whereiswaldo

"The other thing I did was poll our greater travel group of physicians. The respondents were 4 with 7 board certifications, (and if you count me, 5 with 10 certifications). and all included infectious disease training, They were the ones who have flown domestically before today. I include their recommendations since they have all flown domestically and not contracted COVID19. One is a Chair of a large Department at a Major Medical School, and one is the immediate past CMO of arguably the largest physician group in the nation, running southern California.

1. OR level mask in and around airport (this would include masks with loops over the ears)
2. N95 in airplane
3. First class (if possible) for guarantee 2 seating and last on and first off
4. Hand washing
5. I think eye protection with goggles (can look fashionable) as opposed to a face mask (recent data show some aerosolization, hence the goggles in a closed space)
6. Wipe down table. They provide wipes
7. Don't touch anything even if you wiped it down
8. Hand sanitizer every 10-15 minutes just in case you accidentally touched something
9. No removing the mask so no eating or drinking on the plane
10. Be extra careful not to touch your face
11. Go to the bathroom before you get on"

The above constitutes really useful advice from Boerne. I am wondering how to apply this to a planned trip from San Francisco to Frankfurt in early December (for a key family event which is not negotiable). This would be a direct UA flight, in business class. N95 masks at the ready with plenty of spares. Goggles - not sure which kind yet but of course worn (wearing glasses anyway). Given 11+ hours air travel, no food is ok but no liquids or not going to the bathroom is not going to work. Wiping down and hand sanitizing - no problem. Sleep will be an issue, with the challenge to keep the mask secured (I'll practice). Upon arrival, I will take a mandatory PCR test at FRA. I then will need to take a train for 4.5 hours to arrive at my destination (planning on first class and reserving an extra seat next to me). Am I missing something? Personally - No infection so far, no elevated exposure factors, no elevated risk factors, and I have been rather careful.

I was hoping that a quality antigen quick test will be available for consumers to purchase by late November. This would allow me to test myself in the following days to catch any potential infect the PCR test would not catch. In Germany, no antigen test apparently can be bought by consumers at this time and turn around times are up to five days which makes this option less than useful. Any ideas what the state of antigen quick tests will be in about two months time?

Goldorak

If you are in that kind of « mood », sincerely stay at home.
Wear your mask, change it every couple of hours, wash your hands and use sanitizers regularly. That’s it.

exbayern

Agreed .As a regular LH flyer including short and long haul in recent months, the protocol has been 'wear a mask'. That's about it. They hand out a hand sanitizer wipe on boarding. I use the bathroom a lot, like every 90 minutes. I eat. I drink. I put the wipe in my bag or give it to my partner. I eat fruit I brought along with my hands.

Most short haul flights I've taken have been completely full, and some long haul about 60-70 percent I estimate.

If you are arriving from the US, currently you are subject to the mandatory testing which took me 8 minutes including a redirect because the Spanish Red Cross worker did not know Austrian geography, and the Bundeswehr worker admitted she didn't know either (I was sent from the Centogene site to the Red Cross/Bundeswehr site which are across from each other) Supervisor checked a map, and agreed I know my geography Without that geography lesson total time would have been about 4 minutes to get a test, results in 7 hours. (That was just one experience, we've used a few testing sites in recent weeks)

Why would you buy an extra seat on the train? Just book a seat in the single row if you are booking 1. class.

TomMM

And then what? Hold it for 6-8 hours? Bring a personal pee bottle???

Annalisa12

Goggles!!!

Travelinangel

A couple of thoughts to share:
British Airways recommends changing your mask every 4 hrs. You may want to travel with several, in original packaging or ziploc to keep clean until use.
Carry your own soap--small bar, liquid or paper soap sheets. With everyone more aware of hand washing, bathrooms seem to run out of soap more often!
Some people like to carry their own water bottle with the pop-up straw in the lid that can slip under the mask. I don't do this, but have seen several people using this technique on airplanes.

Goldorak

And OP who seems to worry about catching the covid (and we cannot blame him/her for that) should also realize that the most risky part of the trip covid-wise will not be the flight but this (in bold below):

cmd320

Personally I would reverse these. You're at a much higher risk level in the terminal than you are once seated on the plane. Especially if you're in F/J.

chipmaster

Non-negotiable, everything is negotiable, you seemed most worried about others infecting you, perhaps a full PPE as listed below, LOL.

Perhaps you can take a different approach, get it-recovery and have immunity ;-)

QT31415

Don't let them get you down! That's exactly what we do (two more board-certified physicians) and we've been fearlessly flying since April. We use the fit tested N95 and eye protection because to wear it greatly lessens our chance of a significant exposure (as defined by the CDC) and will exempt us from quarantining prior to returning to work. It's probably overkill for the normal passenger whose job does not bring them into contact with a vulnerable population, but if that's what we have to do to fly again, then I'm ok with it. It's less than what I wear 10 hrs a day at work.

I can always guess who the medical professionals are on the plane by the amount of PPE they wear. We don't do it for ourselves, we do it for our patients. And don't just say "stay home", because the job is exhausting these days and there's no way I'm giving my life over to COVID entirely. You may think I'm one of those nervous nellies when you see me wiping down my seat, but I am not going to be the one taking out hundreds of veterans at my facility. My motto - do what you can. Its different for everyone; your list of precautions works for me.

jspira

I completely concur with your assessment, but I am curious (if you don't mind) what eye protection you use? I have tried several goggles but am not (yet) satisfied.

QT31415

These are the ones I use - they are identical to ones issued by our hospital for direct patient care staff. For known covid, we of course wear PAPR (the whole respirator outfit). But I've had multiple exposures to unknown covid-positives wearing these goggles and an N-95 and never tested positive (we are tested weekly).


Of interest, some of our staff are not issued N-95's unless they are in contact with know covid, so have had prolonged exposure to unknown covid while just wearing a surgical mask and eye protection and have not tested positive. There are all kinds of factors involved for degree of contagiousness - viral load, time and distance of exposure, aerosolized vs nonaerosolized, your own immunity (most of us possibly have a bit of cross immunity from coronavirus infections in childhood).

BLV

Why not your own TP while we’re at it? 🥴

TomMM

See point 11 in the OP.

squeakr

I won’t be flying anytime soon but I’ve seen people say “I wear glasses anyway so I’m not going to get goggles.” But goggles seem wrap around than regular eyeglasses.