There’s zero actual confirmation on there being other infected people on the jet or on the statistical probability of there being another on board. We do know that if someone else were positive they would have been required to quarantine and that would almost surely have been reported.
Removing a source of contagion lowers the risk even if there were two sources of infection. Certainly for people further from the source. Vaccinate yes. Take measures to protect yourself and others yes. Isolation if you’re ill yes. Quarantine is a basic public health measure that has been confirmed as effective for hundreds of years.
I’m not. I think she did a fine thing. Bravo. (For the third time.)
But infection while traveling is an unavoidable risk, and all of the people on that airplane have made certain choices by this point (to travel at all, to be vaccinated, or not). So all the people who have ever boarded not sick, but felt sick in flight, but didn’t quarantine themselves, have not done anything unreasonable, and are not somehow inferior to this very nice lady.
To be perfectly clear: If I had been in her position I would have:
Not traveled to begin with. (I am currently “enjoying” an alternative Christmas vacation than what I planned because my flight was cancelled about the same time I expected to have to cancel it anyway myself.)
But if I’d traveled, then I would not have tested myself in flight, because what’s the point?
If I was for some reason quarantined on an airplane, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t tweet about it, because… TMI.
That’s nonsense. While it is a risk, it is not even close to inevitable. I’ve traveled for work many times during the pandemic and, like many others, still haven’t had COVID.
You can call that rolling the dice, but to just write off the whole flight of passengers as infected is just plain incorrect.
Knowing that risks exist gives us the opportunity to mitigate them.
Like giving yourself a COVID test if you have COVID symptoms in flight so you can do whatever is possible to not harm others. I would hope all of us who had access to a test under those conditions would do what can be done to protect others rather than being self centered and saying- fuck it - doesn’t matter to me.
As of Dec 30, “Vaccinated passengers, and those with prior infection of COVID-19, need to present a negative covid-19 test either a PCR or Rapid antigen test.” source
Rapid antigen tests are significantly less sensitive than PCR, and significantly less expensive. So I guess most people use them for international travel, and this is why I suspect out of those 150 people there were other infectious people on board, or in the airport tram or in the airport bathrooms… etc.
This is not fatalism, this is reality. Infection control had failed with this illness, our only tool to manage it’s impact is immunisation, the hard way or by vaccination.
I can’t believe how outrageously immature she was:
“There’s 150 people on the flight to pick on. Why pick on me? My freedom was impinged upon! I suffered the tyranny of being illegally detained. In a bathroom. This is literally what happened in Nazi Germany! Wake up people! First, being holed up in an airline bathroom. Next, tyranny, Communism, and they take our guns! Oh, and, I’m suing everyone on the flight: the pilot, the stewardesses, the passenger to my left who narc’ed on my sniffles, and IcelandAir. Tell my story!”
Oh, wait, no-- it was actually:
“There’s 150 people on the flight, and my biggest fear was giving it to them.”
Sorry, about that! You know, I had heard her begin the first sentence and just assumed what would logically follow.
Iceland requires a certificate of negative COVID test for vaccinated people, and PCR tests for the unvaccinated. While they state they will accept an antigen test, the certification providers in the US are all using PCR tests, to my understanding, so as to avoid liability.
Everyone I know who has traveled internationally in the last year, who had to have test certification, received a PCR test (at large expense, relatively speaking).
Assuming someone else was also transmissible so she shouldn’t worry about isolating sounds like someone knowing that others are committing voter fraud, so they may as well vote twice.
There are a few places you can still get lab certified rapid antigen tests. We used these for our most recent international trip which is administered by a telehealth proctor and the airlines accepted the results:
I think you misread unavoidable risk for inevitable infection. At this time leaving the house leads to the risk of exposure, but it is by no means inevitable that you will then become ill. So being in a plane, in an airport and so on does mean that you will probably be exposed. That risk is unavoidable.
Oh, I don’t know…maybe to be more sure and alert others that you are their point of contact? God help those who are scrambling to know whether it was a family gathering, an airplane ride, or a bar.
And then there’s the folks on the ground she may have been in physical contact with before who would likely want to know that they might have been exposed. Social media is still a form of communication that moves news very rapidly.
Sort of an oblique angle on your post, but: what I did it the leadup to my 1 (1) intra-pandemic air round trip was do a personal lockdown in the leadup to the first flight. This was in August, too; risk profiles were different then.
Fotieo is a schoolteacher, though, her ability to do that was likely very limited by professional obligations.
Yeah. I wondered about the efficacy of bathroom isolation. It is not as if the plane takes in fresh air. The same air constantly recirculates. Nice to know there are some filters. I suppose the mask helps.
And set an example of how to live a moral life, to demonstrate the Right Livelihood. It was compassionate and correct.
Yep, I thought of this too. I spent a couple days there on an extended layover. It was beautiful, the people were beautiful and special, and I wish I could get back there for a long visit.
Regarding the time and number of tests thing: well, that’s how viral infection works. It’s all statistics. If you’re at the long tail of a long tail, yeah, it’s going to take a lot of tests and a lot of time before you come up positive.
