{"id":35502,"date":"2021-12-24T13:56:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-24T18:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=35502"},"modified":"2021-12-24T10:11:44","modified_gmt":"2021-12-24T15:11:44","slug":"if-at-least-50-percent-of-us-are-covid-righteous-how-did-hotels-and-flights-fill-up-with-leisure-travelers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/24\/if-at-least-50-percent-of-us-are-covid-righteous-how-did-hotels-and-flights-fill-up-with-leisure-travelers\/","title":{"rendered":"If at least 50 percent of us are Covid-righteous, how did hotels and flights fill up with leisure travelers?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From a reader:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our usual Mexico hotels are sold out, so we decided on Florida instead. We are going to be [in Hollywood, Florida] Dec 20-27. If you are up for it we can grab coffee.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

My response:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t know how everything is sold out when 50 percent of the country says that they’re doing everything possible to avoid COVID-19. Why is there even a single Democrat on a by-definition-optional leisure flight?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Readers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. We are informed by #Science that vaccines don’t prevent COVID-19 from spreading (not to be confused with the #Science that informed us that vaccines do prevent COVID-19 from spreading<\/a> and would “end the global pandemic”).<\/li>
  2. We are informed that, therefore, even a vaccinated group of people will generate new infections<\/li>
  3. We are informed that more infections leads to more mutations<\/li>
  4. We are informed by #Nature that, over an 8-week period, a group of people wearing masks and interacting has at least 89 percent of the chance of becoming infected with COVID-19 compared to an unmasked group<\/a> (i.e., in the long run, both the unmasked group and masked group will both get infected)<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    In light of the above knowledge, why wouldn’t leisure trips, which inevitably mix humans and thus generate infections\/mutations, be exclusively the province of the Deplorables? Deplorability afflicts less than half of the American public, according to our popular vote. Maybe airline flights can still be full if the airlines cut service. But how can the typical hotel be more than 50 percent occupied?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For Americans who follow science, COVID-19 is a serious enough problem that schools have to be closed, 3-year-olds must be forced to wear masks, etc. But the 50+ percent of us who follow science don’t think COVID-19 is a serious enough problem to refrain from crowding into a 100-percent-full flight to Mexico, crowding into airport lines on both ends, and crowding into a hotel restaurant for 7 nights?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    [What happened with the coffee invitation? I scolded the reader for not following Fauci and reminded him\/her\/zir\/them (the reader identified as a “man” the last time that we were together, but I don’t want to assume non-fluidity of gender ID) that every meeting between humans is another chance for SARS-CoV-2 to infect and mutate.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    “I’m vaccinated, boosted and have no health problems. I’m traveling for the holidays”<\/a> (CNN, 12\/21, by Jill Filipovic):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Now that vaccines are widely available in the United States, it’s especially frustrating that we are still held hostage to a pandemic fueled by the people who refuse to get vaccinated and by the policy choices of wealthy nations not to treat this pandemic like a global pandemic and vaccinate the world.<\/p>

    Like millions of people the world over, I’m taking a hard look at my own risk (including the risk I pose to others) and making careful choices about how and when to grab back some aspects of pre-Covid-19 life. Travel is often necessary for my job; it’s also one of my greatest joys and a requirement to see many of my loved ones, family members and closest friends.<\/p>

    I masked in the airport and on the plane and have avoided indoor gatherings and unmasked indoor activities since my arrival.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    The top photo in the article shows people in a jammed airport. Most of them are wearing cloth masks, which CNN’s top medical expert (“former president of Planned Parenthood”) described as “little more than facial decorations” on 12\/20<\/a>. On 11\/4, CNN reported that the righteously vaccinated are at least half as likely to get infected<\/a>, and therefore support a mutation, as the vaccinated. As of 7\/3\/2021, it was “Unvaccinated people are ‘variant factories,’ infectious diseases expert says”<\/a> (CNN), with the article pointing out that every infection (a phenomenon that we now know is common in the vaccinated) is an opportunity for the virus to have a mutation party: “‘All it takes is one mutation in one person,’ said Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician and immunologist at Boston College.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So… if Mx. Filipovic has been reading CNN, he\/she\/ze\/they should know that the only way for him\/her\/zir\/them to #StopTheSpread is to #StayHomeSaveLives. Yet he\/she\/ze\/they is traveling for leisure, thus inevitably incurring a dramatically higher risk of infection compared to if he\/she\/ze\/they had stayed home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Also, in Covid news, a Trump-hating friend in NYC just canceled his family’s luxury trip to the Caribbean. He felt moderately sick and, in any case, needed a negative PCR test result to enter the wife’s chosen beachy paradise. After $10 trillion in federal spending on coronapanic combined with the wise leadership of Cuomo and his girlfriends (New York State Department of Health budget comparable to Russia’s active duty military budget<\/a>), the family’s best testing option was waiting in line in the cold for 3 hours on the Upper West Side. (His test came back positive, so that’s a ton of money down the drain. I still can’t figure out why so many people are willing to incur this kind of risk on both sides of an international trip.) As with Mx. Filipovic, though, I can’t figure out why he planned this trip in the first place. If he wants to support President Biden’s #science-driven approach to ending the global pandemic, why won’t he stay home?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Related:<\/p>\n\n\n\n