I have already commented on the fact that I have seen a difference in masking racially and culturally in the US. It has been a long time since I have seen a majority of people masking, but I see many more people masking when I go into African-American majority areas of Atlanta and my hometown (Memphis), especially among older African-Americans. Since Detroit has such a large African American population, I wonder if you just saw something that I see only when I go back into African-American areas including my Black church which is still requiring masks. But where I actually live (metro Atlanta suburb) and in my travels (I travelled to Europe in the last 2 months) I have seen very few masks.
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Actually just being honest, race didn’t play into it. Or sex. Or age! A variety of people wearing masks.
Also to be fair, Detroit metro serves a wide region of Michigan and Ohio. And has a major Delta hub there so many connections from all over the country being made. So, yeah nothing to do with Detroits AA population.
So you saw a lot of young people wearing masks? Because I am not seeing many young people mask anywhere… My wife is a high school Chemistry teacher with 135 students and only 2 of her students are masking at this point. She just took a field trip to a location a few hours away with high schoolers from all over the state of GA gathered and masks were few and far between. There are definitely people still wearing masks, but what I normally see is maybe 10% or slightly less are wearing masks on average.
Such a strategy was used successfully (in terms of limiting COVID-19 spread) by a few countries in the early days. However, the Omicron variant is so much more contagious than the ancestral virus that even the strictest and harshest lockdowns now seem to have difficulty stamping out the spread.
I didn’t ask for ID’s but yes, 20’s on up.
But SARS was far, far, far more deadly than covid (approximately 11-14% mortality, which is terrifying, and over 50% mortality for people over age 65), so I don’t think it’s that surprising that it would have been treated even more cautiously.
Yes, and SARS was primarily contagious after symptoms developed, and fever was very common, so checking temps as a screen for SARS was effective. COVID, with asymptomatic airborne spread and contagion in the pre symptomatic phase means that these types of measure are much less helpful.
A benefit of masking does seem to be reducing risk of transmission of airborne diseases. One of our fellow travelers on our Japan trip had a juicy cold (testing negative for COVID) with lots of coughing and sneezing. None of the others in the trip became ill.
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More news from China. Seems like lockdown restrictions are getting longer and more frequent now, presumably due to the increased contagiousness of current variants.
I had to pick of my son from Atlanta’s airport and actually spent about 45 minutes inside. I would say about 20% of the people I saw were masked on a pretty busy Friday morning which is definitely more than I see masked in my day to day life. My colleged aged son who had been an ardent mask wearer when we dropped him off at school in August was not wearing a mask through the airport which slightly surprised me.
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When we flew through Logan airport in Boston last month, I would peg the level of masking at less than 10%. Maybe as we are now deeper into fall, it’s changed, as you saw in ATL.
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I would hope we are all masking more.
Friends just came from Asia for a local conference. The one person staying with me came down with Covid a week ago, probably caught during travel, and I followed a few days later. Ten people tested positive over the last week from the one contact. They stopped masking on arrival in the USA. In future I will have anyone coming to stay at my house test soon after arrival. And mask in the car on pick up as we as so close in the car. I have had exposures and have exposed others in the car.
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I would hope so with regard to transportation but haven’t seen that. I am often the only one who masks on my commuter train anymore in Chicago. That and airports are the only place I mask anymore. But I’m not really in any other “ crowded indoor space” where mask wearing makes sense. I have zero interest in movie theaters anymore but if I did I’d mask there because why not. But I am willing to go to restaurants, dinners with friends and family and events like wedding meals maskless because that what eating requires and I’m not willing to give those things up any longer.
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We traveled this weekend. SJC and SEA both had about 20% masked. Our plane departed on time, but at SeaTac the ground crews were short staffed. Mr. and I got paid $25 an hour by Alaska… for an hour of milling around the bag claim. These vouchers will be put to a good use ‘cause I’m shopping for the next year’s travel.
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We just got back from Europe, where we stayed for 4 weeks (Spain, France, Belgium). We had 5 flights in total, and the only one where masks were prevalent was the flight from Barcelona to Brussels, where masking was 100%. All other flights, masking was 20% at most. The only other people wearing masks were cab drivers.
We stayed mostly in smaller towns. We have been home for two days, and no signs of COVID yet. No lost luggage, no mishaps on bicycles rented, nothing crazy.
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Not exactly travel, but I had to spend most of yesterday in the hospital with my elderly uncle who has Covid. The ER was very busy and it took forever to get a room for him. I asked several nurses if they are still seeing many cases of Covid and they all said that there were a few cases each day but not that many. A lot of the RSV cases with younger kids and the rest is typically various things.
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Sending prayers/best wishes for you uncle. Glad you were there to be with him.
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Leaving in a couple of days for our long anticipated river cruise.
I have to tell you that the thought of getting sick right now is a lot of stress for me.
I never thought about that before and now it’s one more thing to worry about.
I’m a worrier though.
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My thought about travel now…
Airfare is very very much more costly. We actually will probably drive cross country this spring rather than fly.
I know people who have cruised and remained healthy—safe travels to all who venture out.
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We got round trip tickets to Florida the first week of December for $331 apiece. And we had enough Capital One points we will get a credit for one of the tickets.
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