Can Pre-Flight Testing Help Restore International Travel?

[TLoraine]

Article today by Karen Walker, Editor-in-Chief at Air Transport World....

The depth and length of the impact of the COVD-19 pandemic on the air transport industry struck hard in October. In a grim update on the financial outlook for airlines, IATA said it expected them to burn through $77 billion in the second half of the year—or $300,000 per minute—and not become cash positive until 2022.

Second waves of the virus hit regions like the UK and Europe and some parts of Asia, prompting governments to return to stronger lockdowns and border shutdowns. The number of deaths in the US passed 213,000, the highest of any country, and the number of cases was climbing in many states.

The result is a significantly lower demand for air travel for far longer than predicted when the pandemic began. Adding to the criticality of the situation, many government-aid packages for airlines, including some 36 payroll support programs, have expired. They were implemented when most people believed the pandemic and economic situation would be improved by fall and more normal levels of demand for air travel would be resumed. Instead, air travel was down 75% in August versus a year ago and IATA forecasts it will still be down 68% by December.

“It is an unimaginably difficult time,” IATA director general and CEO Alexandre de Juniac said. “You will see more and more [airline] bankruptcies. It is critical and urgent.”

IATA, in unison with Airports Council International and other industry organizations, understandably has switched gears from trying to persuade governments to lift quarantines and border closures—a seemingly hopeless campaign while the coronavirus rages—to calling for 100% COVID-19 testing for all international passengers before their departure and return flights. Surveys show that 83% of participants would not consider air travel if there is a risk of being quarantined, but a similar percentage favors mandatory testing for all travelers.

Unanswered questions

IATA’s new position was not decided lightly, but there really is no choice. Yet it will be very difficult to implement and there are many unanswered questions. First, where and when will the tests be conducted and who pays for them? IATA believes the availability of viral antigen screening tests that are quick to give results (less than 15 minutes), cheap (less than $10), can be administered by a non-medical official and are highly reliable (around 98% valid result) will soon be widely available. That will make it possible for the tests to be conducted at departure airports, but this will require considerable work to administer in a way that does not cause crowding on the land side of terminals, which would be undesirable both from a distancing and a security point of view. IATA hopes that governments will foot the bill for tests, but that may be optimistic and problematic for states where taxpayers don’t see why they should “subsidize” those who choose to fly.

Then there’s all the details. Should testing include small children? How do governments, which have failed woefully to coordinate globally on their approaches to the pandemic, agree to a system of mutual recognition of each departure airport’s tests? Will labor groups worldwide support mandatory testing for all flight crews ahead of each flight? If quarantines continue in countries where people can easily cross borders via trains, cars or ferries, how will governments separate the flyers from the other travelers, or will they mandate tests for all international travelers? And what will be the criteria for ending mandatory testing?

So many questions. The global airline industry, however, cannot be sustained on domestic markets alone and the next big step in pandemic travel must be taken.

But whether mandatory testing, even if successfully implemented, will change the minds of those who choose not to fly until the pandemic is addressed is another matter. The industry has some pretty compelling statistics indicating that it is safe to fly, with there being a far higher risk of being struck by lightning than of catching the COVID-19 virus during a flight on a commercial airliner. IATA medical adviser David Powell said only about 44 people are thought to have caught the virus during a flight this year. That is among the 1.2 billion people who have flown, making the risk of transmission about one in 27.3 million. Even if some 90% of cases were not reported and the risk were 10 times higher, it would mean the likelihood of catching COVID-19 on a flight would be one in 2.73 million, making it “an uncommon event,” Powell said. He compared it to the much greater probability of being struck by lightning, a chance of between one in 500,000 and one in 1.2 million.

But the airline industry still hasn’t found the outside cheerleader, the celebrity, who can convey that safety message to the greater public, especially to those people they most need to convince: the majority that are staying grounded.

[RexBanner]

The majority aren’t staying grounded because of fears about contracting the virus they’re staying grounded because of ridiculous quarantine rules introduced by various governments that make travel utterly pointless in their current form. Take Jersey for example - already testing on arrival - since the States recently decided to introduce the colour banding system for U.K. regions this makes the vast majority of areas Amber at the very least. This means five days isolation until your second test result. Since this policy has been introduced the passenger loads on LHR-JER have gone from very respectable to utterly dire. This has nothing to do with fears of travelling and everything to do with practicalities.

[Pistonprop]

It may help, but only to a point. I think the airlines are fighting a war on two fronts. I can only speak for myself but I believe others may think more or less along the same lines, which is that it's not only the flight which may be a concern but other aspects of travel. For example, I may test negative at the airport outbound and then spend two weeks at a holiday resort. On my return I test positive at the airport and have to quarantine for two weeks (or whatever it is these days). Now I can't get home and I may become ill and need hospitalisation locally. Consequently, at present, airport testing would not inspire me to travel again. In other words (in my case anyway) it's not necessarily the flight which concerns me but the entire trip. Therefore, I choose to remain grounded.

[Richard Dangle]

Re: testing.

Just to give a perspective from a real case.

Three members of my family (a whole household - one of them a nurse) contracted Covid19 in September. Happily all got through it.

One of them (male) never tested positive. He had three tests and despite being unwell with all the symptons, all tests were negative (the other two householders both tested positive).

An anti-bodies test subsequently "confirmed" he had had Covid19 all along (which was pretty obvious anyway).

Make of that whatever you will.

[lomapaseo]

I have little faith in pre-flight testing changing the odds of coming down with Covid after a flight

Can it restore confidence.

Absolutely! even shuffling seats around and boarding practices makes the punters feel good. If it were aboard a sinking cruise ship we all know that moving deck chairs calm worried folks down

[PilotLZ]

At this point, few are so scared of the virus itself that they wouldn't step out of their homes and engage with all the normal activities, albeit with safety measures in place. And that includes travel. The number of people who fear getting infected on a plane these days is a lot lower than 6 months ago. Most of those who do have genuine concerns related to their age and physical condition which, absolutely reasonably, make them go the extra mile to protect themselves.

The problem why the "test and travel" concept would still be highly unappetising to everyone whose trip is not essential is uncertainty. If you're asymptomatic or unlucky enough to trigger a false positive result, your trip will be snatched away from you two hours before departure. If it's a family, that's even worse because everyone will go into quarantine instead of a vacation. Hence, many will prefer local holidays not involving this sort of gamble until something smarter comes into place. Like maybe the realisation that imported cases are no longer a big problem (unless you're New Zealand or one of the few other places where the dreaded lurgy isn't widespread). Or a decent vaccine and an immunity certificate instead of any entry restrictions.

[TitanCadetScheme]

In a world where a huge % of passengers are willing to book the cheapest flight possible, an £80 Covid test is going to stop them travelling.

It is all about cost.

[RTM Boy]

I'm afraid I don't see how pre-flight testing is going to help.

The IATA claims contradict reality as it is at the moment and for the foreseeable future.

The pre-flight quickie Lamp test identifies just 60% of infections, so er 40% are missed (aka Swiss cheese)
The more reliable, but still less-than-perfect PCR test takes days and even then is only about 80% reliable, making it impractical for all sorts of reasons.
Is each member of the crew going to be tested before each flight also? If not, more Swiss cheese holes.
The charge for the Lamp test is £80 pp. So, assuming tested both ways, a family of 4 is facing a round-trip bill of £640 just for tests. Given the industry evidence of passenger duty price elasticity, this makes it a non-starter for holiday trips and most likely all but really essential business trips.
And all this at a time when restrictions are tightening over the winter as the second wave takes hold, making more travellers more cautious anyway.

So the net impact will be what exactly? Not much upside that I can see, I'm sorry to say.

[Radgirl]

Great thread - many of the non medical issues listed above such as cost and being turned away at the airport are probably more relevant than the science.

No test that is only 60% effective is going to cut the mustard. The PCR is getting quicker and cheaper but although 97% eficacious, that depends on getting virus on the swab - even a trained healthcare worker fails in 20% of cases. The false positive is only 1% but this applies to the entire population, so if you tested just at Heathrow, 800,000 a year would be falsely stopped at the terminal.

We can calculate the efficacy of a combination of PCR swab plus isolation plus testing for symptoms - this is what we do in the UK for hospital admissions. 7 days isolation and a negative swab and no symptoms misses only 1 in 130,000 cases and so can be said to protect the border, but the swab has to be done after 3-4 days, not on arrival

Personally I believe we will have a vaccine within weeks and I worry the politicians are mucking around. The initial vaccines have been bought and are being manufactured but will need to be stored very cold. Now is the time to organise this and plan to get the vaccine to every high street so it can be rolled out in days. Serco and the army are no better at vaccinating than track and tracing !

[Miles Magister]

An interesting debate.

I have knowledge, but limit my disclosure as not wishing to advertise, of some testing kits available in the UK today and certified by a credible laboratory of having a certainty in excess of 90%. The team trying to distribute them are good people but are limited by the decision making processes of large organisations.

There are good options out there.

[Dannyboy39]

Heathrow were lauding the approval of the trial of these new testing centres for flights to Italy and HK, yet had quite a significant flaw... no foreigners can get into HK at present. So there is very little difference. Yes, it reduces the need for laborious private testing within 3 days of flying, but doesn't make a difference for probably 50% of each flight who would be terminating at HKG.

Everywhere east of DXB has the closed sign up. There is no sensibility - countries in the APAC region are going for an elimination strategy rather than to contain and manage like in Europe. It is unsustainable. When is it going to end? A vaccine is not an exit strategy (quote from Fauci earlier this year) and may not work to a level where the virus is totally eliminated; even Vallance said this a few days ago.

Australia are not reopening their border for another YEAR and NZ not to open their borders until 2022! It is absolutely crazy. Why work in aviation in this region?

[Chris2303]

It didn't catch the Russian seamen who are now isolating in CHC.

[Radgirl]

Who knows what the politicians may decide, but the science offers some good news.

A vaccine will have to reduce the risk of death or being on a ventilator or infection others by more than 50% - that is what the US FDA has decided. Hit any of those and you get an emergency use authorisation if the vaccine is also safe. Now that isnt very good for aviation as many countries may baulk at reopening their borders with still a 49% chance of visitors bringing in the plague. However some studies last week suggested just the first of the 2 doses of vaccine we will get stops the virus replicating in the nose. If true we may see a covid vaccine certificate like the smallpox vaccine certificate 40 years ago that allowed the vaccinated to travel

I am a glass half full person but I do believe the tunnel isnt that long and we will see the light. I know how important that is for so many on this thread.

[Peter H]

Miles Magister

Important point: certified by what criteria?

We know that the in-vitro accuracy of the swab test is pretty high, but both the quality and timing of the swabbing can introduce significant false negatives rates.

The first manufacturers reports on antibody tests reported accurate -- but misleading -- results, as all the positive blood samples were taken from hospitalised patients (and hence from people who had been seriously ill).

[Fortissimo]

The issue for the industry is not passenger confidence in their ability to travel without undue risk. It is the confidence of national governments in the effectiveness of anti-virus mitigations, in other words, confidence that aviation is not contributing to the spread of the virus. Once that is achieved, people will start to travel in the knowledge that they aren't going to be suddenly quarantined or similar. Pending a vaccine, preflight and/or arrival testing will be a key part of the process, at least according to the professors of epidemiology I heard speak recently; they also all commented that the speed and accuracy of tests is improving rapidly and that there are now products entering the market with accuracy in the 97%+ range.

Leaving antibody testing out of the equation (they only tell you if you have had the virus, not whether you have an active infection), the risk of a false positive result (for genetic material or antigen) is less of a problem than a false negative. The false negatives lead to infectious people entering the system, which then means you have to rely on the other mitigations to prevent transmission - those people who refuse to wear a mask, wash their hands, maintain social distancing when possible, etc. And for very small numbers who have a false positive there is always the prospect of a re-test; some can be done in a matter of minutes. And although any false results are unhelpful, the many correct outcomes suggest it is likely to be our best way forward.

I have a friend flying for a ME airline who tested positive on return to his home base and was ordered into quarantine, which surprised him as he felt fine and his departure test had been clear. A second test a couple of days later was also positive but he was still asymptomatic. A subsequent antibody test proved he had indeed been infected and recovered from Covid-19 even though he had no symptoms at any stage. The track and trace system worked out he had probably picked it up during his layover in the USA. Had he not been tested, the operator would have no idea about the risk at the US end, and the authorities would be dealing with all the people he infected after his return. That is the sort of process that boosts government confidence.

[Kent Based]

If 98% valid test equates to a 1 in 50 chance of a false positive test, then that's another barrier to flying. That's a 10% chance of one of a family of five getting a false positive, or two crying families at the departure gates of every flight.

What would increase numbers flying, is guarantees of quick refunds on cancelled flights, and actual help getting flights home after cancellation. Also consistent and safe procedures on boarding and disembarking.

[stormin norman]

Yes,only if it was free or of minimal cost.

[standbykid]

Testing on arrival, even if you have to wait a few hours for the results, is the best way to eliminate the 14 day isolation. There's just no point in traveling right now outside the air bridges. Shame.

[PilotLZ]

Perhaps the German approach is the best one for now. No testing at all for travellers from areas designated as safe on the basis of a set, transparent rolling number of cases. That's about enough of a stimulus for non-essential travellers to direct their attention there. If there's still someone who insists on going into a high-risk area, they need to either test negative before their return trip and present a time-stamped certificate at the German border - or they need to get tested at a designated test centre in Germany and self-isolate until such time as their result is out and negative.

[roger4]

I fully understand airport and airline operators pushing for this as they are experiencing massive damage to their businesses as we are, but isn't the concept of airport testing fundamentally flawed because of the biology of the disease?

As I understand it, according the the WHO there is an incubation period which averages 8 days from exposure to symptoms. However incubation can be as short as 2 or 3 days, but in 10% of people is 14 days or longer. We only test positive when we become infectious around 1-2 days before symptoms start. Hence, and most importantly, we test negative for the majority of the incubation period. Asymptomatic carriers also have the same variable incubation period until they too are infectious, although they may never know it. We stop being infectious around 10 days later. Note the distinction between infected (we have it in us) and infectious (we can give it to others).

So as an example, and if the Donald Trump timelines are to be believed, he was infected in the Rose Garden ceremony Sunday, tested negative Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (assuming he was tested every day, which hasn't been confirmed), tested positive Thursday and was taken ill Friday, i.e. he was on the shorter side of the range observed.

Assuming the tests are accurate (and as others have pointed out, much of the existing testing isn't perfect) a negative test only says we were not infectious on the day of the test. A test at the airport immediately before departure may give confidence that you are safe to fly, but it says nothing about whether you are incubating the disease and will go on to become infectious in the next week or two. Nor does a negative test at the arrival airport.

[Longtimer]

I am not travelling anywhere outside of my own country (Canada), not because I think air is unsafe but rather because until the quarantines etc. imposed by various countries are relaxed, there is no way in hell that I would travel and upon arrival have to quarantine for a period of time. I suspect most SLF feels the same way.

[PilotLZ]

+1 on this one. The risk of getting quarantined upon return, as I see it, is the main reason keeping most aspiring international travellers away from the airport. We saw a couple of such examples during the summer (think the UK air bridges which were axed on a short or no notice) and the publicity they received doesn't help the sector one bit. People cutting their holidays short and rushing to the airport in hopes of getting a vastly overpriced last-minute flight home just before D Day or people ending up on unpaid leave for 2 weeks after their annual leave are no good advertisement for travel. So, for most people the question is not whether they stand a higher risk of getting infected on a flight rather than in their local pub. The question is whether holidays (which are meant to be fun and relaxing rather than akin to Russian roulette) are worth this sort of hassle and risk.

[Hartington]

This SLF isn't travelling because there may be risk in the actual process of travelling but there's also risk at destination. Test me before I leave my home airport and I'm negative. I stay in destination for a long weeked or a short working week and test before boarding before I head home and again I'm negative. Troule is, I've been exposed while I'm away and, oh look, a few days later I've got it.
If I stay home I understand the society I live in and I can mitigate my risk, elsewhere there are different risks that I may not appreciate.
Once I'm vaccinated do I take off immediately? Probably not for much the same resons. The vaccination doesn't stop exposure, it probably doesn't stop infection but it helps me fight the infection. I'd rather not be infected, thank you.

[Max182]

Here in Australia we are not allowed to leave the country without a special permission which is not easy to get by the looks of it. This is all despite the requirements for a 14-day supervised and self-payed quarantine on the way back in addition to daily/weekly cap on arrivals making it rather difficult to secure a return flight. So I doubt there would be many willing to travel anyway beyond people who really need to go.

[Dannyboy39]

PilotLZ

But less than 1 in 5 the .U.K. are actually following the rules - a damning statistic that really hasn’t had much traction in the news cycle.

[White Knight]

Max182

Yeah... Australia has always been a bit special!

Dannyboy39

Probably because the Virus Horse bolted a long time ago and the people know that! The UK quarantine is absolutely pointless and only being done to make the politicians feel as if they've done something to 'beat' Covid.

[Hartington]

Dannyboy39 - that statistic may well be true but in the UK I can deal with it, I understand the cues people give off. Put me in a strange environment and my risk goes up.

[sunnybunny]

As a simple OAP SLF my view.

Hartington I'm with you, I'm so risk averse I don't go anywhere in the UK I'm not happy with as the risk is too great. I used to have great weekends away all over the country but not any more. We only go to our holiday home in Devon as we can effectivley self isolate there.

We were supposed to be in Canada visiting relatives this month and I tried to cancel back in May when it became apparent the scale of the problem but BA wouldn't let me. It was a great relief when the flights were finally cancelled about 3 weeks before departure. I have no desire to fly anywhere else so vouchers were of no use to me and I insisted on a refund.

Will i rebook next year? very unlikely. It may be a long while until I feel safe enough to fly again.

That's my view anyway.

[ph-ndr]

SLF here, I try to stay out of most talk in here, but I feel I have some to add here, as I am one of those who went from a lot of flying to not having been inside an airport since start of March.

I had written a much longer version of this, but it just got too winding. What it boils down to this time is that this isn't a security threat and the industry can try "more of the same", which is what it has done historically done with security since th 50ies and 60ies by adding more security (wether it works or not, consumers have felt safe and that kept people flying).

This time around the threat is that a lot of consumers have lost faith in society in general being able to handle this in a low enough risk manner. We have a number of countries with politics have become heathed enough that other actors have been able turn fixing this pandemic into politics.

All in all, if there is a test that would let me show up 30 minutes early and get a test and result before going through security then I'm all for it. It still doesn't solve that on the ground where I'm going there still is chaos and risk. It doesn't solve that when I go back home I have to deal with quarantine. It doesn't solve that more and more research seem to agree that the long term effects of covid-19 infections are far worse than the initial onset itself.

The fix here, to get back into the glorious past (2019) is that this needs to be solved across societies, not only inside the airline industry.

[edi_local]

It would help if more countries accepted the negative airport tests as proof that quarentine wasn't needed, especially if it's the second such negative test within a few days, as well as all of them adopting a standard.

For example a good friend of mine was living in Japan. He came home to the UK to work over the summer, knowing he was then barred from re-entering Japan as he's not a citizen or married to one. Eventually Japan let him back in, but he had to get a negative test 72 hours previous to his flight. That came back and he was allowed to board the flight to Japan. He then tested negative again on arrival, but yet he still has to quarentine for 2 weeks with no access to a follow up test during this time. So what is the point of proving you are covid free, twice, only to then be treated as if you have it anyway?

[DingerX]

First, the evidence being touted as proving that transmission on an airplane is rare is extremely weak. There are easy and convincing studies that can be done, but they would require the collaboration of an airline and the results might not be favorable to their business. Until someone comes forward with that kind of study, I ain't buying simulations of humans, computer models, or, as in the case above, pointing to a lack of evidence for something that hasn't been looked at. Pandora's box, by the same logic, was perfectly safe.

Second, it's not just confidence. I have people around the world, money to bring them together in the same room, and the mandate to do so. How am I going to do that at the moment?

Third, unintended consequences: load factors are way down, schedules are slashed, and airlines can cancel flights for lack of capacity. The people I know who are flying all have stories of enduring multiple cancellations, rebookings, and baroque routings. So, if I do want to go somewhere, unless it's Long Haul I'm more likely to get there faster and with less trouble by driving.

[aguadalte]

We Need Testing Before Boarding
Nice vid...

[lomapaseo]

I was so impressed with the optics and sound that I'm going out right now, with no mask, to see if I can get Covid

[PURPLE PITOT]

Just wait for the Covid 21 in February!

[Maoraigh1]

RTE item reporting Covid-19 transmission on a flight to Ireland with many empty seats.
http://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/1025/1173859-coronavirus-cases-flight/

[fergusd]

I'm sure the virology experts on here will be able to explain it all away . . . lol

[GAGuy]

In terms of rapid testing, my understanding is there are two kinds: PCR, which is slow but accurate and expensive, and antigen, which is quick, inaccurate, inexpensive and only catches symptomatic cases. Until that changes, you either show up to the airport 6 hours early for an expensive PCR test or you take a test that doesn't catch those you're really concerned about: asymptomatic patients. This shouldn't give one confidence that they won't be stuck in a small metal tube for hours with typhoid Mary in the form of a hungover frat boy. Government guidelines aside, rational people could easily decide not to fly to Disneyland or take a business trip.

[FlightlessParrot]

So what is the point of proving you are covid free, twice, only to then be treated as if you have it anyway?

1. Unfortunately, negative tests do not prove that you don't have the virus: they're a pretty good indicator, but the virus is very hard to control, so a country might well decide that a pretty good indication is not good enough.

2. There are many parts of the world where a negative report could be bought--perhaps for less than the cost of a high-quality test. I do include quite a lot of places in the "First World" in this.

It really does look as though the only way to control this thing, at the moment, is by measures that look like overkill.

[infrequentflyer789]

1. Unfortunately, negative tests do not prove that you don't have the virus: they're a pretty good indicator, but the virus is very hard to control, so a country might well decide that a pretty good indication is not good enough.

Well negative test kind of sort of proves that you are not actually shedding virus right now. If the tests are reasonably accurate they may be good enough to clear you for entering airport and flight - which would in itself be useful because others could be assured that there was low (not zero, tests never 100%) chance that there would be infectious people in airport or on flight.

The big issue, however, is that the long incubation period means you may be negative, and non-infectious, now but incubating it - so isolation / quarantine period at the other end is still required (this is what many people seem to fail to grasp on this, and is actually an argument against testing on arrival, because the negative-but-still-incubating will be even less likely to isolate once told they are negative).

2. There are many parts of the world where a negative report could be bought--perhaps for less than the cost of a high-quality test. I do include quite a lot of places in the "First World" in this.

It really does look as though the only way to control this thing, at the moment, is by measures that look like overkill.

Yep, and possibly you could avoid quarantine if you had already isolated and then tested negative - but getting any one country to trust another in certifying that will be impossible. And of course you have broken isolation if you get on a flight so your cert is null and void...

That said, I suspect that travel is going to start to open up between the "overkill" countries who have clearly successfully supressed the virus - the world may split into covid and non-covid zones with quarantine between the two. I know which zone I'd rather be in, but I've got zero chance of that right now...

[FlightlessParrot]

infrequent
When I was a lad, travelling to anywhere from the UK required valid certificates of vaccination (though we might have called it inoculation back then) against smallpox, cholera, typhoid, and paratyphoid A and B (seems to stay with me like a litany; cholera didn't really do much good, but this was before there was the modern treatment). When I first went to live in Australia, regular chest x-rays were legally required, because of the hangover of TB. The economic impact of Covid-19 is great, and falls very unevenly without any suggestion of fairness; but people in the first and second worlds have got used to not having to comply with any public health measures and expect infectious disease to have no impact on daily life, and I will sign off before I start sounding like four Yorkshiremen talking about the masks they had to wear underneath their masks.

[wowzz]

I see the Canaries are planning to introduce the need for pre- flight testing by mid November, although as yet there are no details as to which test is to be used. The chief concern amongst most travellers appears to be the 72 hour "window" immediately prior to your flight, during which time you must be tested and receive your, hopefully, clear result. This, plus the cost, will drastically reduce the number of tourists to the Canaries, leading to economic hardship especially in islands such as Lanzarote and Fuerteventura which are virtually 100% dependent on tourism.

[vikingivesterled]

Here are some stats. The peoples health institute (FHI) of Norway came out yesterday and said that 25% of they who tested positive with CoVid19 in Norway the last 2 weeks caught it abroad. Mostly people coming into the country to work. While sample only 6% caught it in a bar/restaurant/club. So shutting down or more effectively quarantening international travel will have quadruple the effect of closing all bars, cafes and restaurants. Or nearly double that of closing all other workplaces and universities (16%). As a country it is not difficult to make that choice.

[Station Zero]

Can't see how testing at the border can be any more than a confidence check, the main things are what is the status of the virus transmission in the country coming from or going to, if low prevalence and under control such as NZ to Singapore risk is lower than say someone from the UK where it would be very high risk for Singapore to even contemplate letting free travel without stringent safeguards such as the 14 days quarantine, the capacity to accurately/quickly contract trace and the ability to prevent infected persons from continuing to spread the virus.

So while I can see why airlines want to pursue this as a way to restart more general travel it is also pretty clear why for the most part it is being ignored by governments, especially for those that have actually got control of the situation after initially being burnt as those countries especially would not want to have any work undone by visitors when the rest of the economy is starting to recover.

[wowzz]

The dilemma is difficult to resolve for those regions that rely heavily on the tourist trade, such as the Canaries. Without tourism the economy goes into freefall, with consequent damage to the long term health of the inhabitants. Allow tourists in, economy improves, but with the consequent risk of CV19 infection. Pre-trial testing, whilst by no means perfect, is an attempt to take a middle route.

[Radgirl]

The peoples health institute (FHI) of Norway came out yesterday and said that 25% of they who tested positive with CoVid19 in Norway the last 2 weeks caught it abroad.

the main things are what is the status of the virus transmission in the country coming from or going to, if low prevalence and under control such as NZ to Singapore risk is lower than say someone from the UK where it would be very high risk

Station Zero has hit the nut on the head with the second quote. I have repeatedly said that failing to close borders in Q1 2020 led to the situation we now face and was the biggest failure. Over the summer we also needed to control borders and PCR swabs taken at day 4 onwards can never do more than reduce sensible quarantine to 8 days, but now the UK is at the top of the league and the same as much of europe and the US it makes little difference whether you control the borders or not. Another paper on monday showed no difference at all in infection rates between those that had been abroad and those that had not. Norway is a little different.

So epidemiologically we could simply open the borders and allow free travel while the rate of infection is similar between countries. I see you do not have to quarantine coming to the UK from New Zealand for example, but going the other way is a different story

[PilotLZ]

The EC recently issued some new advise which implies that border control should no longer be a thing within the EU because, with some small exceptions, the situation is pretty bad just about everywhere and imported cases no longer make much of a difference in a situation of widespread and diffused domestic transmission in almost all countries. Of course, it's not a good thing that even countries which had low case numbers over the summer are now exploding with contagion, but elimination was never the strategy of any European country in the first place. So, what's happening now shouldn't be coming as a surprise to anyone.

The moral of the story? I think that the most likely development of the situation is that most of the developed world will eventually divide into two big bubbles, the COVID and the no-COVID ones. The latter will be shared among countries which went for elimination right away and succeeded or are about to succeed in it. Think China, Vietnam, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia... The former will be for everyone else. And coming across from the infectious bubble into the clean one will be subject to quarantine, tests, QR codes and whatnot else. Hard enough to be a deterrent to the vast majority of the travellers.

[vikingivesterled]

That other countries have the same or lower levels of transmission do not matter to the authorities that tries to lover the number of new cases in their own country as long as not all countries are implementing the same rules at the same time to put the brakes on CoVid19. They look at their own numbers and say what kind of interaction is causing the most new cases and what can we do about it. You are going to have a hard time selling to your voters that all bars, cafes, restaurants and toyshops should close but international travel should remain open, if international travel causes four times as many outbreaks as domestic entertainment. Most have accepted that they can't have their foreign holliday this year and that business meetings are now online, but if they can't have their fancy coffe or shop for christmas presents you will have an uproar and a high amount of uncompliance on your hand.

Unfortunately the airline industry is providing a product that currently is seen as more optional than a necessity and that is what goes first in a crisis. In Europe it is not helped either by the airlines pushing prices instead of actively encouraging pandemic restraints like socuial distancing because "it's so difficult and expensive". That attitude is not helping to sell that luxury. When will airlines do something to help themselves out of the crisis instead of insisting on waiting for publically paid help like free preflight testing and scaring many away not by actually filling every seat but having the possibility of a stuffed flight hanging over all potential ticket buyers.

[Longtimer]

In some parts of the world, aviation is a necessarily for supplies, medical evacuation etc, in the rest, most, it is a luxury.

[PilotLZ]

Where about in the world, except for China, Australia and New Zealand, do imported cases make a double-digit percentage of all cases? Even in countries like Greece, where prevalence levels have been low and testing rates have been high ever since the beginning, imported cases accounted for less than 10% pretty much every day over the summer. The elephant in the room is what's going on within the country. Wherever breaches of the safety rules occur, infection rates go up. Quite unfortunately, this often happens on private premises where there's nobody to enforce any rules - and the caution of the hosts goes out of the window rather quickly.

As for some degree of unrestricted foreign travel being allowed during a lockdown within the country, that's becoming increasingly common. Israel were the first country which went into a full-blown second lockdown while allowing its citizens to travel without quarantine to a list of safe countries including Greece, Bulgaria and Croatia. Needless to say, many grabbed the opportunity to spend the lockdown period at the beach rather than stuck at home and almost all flights out of Israel during the lockdown got fully booked quickly. Now something similar is happening in Europe. The borders of a number of countries enforcing major lockdown restrictions have not been closed and are unlikely to. However, inbound tourism doesn't need a border closure to go into hibernation under those circumstances as nobody in their right mind will go on a leisure trip into a country where a curfew is in force and pretty much everything except for farmacies and supermarkets is closed.

[Peter H]

Mutant Covid strain from Spanish farm workers ‘now accounts for most UK cases’
https://twnews.co.uk/gb-news/mutant-covid-strain-from-spanish-farm-workers-now-accounts-for-most-uk-cases
A coronavirus mutation that originated in Spanish farm workers has spread rapidly through Europe and now accounts for most UK cases, a new study suggests.

The variant, called 20A.EU1, is known to have spread from farm workers to local populations in Spain in June and July.

People returning from holidays in Spain over the summer are believed to have played a key role in spreading the strain across Europe.

The study found that in Wales and Scotland the variant accounted for around 80% of cases in mid-September, whereas frequencies in England were around 50% at that time.

Paper: Emergence and spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant through Europe in the summer of 2020 @ https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.25.20219063v1.full.pdf

Seems that international travel has had a major influence on covid rates. Not unreasonable to ask if anything in the people/processes involved encourages super-spreader events.

[etudiant]

Dealing effectively with this virus while we do not even now have a clear understanding of how it is transmitted seems unlikely.
Airlines will have a hard time convincing people that travel is safe as long as that uncertainty remains. That suggests this crisis will be resolved only after a vaccine has been proven efficacious.
It will be a two year event in that case at best.

[Maoraigh1]

Were Spanish farmworkers in the UK for fruit and veg harvest? Would they have much contact in Spain with UK holiday tourists?

[Richard Dangle]

"Dealing effectively with this virus while we do not even now have a clear understanding of how it is transmitted seems unlikely.
Airlines will have a hard time convincing people that travel is safe as long as that uncertainty remains. That suggests this crisis will be resolved only after a vaccine has been proven efficacious.
It will be a two year event in that case at best."

Good post.

Although I think you can amplify the "two year event" part. Outside aviation the gradual return to "normality"* will happen more quickly than two years. In many parts of the developed world life will look at lot better as early as February/March 2021...irrespective of the delivery of an effective vaccine. Even the worst case modelling shows the second wave peaking by January at the latest. Super fast testing and ever improved track and trace will do what nature does not.

However, the event duration in aviation terms will be far more "long-tailed" (pun intended). The reasons why have been argued over endlessly on here since March, so I'll merely say 200 odd sovereign states agreeing and lining up all the holes so international air travel can take place smoothly again is going to take time. And that is only one of the factors. In aviation terms two years is optimistic, but optimism is probably a good thing right now (for most of us).

*[air quotes, because I don't believe in the concept of "normal" - the world moves too quickly for that word to have any realistic meaning in this context]

[Peter H]

Richard Dangle

... although there might be a strong seasonal increase in the infection fatality rate early next year. Seasonal diseases and all that (possibly linked to seasonal vitamin D levels).

[PilotLZ]

There's no "old normal" and "new normal", the world is somehow different on every next day due to a number of never-stopping processes. But, as for the "normal" of international travel, which I define as the ability to move between countries without quarantine or any other significant restrictions - I think that next summer will already be somewhat better than this one, with a tendency to go back to something close to what we used to know during the course of 2022-2023. At least in the Western world.

Why? Due to a combination of factors. Advancement in medicine, vaccination of the most vulnerable groups (hopefully as early as Q2 2021 for Europe), cheap and easy to deploy tests which can quickly isolate infected community members and curb further spread. And also the natural course of the pandemic. Even if the virus does not go away completely, it will be eventually managed to a point where it's no longer an overriding concern for any daily activity, including travel. Humankind had managed this a number of times before, including incidences of far more dangerous diseases during times of far less advanced medicine. I see no reason why this time it will be different.

[Recc]

Were Spanish farmworkers in the UK for fruit and veg harvest? Would they have much contact in Spain with UK holiday tourists?

Extremely unlikely that Spanish farm workers (i.e. Spanish nationals) would travel to the UK for work. It possible that migrant workers in Spain would move on to the UK mid to late summer so definitely a plausible route.

On the wider point, the phylogenetic analysis in the study suggests that whilst the 20A.EU1 variant originated in agricultural workers, it was the dominant variant across Spain prior to quarantine travel to the UK. As such, and given the relative numbers, it is much more likely to have been brought back by tourists. To put things in perspective, the paper suggests a minimum of 21 separate introductions to the UK, but that 2/3 of all UK cases in the cluster can be traced back to a single introduction event! Really brings home how much impact rare events can have when you are dealing with highly infectious diseases.

[Richard Dangle]

Pretty much agree with PilotLZ's assessment. The devil - as always - is in the detail though.

"Something close" = perhaps 70% to 80% of passenger traffic at a 20% to 30% increase (in real terms) in average costs/airfares???

This figures are not meant to be an analysis or anything - they are just plucked out of thin air (again, pun intended :)). I'm just putting them up there to represent the concept: aviation is not just going though an event, it is also going through a longer term structural change, of yet to be seen size and shape.

As it always was going to do anyway, before any of us had heard of Covid19.

[thethirdfall]

The variant, called 20A.EU1, is known to have spread from farm workers to local populations in Spain in June and July.[/i]

The farm situation is well documented. The mistake that Spain made was in not placing any real controls on how they worked, meaning that the usual slave labour that Spanish farms rely on were yet again housed in cramped and unsanitary conditions. It was a perfect place for such a mutation to take place, and it seems that it was really responsible for a significant amount of damage.

[PilotLZ]

Agreed. Aviation is not a separate phenomenon that's isolated from the overall tendencies in the world. And COVID has accelerated some trends which were already there long before it. For example, long before the crisis it was evident that the glory days of the B747, A340, A380 etc were gone. Now, this has been completely cemented. Smaller aircraft capable of flying more different origin-destination pairs profitably are replacing the behemoths. At the same time, online shopping is taking off big time - and those purchases need to be delivered somehow. Not to mention that some markets (like gadgets) were far smaller 20 years ago. If you only compare the number of phones and tablets shipped these days to the number of electrical appliances shipped in 2000, that's one new market in itself. Also, wealthy European travellers are largely still discovering the beauty of private air travel, as compared to business class on a conventional airline - and interest towards business jet hire or fractional ownership is growing steadily. So, it wouldn't be any surprise if your, mine or anyone else's next job is in cargo or corporate instead of an airline.

That being said and returning to the original topic of traveller testing, I don't think that widespread, quick and cheap testing will be something crafted specifically for travel. Looks like it will be another tool adopted by society in general, with its significance for aviation being a consequence of that rather than an isolated phenomenon. Have a look at Slovakia for example. They tested two-thirds of their population in two days, isolating some 38,000 cases which would have otherwise gone largely undetected. Round two of this experiment is in a week. And, if it proves successful, I think that many other countries or affected areas will follow suit. If this helps in restricting contagion, there's no reason to think of any aviation-specific testing regime as the problem will be addressed on a far larger scale.

[WillowRun 6-3]

Just to add a brief indication of agreement with PilotLZ . . . as recently as the autumn of 2019 one could pick up any of perhaps dozens of officially published ICAO reports and documents, all of which would breezily look ahead to a "doubling of traffic" within some nominally short span of years. It was as if Rosy Scenario, the mocking name given to projections and forecasts issued by economists, had taken up residence for good in the world HQ edifice in Montreal. (IATA too, though somewhat less emphatically, IIRC.)

But cheap shots at ICAO sunny optimism isn't the point this SLF/attorney (with an increasing emphasis on public and private international air law) wants to add here (or before heading over to Jet Blast). Instead ICAO was heavily invested organizationally, it seemed, in CAPSCA, a group of various international and/or professional bodies focused on how international civil aviation could prevent future public health events from becoming epidemics, let alone pandemics, let alone the crippling, eviscerating crisis that has befallen the airline sector worldwide.

This SLF poster has not drilled into what CAPSCA's work program might have put onto websites prior to the COVID pandemic, looking for its own Rosy Scenario in order to take more cheap shots -- at its studied and, evidently, undeniable ineffectiveness writ large. Still, it does seem relevant to ask where CAPSCA so badly missed the salient points in its work until the pandemic struck; perhaps highly relevant to ask. I recall a date when the novel Covid-19 coronavirus was just entering the news, and a public health persona (somewhere between luminary and huckster) posted on social media that the WHO had declared a PHEIC. We all knew what that meant, right? (.......Public Health Emergency of International Concern, a level or two short of....you get the point).

There's a great old Party Joke about Rosy, but like I said, before heading over to Jet Blast where all SLF/attys should go sooner or later.

[PilotLZ]

The problem is that people's short memories of bad events aren't necessarily a good thing. Insofar as an individual is concerned, not suffering for an extended period after the distressing circumstances are over is a good thing, showing a healthy coping strategy that preserves said individual's mental health long-term. But, on a larger scale, forgetfulness of past hiccups often costs a lot. Back in the days of SARS, there was a lot of research into prevention of infectious disease spread by air transport. There were many industry-leading scientists coming up with all sorts of smart and totally realistic ideas of how to make aviation safe from a contagious disease perspective. Self-disinfecting materials for aircraft interiors, HEPA filters, remote thermometer control in airport terminals, ozone or UV disinfection of suitcases - you name it, it was on the table. But guess what - as soon as SARS went away, funding for all those programmes was axed and lots of the brilliant concepts were shelved in favour of "why invest into improving something which works just fine the way it is". There was a short resurgence in interest towards some of those projects during the Ebola outbreaks of 2014-2016 - but again, more was said than done. Until the chickens came home to roost in 2020.

[WillowRun 6-3]

PilotLZ thank you for offering a context for decreasing my level of cynicism. (About usefulness of some international groups...)

Coincidentally yesterday, during the first day of the EASA Annual Safety Conference which of course was conducted virtually, reference was made to the Aviation Health Safety Protocol issued by that agency and the ECDC. A link follows -- posted here just for information, without any claim that the joint effort by EASA and ECDC merits any specific level of approval or shrug.
(I observed yesterday that some of the presenters described work their organizations had done which, it appeared, had made good use of this document and its contents, but that's just an SLF/attorney's view, as typically from the cheap seats.)
"COVID-19 Aviation Health Safety Protocol", subtitle Operational Guidelines for the management of air passengers and aviation personnel in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic -- issued by EASA and ECDC as of June 30 2020

https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/EASA-ECDC_COVID-19_Operational%20guidelines%20for%20management%20of%20passen gers_v2.pdf

[foxcharliep2]

Dealing effectively with this virus while we do not even now have a clear understanding of how it is transmitted seems unlikely.
Airlines will have a hard time convincing people that travel is safe as long as that uncertainty remains. That suggests this crisis will be resolved only after a vaccine has been proven efficacious.
It will be a two year event in that case at best.

Cannot agree more - just read that 3 days ago 900 Russian tourists landed in Cayo Coco, Cuba.
After testing, 11 of them were Covid-19 positive and have been hospitalized.
Now a total of 20 persons are in quarantine... and they only landed 3 days ago to big fanfare by the Cuban gvmt. declaring the country "safe" for tourism.

https://www.14ymedio.com/cuba/Once-turistas-covid-19-Ciego-Avila_0_2980501927.html

[3Greens]

The evidence doesn’t support your claim. Certainly in BA, whenever a route is removed from the quarantine list, demand is very strong. People don’t seem afraid to fly from what has been seen. It’s the quarantine that kills off a route whenever the Gov add it to the naughty list. Remove quarantine somehow and it unlocks the routes.

[RexBanner]

+1 and said it on page one of the thread, the very first reply. The demand is more or less still there, not as it was but not disastrous either. The moment Jersey introduced quarantine for the U.K. regions the LHR-JER loads went from 110 or so (on an A319) to less than 20. Overnight. That’s what’s killing aviation right now, not any perceived threat from the virus, indeed most people are completely over it.

[kcockayne]

The demand for air travel is certainly still there. Went to Madeira on BA two weeks ago on an A320 & there wasn’t a single empty seat on both flights. Maybe this demand can at least be partly attributed to the fact that Madeira was “green” at the time very few other destinations weren’t but, nevertheless, the demand was still there for people to , at least, go somewhere.

[Chris2303]

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/123319670/jetstar-axes-transtasman-sales-air-nz-sets-sights-on-full-bubble-opening-early-2021 Jetstar axes trans-Tasman sales, Air NZ sets sights on full bubble opening early 2021

[Lucifer786]

I am most certain of the opinion that a fairly successful COVID vaccine coupled with a rapid preflight covid test is the answer to resumption of a decent level of air travel and in turn will start slow and initial rotation of the cogs of the world economy which in turn will encourage more air travel and so on.
Key being in the two factors above.

[PilotLZ]

3Greens, RexBanner - spot on, gentlemen. People's willingness to travel is still there, it's policy that's preventing them from doing so. Working in the leisure segment myself, I rarely see a load factor below 85-90% wherever free movement is permitted. Nobody seems to be making a fuss out of having to wear a mask - and boarding and disembarkation in an orderly manner, row by row, have actually made the experience better as nobody likes being pushed along and having someone else breathe right in their neck.

Why do people still want to travel amidst a pandemic? Because going somewhere different and nice for a week is one of the most relieving, recharging things you can do even when it's smooth sailing back home. Let alone when people are struck by cabin fever from lockdown and have spent months being deprived of as little pleasures as a walk in the park or a coffee with a colleague. Call it a mental health booster if you want. It's for a reason that confinement to a prison cell is a form of punishment, not a form of reward.

That being said, the news from Pfizer today was seriously good. If a vaccine with an efficiency of over 90% can exist, bringing the public health emergency to an end is a matter of a year or thereabout. And, if it's that efficient and sufficiently widespread within the population, mass testing will eventually become obsolete.

[Longtimer]

Likely because they think they and those who who interact with are immune or perhaps just because they are stupid and / or don't give a damn about the risk to others.

[Radgirl]

I am most certain of the opinion that a fairly successful COVID vaccine coupled with a rapid preflight covid test is the answer to resumption of a decent level of air travel

If we can roll out the vaccine we can suppress the pandemic to an insignificant level and remove fear. Testing is not needed. However that needs

1 an ability to vaccinate all countries not just the UK, europe, north america and australasia so there are enough people to fly both ways
2 politicians who can agree a certification system plus relaxation of the lockdowns for vaccinated passengers - not a done deal
3 management of fake news and the anti vaxxing movements

Cynically, 3 is least important as going on yesterday's 120,000 cases in the USA that country will reach herd immunity in April making vaccination unnecessary, but at the loss of so so many lives

[etudiant]

Researchers from Columbia University are testing a nasal spray which provides 24 hour protection against the virus. https://bgr.com/2020/11/07/coronavirus-treatment-nasal-spray-columbia-university-lipopeptide/

This might reassure travelers, all passengers get their nasal spray as part of the boarding process, so the virus won't spread on the plane. Obviously no panacea, does not help those already infected or solve the international travel issues, but could work for domestic routes.

[etudiant]

PilotLZ

The Pfizer vaccine is no picnic, it comes with enough side effects to make it unpleasant for most recipients. including pain, fever, chills and headaches, at least according to the Nature report.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2639-4?error=cookies_not_supported&code=f30d0802-33af-46d9-b01e-e23f63a5f9ab

[FlightlessParrot]

Thanks for the link. Those look worse than the consequences of an influenza vaccination, but tolerable: certainly would not stop me having the Pfizer. But perhaps enough to deter some people.

[Maoraigh1]

Smallpox vaccine was unpleasant, for several days. Is it any worse? My age group can remember smallpox outbreaks in the UK. Mass vaccination worldwide eradicated it.

[PilotLZ]

Would you prefer an afternoon of headache and fatigue or getting infected, quarantined for two weeks, risking infecting an elderly family member or coworker? To me, the choice is rather obvious, but perhaps the concept of the lesser evil is as subjective as everything in life. The important bit is having good certainty that there will be no long-term damaging side effects. As long as this is assured, a day or two of mild to moderate discomfort is a tiny price to pay.

[FlightlessParrot]

This is indeed true. But one might also ask, "Would you prefer to put up with the mild inconvenience of wearing a mask, or would you rather take the risk of infecting everyone you come into contact with?" I really hope that this and other vaccines will help us get back to normal, but it is not going to be immediate.

[etudiant]

The initial testing was done on healthy volunteers aged 18-55, so for them it sure looks like a good choice. No data yet on how older or less healthy people.react to the vaccine, so keep your fingers crossed.

[Recc]

etudiant

Different vaccine. Pfizer have described two candidate vaccines: BNT162b1 (your link) and BNT162b2. Because of the results that you link to, BNT162b2 (which had lower reactogenicity) was the candidate that was taken forward to the phase II/III trials that are now being reported. Article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2814-7

[etudiant]

Seems the tests were still done on people aged 18-55 'we present antibody and T cell responses after vaccination with BNT162b1 from a second, non-randomized open-label phase I/II trial in healthy adults, 18–55 years of age'
so no change from before.

[Longtimer]

As long as this is happening the preflight tests will be suspect.
Some tourists using fake negative COVID-19 tests to get around travel restrictions, authorities say

Brooklyn NeustaeterCTVNews.ca Writer
@bneustaeter Contact
Published Thursday, November 12, 2020 1:14PM EST
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/some-tourists-using-fake-negative-covid-19-tests-to-get-around-travel-restrictions-authorities-say-1.5186306

[Recc]

etudiant

I don't think that the phase III trials have been written up, but the entry in the clinical trials records suggests participants up to 85 years.

[maxed-out]

Let’s not forget said company’s track record. Research will expose rather a lot of law suits and financial settlements in the past.

Interesting how the term “fake news and anti-vaxer movement” gets loosely thrown around by someone in the medical field above, yet they still lose sight of the fact that there are under 54 million cases (not deaths) worldwide in a population of over 7.8 billion (March 2020). That’s an infection rate of 0.69 percent of the worlds population. The death count from COVID, if the mainstream media is to be believed is 1.3 million which is 0.016 percent of the worlds population.

This is hardly a pandemic to be fair. If one considers the annual cases of influenza, then the worlds reaction ( exacerbated by the media) to Covid seems bizarre.

In the U.K. we touch on around 35-40k deaths a year due to Influenza and nobody bats an eyelid. In some years we have had over 35k excess deaths in the U.K. over and above the norm. Worldwide there are similar annual deaths to flu as the current Covid deaths.

Big pharmaceutical companies stand to make a lot of money off the back of this and so do a lot of powerful people( some of whom are our own MP’s, medical advisers etc with enormous shares is these companies).

Is it not surprising that people are putting certain bits of information together and coming to their own conclusion that possibly all is not what it seems? Why do people have to label others as conspiracy theorists and worse, just because they exercise their rights to critical thinking and freedom of speech.

Everyone who thinks this new Vaccine is the saviour may well find that it is the start of a downward spiral in terms of medical ethics, and the patients right to chose. The loss of integrity by those that make money from the kickback from the big pharma for promoting their vaccines including medical institutions and doctors need to remember they took the Hippocratic Oath.

[cats_five]

<snip>
In the U.K. we touch on around 35-40k deaths a year due to Influenza
<snip>

"Public Health England (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/839350/Surveillance_of_influenza_and_other_respiratory_viruses_in_t he_UK_2018_to_2019-FINAL.pdf#page=51) told Full Fact it estimated that on average 17,000 people have died from the flu in England annually between 2014/15 and 2018/19 - with the yearly deaths varying widely from a high of 28,330 in 2014/15 to a low of 1,692 in 2018/19."

https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-compare-influenza/#:~:text=In%20June%2C%20Public%20Health%20England,flu%20seas on%20in%20this%20period.

[Radgirl]

Maxed-out you make some points that are correct but you need to see the bigger picture. Whatever the relevance of 1.3 million deaths (and add all the relatives and friends as well as economic loss to families and employers) there are also the excess deaths due to the closure of healthcare leading to many more early deaths from cancer and heart disease. Add in the economic costs which will cripple the world economy for years. You can argue these are due, at least in part, to governmental mismanagement but the reality is this virus will not go away. We can suppress it but without a vaccine or herd immunity it will continue and I cannot see world leaders change tack and say 'let it rip'. So a vaccine is indeed a saviour

My comments about fake news and anti vaxxers was purely objective. The Russians have allegedly been reporting the vaccine turns you into a monkey. It doesnt. We are not talking about people who have concerns, want more tests before licensing, but those telling lies. Fortunately it is not that important as we only need to vaccinate possibly 50% of the post pubertal population for true suppression.

I disagree with you about pharmaceutical profits and deteriorating ethics but we can have that discussion another day. Unless you have a better method of suppression to restore the economy, healthcare and our aviation industry worldwide please be grateful we have some way out.

[sprite1]

cats_five

Very interesting that official flu deaths over the winter of 18/19 were so low, 1692. That created a pending pool of even older, more immunocompromised patients over the winter 19/20 period.......1st wave Covid territory.

Add those ‘delayed deaths’ of 15000 approx. to the average flu season deaths of 17000 and you get 32000 which isn’t too far away from
the total Spring 2020 Covid figure.

[cats_five]

How naughty of older people to not die in 18/19...

[Maoraigh1]

I don't think this report has been mentioned. Link from Avweb
https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.42.2001624#html_fulltext

[sprite1]

This report did the rounds in Ireland about 3 weeks ago when it came out.

It’s a strangely worded report as whilst most claims in can be verified, many other claims are subjective and open to actually supporting the idea that flying is a low risk event.

So you come away thinking ‘so is flying a hotbed for transmission or not’

The Irish government were in the final stages of announcing the current, highest level of restrictions and it’s said it was used to justify the stringent anti-travel measures.

[Chris2303]

This item from the NZ Herald proves the counterfactual to this idea

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-four-infected-on-same-nz-flight-despite-negative-test/6NAY4IXZ25KNK5LVSVQC43CMBI/

[kpd]

this is very convincing evidence that transmission can occur at least in a long flight. Very hard to argue with the science here.