Thread by @AdrianaBarton

“Living with COVID”: Travel Edition

I’ve just returned from 7 wks in France and Nova Scotia with my husband and son (part business, part pleasure). We took long-haul flights, ate out and mingled with friends and family. None of us caught COVID. How?

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We only flew with airlines that require masking: @airtransat @aircanda @WestJet
We wore N95s and did not break seal except for occasional sips of water and quick bites of food (not perfect but good enough). My son couldn’t make it to Europe without refuelling. 😂
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Throughout our trip, we stuck with the policies that have kept us COVID-free so far: no indoor dining (patios only), N95s for indoor public spaces (trains, shops, movie theatres), masking outdoors in crowded areas. We looked like germaphobe tourists, but who cares?
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In France we hung out with friends (all vaxxed), but gatherings were small and mostly outdoors. In Nova Scotia we socialized with several people who turned out to be positive, but again, we visited mainly outside and managed to avoid infection (partly luck?).
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Our summer of travel was full of potential exposures, so I wouldn’t have been surprised if we’d caught Covid despite our precautions. Some of this is luck of the draw and I don’t judge others who get infected using similar measures. But…
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…this trip has shown me that avoiding COVID doesn’t have to be miserable. We saved our “exposure risk budget” for the things we enjoy most (patios meals, seeing friends and family). The rest of the time, our mitigation efforts didn’t ruin the experience.
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I feel incredibly lucky and privileged to have travelled this summer—my first vacation in 3 yrs. Other than environmental impact and guilt of air travel (some of it necessary for elder care), it was a fantastic trip. Understanding COVID risk in diverse scenarios really helps.
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