Flying With Covid

there are also people still working very hard not to get covid who risk serious consequences if they were to get sick

FWIW my partner is in this position, we have plans to fly for the first time since 2019 this March, and I am perfectly fine with your decision and decision-making process.

On [1], I'd say it's more prosocial to test as you did and travel anyway taking maximum precaution than to not test, because though you'd want to take maximum precaution it's harder without the clear confirm. 

On the general subject, I'll say that at this point I also prefer living in your world, traveling in a plane of people following your decision process. Most people have been vaccinated, most people have already had Covid, and afaik there are no particular strains on the medical system right now ? I don't particular fear being slightly exposed to Covid again. 

Thanks for this.  I don't think there's any way to make the decision and then call attention to it without encouraging others to do the same (unless you're pretty strongly regretful and/or condemned for it), but I also think that this kind of decision is a critical part of world-modeling, and having very specific examples and reasoning is important in understanding the opposing forces rather than having un-workable far-mode absolutes.

I'm fairly surprised to read this, as I continue to be surprised by the number of my friends and acquaintances who have flown home with COVID despite having the means not to. Every flight I've taken since the pandemic started, I've taken the time to game plan what would happen if I or someone in my party were to test positive during the trip. Did you not do this? On the scale of the incomes you have posted on your blog previously, $2000 or so is not very much.

And from the JetBlue policy you linked to, I guess you bought Basic Blue fares?

It seems like you chose to be your own insurance policy and then decided not to pay out.

Several airlines, at least as of a few months ago, required me to check a box confirming that I had not tested positive for COVID in some recent amount of time, or had a fever. Is this no longer the case, or did you choose to check that box?

Maybe the risk numbers make sense here, but planes/airports are one of the hardest places to avoid to be able to participate in society normally and I am surprised by your choice given all the other posts in which you seem exceedingly concerned about not spreading COVID.

I'm fully vaccinated and to my knowledge have never had covid. When flying, I would rather sit next to someone covid-positive who wears a well-fitted mask the entire trip than sit next to someone with some random non-covid cold or flu who's wearing no mask. Thank you for keeping your droplets to yourselves.

Correctly fitted masks have been state of the art for preventing respiratory infections since long before 2020, and it's been emergency response protocol to wear them around suspected contagious patients for a long time. Sadly, I can't take self-reported mask usage vs sickness data too seriously these days, because I see so many people wearing masks so ineffectively. Even now that they've become completely optional, I'm always amazed when I notice somebody walking around with a mask hanging under their nose or gapping several centimeters from their face.

As someone about to embark on a compulsory cross-country flight for work, I empathize with your decision process. Thanks for taking the time to write it out.

In your shoes, I would do as you've done. People who choose to travel implicitly accept risk, including the risk of exposure to people who choose not to protect themselves and those around them.

I was feeling the beginning of sickness (slight fever, runny nose, scratchy throat) while at the airport around a year ago when returning from a trip. I made the same decision you did: prioritized masking, distance where feasible, and getting home as quickly as possible instead of taking on ~$1k of hotels/food to wait until I was healthy. I think I made the right decision and agree with yours here.

It turned out I had the ordinary flu, not covid. I don't think the prosocial decision making is substantially different between the flu & covid at this point in time.

Were you at least able to able to avoid the medical-legal system's toll collecting/time wasting bullshit by going to a "test to treat" center and getting antivirals for everyone?  

Or at least the current sick?  The internet says you can just go to one of those "test to treat" centers, show that positive covid test, and boom, antivirals that will reduce your odds of all the negative events that covid can cause.  (even in young children)

I have heard differently, stories of someone showing up to the center and getting the usual runaround.  "well we don't have a pharmacist here right now so uh go away..."

I'm writing this up not to encourage or discourage similar choices but to walk through how I was thinking about it and humanize a choice I expect some of you think was reckless and inconsiderate.

I've never seen this phrase "humanize a choice" before. Nor has Google apparently, which returns only 1 prior instance across the entire internet.

What's the intended meaning?

If respirators are widely available (even in the absence of vaccines), the responsibility for protection (especially for voluntary activities) falls on the person that doesn't want to get infected.

If someone wants to protect others, they should wear ventless (or vented-but-filtered) respirators. Non-respirator masks provide little to no protection.