Thread by @Stone_SkyNews

I just travelled with the family back home to Jerusalem after 5 weeks in the UK.
It was a bit of an eye-opener.
Deserted airports, #COVIDー19 tests, the seeming impossibility of social-distancing on planes, the awkward conversations...
Some reflections and 📸 in this *thread*

An empty @HeathrowAirport T4 is unnervingly eerie. Just two flights on the departure board; all shops shuttered; the departure hall (a third of a mile long) deserted. A global economy on pause... in pictures.

Since these images were taken a couple of days ago, Terminal 4 has shut completely. It should host 9.4 million passengers a year. T3 is also closed.

Our 😷 are donned; we are preparing to leave 🇬🇧 where they are not (yet?) de rigueur for 🇮🇱 where they are. We’re heading home because the Israeli lockdown, which was imposed earlier than UK one, is now being reduced. Schools will soon reopen.

In these #corona-times, the ‘welcome on board’ is accompanied now with a temperature check.

A device is held to each of our foreheads by the cabin crew.

The airline - @EL_AL_ISRAEL - requires all passengers to wear face masks and it advises gloves too.

As we find our seats I spot the man my wife & I are due to sit next to isn’t wearing a 😷

I’d quite like him to, not least because Mrs S is🤰& potentially in high-risk category

So, with a 😀 (that’s unfortunately hidden under my mask), I inquire. Will he be wearing it?

Awkward

‘I wasn’t planning to.’ he says. (No mask. And no smile. 😳)

It occurs to me that there’s sadly the potential for confrontations in many different scenarios as people choose their Coronavirus responses.

In this case it’s resolved by the cabin crew who tell him to wear it. 😷

As we taxi, we pass lines of ✈️, furloughed like the staff of the airlines they belong to.

There’s plenty of debate about how to get them flying again. Leave the middle seat empty?

I recall the @Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary saying this plan is nonsense. I feel he has a point.

It seems to me that the concept of social-distancing on 🛫 is impossible.

Even if you leave middle seat empty, the people in front & behind you are still right next to you.

An empty middle seat will drive up prices or send airlines bust. From where I’m sitting, it’s not viable

Then the inflight 🍽 arrives.

It makes me think: if every passenger takes their 😷 off for their meal/drink, what’s the point?

My neighbour looks at me as I sip my drink. He’s not eating. His mask is still on. I can’t read his face but I can imagine. I feel rather a hypocrite.

On arrival in 🇮🇱, Israeli ‘order’ kicks in. It’s a mixture of organisation but understandable chaos too.
A soldier from the @IDF boards as the door swings open. Politely on the PA system he explains that everyone must comply with the Ministry of Health regulations.

Countries globally have chosen different ways of dealing with the crisis. Israel’s response seems to be belt and braces.

There’ll be a temperature check🤒, health declaration forms & a Coronavirus swab test, all before baggage reclaim😮

We disembark & head through the labyrinth

As we approach the temperature checkpoint, I realise I’m hot, lugging too much hand-baggage.

What if I fail the temperature test? 😮

Luckily there’s time to cool down, but in a queue of passengers where social distancing is, again, impossible.

We weren’t expecting the coronavirus test so I feel it necessary to brief my six-year-old on what he’s about to experience: a stick up the nose and in the mouth. 🥴

He‘s remarkably unfazed; distracted instead by the men in white suits.

I’m proud of them but I can’t help wondering how this corona episode will impact society in the years ahead.

Surely, this’ll all pass? The ‘new normal’ will be replaced once more by the proper old normal?

Equally, it has all focused minds in terms of how we live sustainably.

news.sky.com/story/coronavi…