction about?
Don't give me some nonsense about "eh, well, that's 40 planes that didn't each arrive with 300 people sick from a super spreader." No such thing is happening. There is zero data to support that - and I mean, zero.
I am mainly in support of anti-covid policies - but the airport / mask / testing thing is (provably) more useless than, say, testing 1% of legal border crossings, in that one city only.
Biden supporters - what say you? Where is the sense in this? I cannot find it.
*yes, obviously, no one knows who that 1 person is. That wasn't my point. The point is - if NO ONE wore masks at airports or on planes or in the terminal - then a SINGLE individual might possibly infect a couple of people - or maybe not. And yep, it could in theory snowball. But the point of all anti-covid measures is to stop the drain on resources - not stop 100% of covid infections. There are many - many - other places where more folks are infected more often - any restaurant for instance. If you are still of the mind that we must stop 100% of COVID - you are in for a long haul.
**The math I used made a conservative assumption at every juncture. If you're a doubter of these numbers - I used the MOST aggressive estimates.
100% of international arriving passengers are vaccinated -
False, I flew over 100,000 international miles this year. Mostly Miami <-> France quite a bit, but also several times Miami <-> Latin America/Caribbean, and France to Africa (Egypt, Seychelles) and France <-> various European countries.
100% of the clown show that goes on in airports and on airlines courtesy of the Federal Government is just that, a clown show. Not just the covid crap.
I would support the testing if it applied to land crossings as well. Otherwise it is discriminatory. I wouldn't support a vaccine requirement. And I think the mask requirement is a joke.
As for the false positives: if you get tested positive, you could take the test again (and again?) to prove whether it was false positive.
People should wear masks on planes even after the pandemic. They've always been some of the worst disease factories. People who crave germs are weirdos.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Retroit
I would support the testing if it applied to land crossings as well. Otherwise it is discriminatory. I wouldn't support a vaccine requirement. And I think the mask requirement is a joke.
As for the false positives: if you get tested positive, you could take the test again (and again?) to prove whether it was false positive.
You don't necessarily share unfiltered air with other people when you cross borders by land.
And if you retake the test until you get a negative result that eventually renders the test pointless, obviously.
People should wear masks on planes even after the pandemic. They've always been some of the worst disease factories. People who crave germs are weirdos.
People should wear masks on planes even after the pandemic. They've always been some of the worst disease factories. People who crave germs are weirdos.
You don't necessarily share unfiltered air with other people when you cross borders by land.
And if you retake the test until you get a negative result that eventually renders the test pointless, obviously.
The "worst disease factories" are schools. Always have been, always will be.
For long-haul flights - air is exchanged - not filtered. It's cleaner than nearly any air anywhere. (Not so, smaller domestic flights - I give you that.)
And I'm not vaccinated. I concede that not all countries require a vaccination. In your example, France:
On September 9, France moved the United States from its “green list” to its “orange list” of countries (or “amber list” depending on which section of the French government’s website you are looking at), meaning that unvaccinated U.S. travelers are no longer allowed to travel to France unless they have a pressing or compelling reason, such as being an EU citizen or resident, for an essential work purpose...
Certainly there are exceptions. But 100% of NON CITIZENS are supposed to be vaccinated. So - what remains are USA citizens - and MOST OF THEM (but not all, clearly) have been vaccinated. It changes nearly nothing I said, since I did not assume 100% vaccination for my math, although I did not state that. What I said remains true - the number of instant or one-day tests that may test falsely positive OR negative likely outnumbers the actual cases. In other words - although you stopped 40 people from getting on that may or may not have it - you also let 40 people on that definitely do have it - so what's the point? This would be true if the number were 40 or 20 or 80 or 200.
Meantime - it's not an easy list to find. For instance, many countries allow unvaccinated people in...but not from the USA. Other countries allow it - but with a long isolation period. Still others allow it - but only for "important" reasons. It's adequate for this exercise to say - the great majority of international travelers TO the USA are vaccinated. But even if NONE OF THEM were vaccinated - it would not change my overall point - that the effect of requiring the one-day-before test is very tiny, compared to allowing many land border crossings daily without any test whatever.
Look at it this way - a single airplane passenger who is contagious - or indeed, 10 of them on the same plane - can do no worse than infecting the passengers on the plane...many of whom are vaccinated...right?
On the other hand - a single border crossing person can head right into work - which is why they are crossing the border - and infect just as many, just as fast. Tomorrow too. And the next day.
I'm not saying the net effect is zero ... I'm saying it's quite tiny compared to so many other things, I cannot find the logic in doing it, except to annoy travelers. Aiming for a 100% reduction is foolish. We're already at 99%....so what else is this?
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