Numerous COVID-righteous friends have reported problems getting to vacation destinations this year. Dr. Fauci apparently told them to cram themselves onto 100-percent-full airliners and then congregate with others in hotels, restaurants, ski lifts, etc. Many of these plans for #StoppingTheSpread were thwarted when airlines canceled Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Christmas-New Year’s Week flights. The airlines’ explanations were generally centered around pilots and flight attendants being sick with COVID-19 and my friends accepted these explanations uncritically.
It did not occur to them, in other words, that a junior airline pilot who had been scheduled to work on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day would instead find it convenient to say “I have been in close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19” or “I tested positive for COVID-19 using a home kit” and then be home for the holidays rather than alone in a far-away Hilton Garden Inn.
Today I happened to be flying around Florida. Orlando Approach was refusing to provide any services to VFR (visual flight rules), saying that they were understaffed due to people being out with Covid. IFR flights, other than flights to MCO and other airports within the Orlando Class B airspace, were being routed down the west coast of Florida. Jacksonville Center, Daytona Approach, Palm Beach Approach, Miami Center, et al. were up and running normally.
What’s different about Orlando, I wondered, that, compared to anywhere else in Florida, there should be so many more controllers felled by mighty SARS-CoV-2? Pravda shows that the “case rate” is actually higher in parts of Florida where ATC was up and running normally:
Then I reflected that kids are out of school this week while Disney World, Universal, SeaWorld, LEGOLAND, et al. are open. I wonder if we would find that holding an annual pass to a theme park, with no blackout dates, turned out to be a risk factor for calling in disabled from COVID-19 during the week between Christmas and New Year’s.
A couple of photos from our destination, beautiful Gainesville, Florida (well, the campus is beautiful anyway!):
It was 80 degrees and sunny. Three of the Navy guys were coming out of the FBO in full flight suits with all kinds of gear attached, preparing to get into their T-45 Goshawks. I was walking in from the Cirrus SR20 in gym shorts and a T shirt (don’t over-dress if your plane lacks A/C!). I asked “Why do you need more than this [indicating T shirt] to fly a plane?”
Related:
- “Christmas Cancellations Mark Setback for Airlines After Smoother Thanksgiving” (WSJ): JetBlue said in a separate memo that it is offering a $1,000 bonus for flight attendants who don’t call out sick from Dec. 23 to Jan. 5, which comes on top of other holiday work incentive programs.
There appears to be a growing resistance against doomsday politics even among members of the woke alliance:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/28/omicron-is-not-the-same-disease-as-earlier-covid-waves-says-uk-scientist
“Omicron is ‘not the same disease we were seeing a year ago’ and high Covid death rates in the UK are ‘now history’, a leading immunologist has said.”
The article contains a beautiful graph that demonstrates the power of vaccines to #StopTheSpread.
Anon: We know that Covid in December 2021 is a different disease than in August 2021. When Floridians were getting COVID in August 2021, it was due to idiocy, recklessness, failure to wear masks, failure to get vaccinated, and incompetent government. Infection was trivially avoidable by anyone with an above-average IQ. Today, with vaccinated, boosted, and masked people in New York and Massachusetts getting COVID, what we’re looking at is a disease that is caused by a single, but understandable, slip-up, e.g., meeting a vaccinated and boosted friend for an outdoor walk but neglecting to double-mask. Infection is essentially unavoidable, no matter how intelligent, virtuous, and vigilant the individual.
#Science rightfully tells us that rising cases due to indoor events in the Florida summer are different from rising cases due to indoor events in the Massachusetts winter.
But ultimately #Science will have to explain the milder Omicron variant bred by the vaccine hesitant in South Africa! I wonder if the mainstream press is preparing us slowly for the unthinkable (COIVD-19 has mutated to the common cold), so Democrats can declare victory in 6 months. I suggest the following headline:
“World saved by Black unvaccinated people in South Africa!”
“I have been in close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19”
For 2020 and again in 2021, my local-government gave its employees an additional 80 hours of paid sick leave if suffering from Covid or exposed to any one with Covid. The employee was required to show proof of a positive test, followed by a negative test. Employees refused to share that medical information with HR, HR backed down, and the employees collected there additional 80 hours of paid sick leave.
Last month, with the rise in the Omicron variant, the city established a policy of unlimited paid sick leave due to (a claim) of having Covid or exposure to someone with (or claiming to have) Covid. Employees continue to refuse to provide proof of the illness.
Several dozen workers have collected five to twelve weeks of paid sick leave over the past year.
We have this in our own apartment. The 6-year-old coughed into his elbow a couple of nights ago and the 8-year-old screamed “Aaaaah! COVID, COVID! You got COVID on my pizza!” They can crank their level of COVID concern up or down to suit the requirements of any situation. If they had government jobs, their current level of creativity would be sufficient to ensure a half year of relaxing at home on Xbox.
How often do military aircraft show up at civilian facilities? Were they getting gas? Snacks? There are military airbases all over the place (especially in Florida), are they doing it to become familiar with civil aviation?
It is rare to see the front-line fighters somewhere other than a military base (at least a dual-use airport). Blackhawk helicopters from the Army and the Coast Guard show up all the time at civilian airports when on training/currency flights. Jet trainers like the ones in the above photo are common at airports with reasonably long runways and high quality FBOs. I think they usually try to pick airports where there is a fuel contract in place. The military folks will take the crew car and go into town for a meal just as a Cessna 172 pilot on an IFR training flight might.
The military pilots are almost always quite friendly and they’re curious about what it is like to have a little plane and be able to fly anywhere you want, without spending hours briefing and debriefing.
I am sure that it is more complicated to arrange a visit to a military base than to a civilian airport, even for a military airplane. Consider that a civilian airport is almost always open 24 hours/day. There is no need to tell Air Traffic Control (if, indeed, there is a Tower) that one will be arriving. There is no need to tell the FBO that one will be arriving (though, of course, the Gulfstream folks do because they want the fleet of rental SUVs waiting next to the airport as soon as the engines are cut off). So a military trainer jet can show up, taxi in, walk to the bathroom, order some fuel, etc., without the need to make sure that the airport is ready to receive a visitor.
Gainesville gets better as you head west. It’s all anyone worth under 8 figures in today’s money can afford. Fort Lauderdale is but a distant dream. Waiting for Greenspun to teach ground school at the U of F, in person.
I did my graduate degree at UF in the late ’90s, and returned to Gainesville ten years later for an IT job for a couple of years. Kind of wish I stayed. Back then the unincorporated area of Haile Plantation southwest of the University was a very nice place to live.
Re Gainesville: If I decide to give up my boating hobby, Gainesville will be on my short list for my ultimate retirement destination.