Hmmm. Boarding a flight for an urgent work trip. Thought I might look at the amount of recycled air inside the plane. Steadily increased from 600ppm to 1300ppm as the door closed. Being on the ground is the worst air.... supposedly. Let’s see.
Backed away from gate (disconnected from APU.
Taxiing.
At cruise altitude now for about 20 minutes. Bouncing around at 1450-1550ppm.
Caveat to all of this. BOS-LAX. I am fortunate that I am sitting in business class without a neighbor (my requirement of flying during a pandemic). But I am also in a little box of my own. Little encased cabin which rises above my head height when seated.
(A few hours back.... airports empty again)
I was interested in the recycled fraction. The air coming straight from the nozzle is a mix of outside air and direct from HEPA filter air. I saw 1200-1256 at 1 minute intervals over 5 minutes (my arm got tired after that).
Time out from the science.... this is not your ordinary plane food! Damn! Yes, that is a lobster roll!
Mid flight.
Dropping as we descend
Spiked again on landing
Then the jet bridge
Jet bridge, CO2 dropped very quickly.
The next phase : car service from LAX to hotel. Barriers in car, two windows open, air on flow through. Still higher than I would like.
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Rebounds: I’ve tracked more than 5k infections in the film and TV industry over the past 2 years. Roughly 50% of people taking Paxlovid rebound ~3 days after finishing the course. I’ve only had 1 rebound in people who don’t take Paxlovid. Daily testing. Cont.
People who rebound on Paxlovid tend to clear on antigen tests very quickly (~4-5 days). However the infection comes back, often symptomatic and infectious - confirmed transmission. I have NOT had anyone take two course of Paxlovid.
In contrast, the majority of those who don’t take Paxlovid clear an antigen test on day 7 or 8. Some clear after 5 days, some day 11 or 12. We don’t clear for work until the person has 2 negative antigen tests separated by 12 hours. Cont.
In the last 2 years, I’ve had only one person who was infected while flying across the country. In the last month, ~5% of the crew I work with have been infected while in transit. Dropping of the international testing requirement is going to compound that problem.
Today, I was arranging private transport back to the USA for a family infected and stuck overseas. With today’s breaking news of no testing requirement, they are going to wait until Sunday and fly commercial. This is such a great plan!
I get that the test negative to travel is inconvenient and does stop people from traveling due to fear of being stuck overseas if infected. But the converse of that is people jumping on long haul flights who are infected and screwing with everyone else’s plans. I can’t reconcile
I am baffled at CDC’s decision to shorten isolation. Here are tests from the same person: day 0 (3 days after exposure) and day 8. The person still has a huge amount of virus in their nose 8 days after testing positive. n=59. Quickest clearance 6 days, longest (vacc) 8.5 days.
To put this into context. I oversee the testing of 1000’s of people each week in workplace surveillance programs. Some people we test daily, others once a week. Millions of tests over the past 18 months. As we do not want to have workplace transmission, we ensure that (next)
When we have a positive we do not return them to work too soon. Workplace transmission would shut us down (union rules) so we are cautious and use data to return people. We have always used PCR for testing and more recently (last 9 months) supplemented with antigen tests. (Next)