Can Pre-Flight Testing Help Restore International Travel?
Join Date: Nov 2000
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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.
Join Date: Aug 2016
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+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.
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
Last edited by ph-ndr; 25th Oct 2020 at 05:33.
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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?
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?
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
It really does look as though the only way to control this thing, at the moment, is by measures that look like overkill.
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...
Last edited by infrequentflyer789; 27th Oct 2020 at 19:11. Reason: twypos
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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.
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.
