bestuseofpoints

Anyone aware of such list? Some governments have a list from flights to/from their airport, Westjet has just started publishing known flights, wondered if BA has the same?

Kiwi Flyer

Since this is specific to British Airways, moving to the BA forum.

Kiwi Flyer
FT Coronavirus & Travel forum co-moderator

fruitcage

What is a COVID flight? I really do not understand the question sorry.

rockflyertalk

Could this be the thread you’re looking for...

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...t-6-weeks.html

paulaf

I think OP means flights where pax have been confirmed as having Covid 19, I for one would be interested.

Frequentflyer99

The HK govt publishes a daily list of affected flights involving known HK cases, giving a lot of detail inc the seat nos of affected pax.. There is a link to it in another thread.

Not sure of there are any similar lists published.

bestuseofpoints

Yes, that was what I meant, thanks

bestuseofpoints

Thanks - meant flights where passagengers with confirmed cases have flown in, Westjet just published a list for their flights, know NSW in Australia and Hong Kong do the same, so curious if such data is shared on BA flights

corporate-wage-slave

The UK long stopped doing an active deep-dive trace of people infected, indeed those with mild cases don't even need to register the fact with anyone let alone with the state, they are just required to self isolate for 7 or 14 days. So while BA services have been mentioned by other countries (HK and Australia) this isn't going to happen more widely. If you think of all the tubes, metros, trains and buses in the UK it isn't going to be a practical approach.

paulaf

Agree but if there was a list from when they were contact tracing would be useful for those of us who had a similar cold/flu in January or February after a flight to know if there was subsequently a confirmed case on your flight, might indicate you have had it.

golfmad

There's no practical benefit. It would still be anecdotal evidence and wouldn't prove anything one way or the other.

navylad

And further such a list would likely cause more harm by causing unnecessary anxoety. It wouldn’t show your infection was Covid-19 (lots of other respiratory infections were circulating gin Jan/Feb).

If and when an antibody test is released, this may be useful.

paulaf

Can't wish for wish for the antibody test soon enough for everyone, they say a third could have had it and be asymptomatic.

EMIC

This action, or complete lack of it, may well come back to haunt the UK.

No contact tracing, no temperature checks at main airports, (until very recently?), allowing flights to arrive without checks from all of Europe and before that Asia. I believe that basic temperature checks on arriving and departing passengers, especially during March, would have thrown up thousands of potential people carrying / having the virus.

I am sure some will say the 'privacy' laws would not allow it.

I returned to Asia on a late booking - LHR-SIN-HKG then into China the same day via Shenzhen Bay.

Through publication in either the press or government notices, I am aware that on my LHR-SIN flight, 16 passengers now have the virus. I am aware on my SIN-HKG flight, an additional eight passengers also have it.

In China, in addition to the flight number, they previously advised the seat number, however, that is not now disclosed, but should you be within a certain radius of the infected person(s) you will be contacted.

I was, but tests returned as negative and still in insolation. Other tests will be carried out prior to my 'release'. I am still not sure in my mind if it would have been better to know how close I was to an infected person or not - either way it does not give you peace of mind.

A senior person working at Cathay in the UK, had advised me not to travel at the time, as Heathrow was considered to be so susceptible to the spread of the virus due to all the interconnecting flights from Europe to Asia and the US.

For the UK, like most governments, it comes down to the lack of being prepared, lack of testing kits (still), no ability to continue / co-ordinate contact tracing to any extent, and not wanting to frighten the general public - until the last minute.

Harsh? but it's reality.

Keep safe. Isolate. Take care. Flying can wait.

navylad

Sorry, but I couldn’t disagree more. Lots of countries rushed into actions just to be seen to doing something- quite simply temperature monitoring at airports isn’t an appropriate screening tool as has been demonstrated by the fact that countries that undertook it appear to be suffering with Covid-19 to a greater extent than the U.K.

why is the UK behind the rest of Europe in terms of the stage of infection one does have to ask oneself- perhaps it is because the extent of contact tracing whilst we were in the contain phase. Sadly, though, it is evident that asymptomatic individuals , and indeed those with mild illness who continued to go about their daily activities, resulted in community spread.

To what extent of the population now has had the disease, we don’t yet know and as rightly pointed out, a antibody test will be a game changer in this regard, although we must also remember that disease to evolve and adapt, to what degree this virus will, time will tell.

As for LHR being a ‘hotbed’, I’d suggest that countries with other major hubs have sadly been suffering from SARS2-CoV-2 to a greater extent that London at present, despite it being one of the most visited cities in the world.

I’m not saying that the Uk response has been perfect, but it is certainly based on evidence and not hearsay or taking ineffective actions for the sake of being seen to do something.

Equally, there is a balance to be struck. It is really important not to save lives from Covid-19 whilst loosing more lives from other causes as a result.

What I do agree with you on is that we should all be following the advice we have been given, the modelling is clear that if we are all compliant with this advice, lives will be saved.

We do need to increase testing to essential workers in order to reduce the numbers unnecessary in isolation, and to reduce the risk of asymptomstic healthcare workers passing on the infection to non-infected vulnerable individuals, but it is right where this is limited, that tests are primarily used on patients where the result has an active influence on management decisions. However, we should also remember that the sensitivity and specificity of the test is not great at present, indeed CT imaging has been reported to demonstrate more sensitivity but the radiation risk means it is not suitable as a screening tool.

I do have concerns looking at the response of some countries, who are hiding the extent of the disease in their country and not enacting the now evidence based public health measures, which could result in their countries becoming a reservoir of the virus.

I hope you continue to have negative results and that we now begin to see the results of actions taken based on the scientific evidence and that we are able to return to safer flying soon.