4 ms·

This is just fear mongering. Life will return to normal. Lots of people swore they'd never fly after 9/11 and yet things did recover.

downerending 6y ago
Maybe. Two very reassuring things happened right after 9/11, though: (1) cockpit doors were seriously reinforced, and (2) everyone realized that if there was a on-board threat, the only rational response would be "Let's roll". Some might also include TSA changes on that list. COVID-19 is different. We're having an extended period of time to realize that we simply don't need to fly anywhere. And that airplanes always were flying petri dishes and that that sometimes matters a lot. I'm older that most here, and it's somewhat difficult to imagine ever getting on a plane again. It's always been sort of marginal, and now it just looks like a loser. If we actually achieve confirmed herd immunity, perhaps I will feel different.
- ryanwaggoner 6y ago
  We're having an extended period of time to realize that we simply don't need to fly anywhere. I think we're all learning right now that we don't need to do a lot of things, but we still want to. I can't imagine getting on a plane either, but only this year. I expect I'll be traveling in 2021 or 2022. I wouldn't even be opposed to going on a cruise again in the next few years. If there's not a global pandemic going on, cruise ships really aren't that big of a risk. I've been on 10-15 cruises and have never picked up anything. Norovirus is the typical risk, but you're probably at more risk of catching it on land than on a cruise ship. There's just not the same level of monitoring and reporting of norovirus at places like restaurants. Airplanes always were flying petri dishes, but so are any place where people gather. It's not just airplanes and cruise ships, it's restaurants and concerts and schools and churches and extended family get-togethers. There's just no evidence that the pandemic will affect those things in the long run. Once it's safe to do so, we'll be clustering together again, like we always have.
  - downerending 6y ago
    > Once it's safe to do so, we'll be clustering together again, like we always have. I think we're agreeing. The question is how soon each individual will judge the situation "safe enough". The young (50 and under or so) will soon realize that they were probably never at much risk, and will revert to normal faster. The not-young will remain quite wary for a very long time, partly because old people are risk-averse to begin with, and partly because they are at higher risk from COVID-19 specifically. Economic factors will play a large role as well. Most of us are realizing (faster or slower) that we just got whacked financially. Many have lost jobs, had their retirement accounts depleted, or suffered other downsides. And as a society we will be paying for this for decades in terms of higher taxes, lower services and social safety nets.
- ken 6y ago
  Teaching passengers to wear masks when sick, wash their hands, etc., is the "let's roll" of COVID-19. A vaccine will be the reinforced cockpit doors of COVID-19. For most people, in 3 years, we'll be right back to where we were. I don't see how airplanes are any more "petri dishes" than buses, trains, theatres, stadiums, conventions, churches, restaurants, or the DMV. (We're not going to start building everything 4x bigger in every dimension just so people can safely sneeze at an IMAX screening.) Instead of seeing that they don't need to fly, they'll see that flying is no worse than 20 other things they do. We just have to hope that the government doesn't take advantage of the situation to create a TSA of COVID-19, with mandatory worse-than-useless "health theater".
  - downerending 6y ago
    Cockpit doors were pretty straightforward and appeared almost immediately. There's a pretty good chance we will never have an effective COVID-19 vaccine. No knowledgeable scientist thinks it's a sure thing, nor that it will be widely available anytime soon. Airplanes are uniquely awful in that people are packed closely together and the air is almost entirely recirculated. Nothing else even comes close.
  - JadeNB 6y ago
    Every little dribble of terrorism made flying a lot worse. (An infinitesimally small one of the reasons to curse Richard Reid.) Just imagine every way flying will get worse when future diseases flare up, and diseases aren't limited by human resourcefulness as terrorism is.
GordonS 6y ago
Things in air travel did not go back to normal though. Cockpit doors were reinforced, with nobody allowed in during flights. Things on the ground were even more changed, with security still heightened to this day (even if much of it is theatre). AFAIK, it was also around then that tickets became non-transferable. People's luggage can no longer travel with out them. We have 3D body scanners and can only carry small quantities of liquids in a tiny bag (I realise this came a bit later, but the point stands). Being brown results in even more unpleasantness. Things absolutely did not return to normal after 9/11.

downerending 6y ago

Maybe. Two very reassuring things happened right after 9/11, though: (1) cockpit doors were seriously reinforced, and (2) everyone realized that if there was a on-board threat, the only rational response would be "Let's roll". Some might also include TSA changes on that list. COVID-19 is different. We're having an extended period of time to realize that we simply don't need to fly anywhere. And that airplanes always were flying petri dishes and that that sometimes matters a lot. I'm older that most here, and it's somewhat difficult to imagine ever getting on a plane again. It's always been sort of marginal, and now it just looks like a loser. If we actually achieve confirmed herd immunity, perhaps I will feel different.

ryanwaggoner 6y ago
We're having an extended period of time to realize that we simply don't need to fly anywhere. I think we're all learning right now that we don't need to do a lot of things, but we still want to. I can't imagine getting on a plane either, but only this year. I expect I'll be traveling in 2021 or 2022. I wouldn't even be opposed to going on a cruise again in the next few years. If there's not a global pandemic going on, cruise ships really aren't that big of a risk. I've been on 10-15 cruises and have never picked up anything. Norovirus is the typical risk, but you're probably at more risk of catching it on land than on a cruise ship. There's just not the same level of monitoring and reporting of norovirus at places like restaurants. Airplanes always were flying petri dishes, but so are any place where people gather. It's not just airplanes and cruise ships, it's restaurants and concerts and schools and churches and extended family get-togethers. There's just no evidence that the pandemic will affect those things in the long run. Once it's safe to do so, we'll be clustering together again, like we always have.
- downerending 6y ago
  > Once it's safe to do so, we'll be clustering together again, like we always have. I think we're agreeing. The question is how soon each individual will judge the situation "safe enough". The young (50 and under or so) will soon realize that they were probably never at much risk, and will revert to normal faster. The not-young will remain quite wary for a very long time, partly because old people are risk-averse to begin with, and partly because they are at higher risk from COVID-19 specifically. Economic factors will play a large role as well. Most of us are realizing (faster or slower) that we just got whacked financially. Many have lost jobs, had their retirement accounts depleted, or suffered other downsides. And as a society we will be paying for this for decades in terms of higher taxes, lower services and social safety nets.
ken 6y ago
Teaching passengers to wear masks when sick, wash their hands, etc., is the "let's roll" of COVID-19. A vaccine will be the reinforced cockpit doors of COVID-19. For most people, in 3 years, we'll be right back to where we were. I don't see how airplanes are any more "petri dishes" than buses, trains, theatres, stadiums, conventions, churches, restaurants, or the DMV. (We're not going to start building everything 4x bigger in every dimension just so people can safely sneeze at an IMAX screening.) Instead of seeing that they don't need to fly, they'll see that flying is no worse than 20 other things they do. We just have to hope that the government doesn't take advantage of the situation to create a TSA of COVID-19, with mandatory worse-than-useless "health theater".
- downerending 6y ago
  Cockpit doors were pretty straightforward and appeared almost immediately. There's a pretty good chance we will never have an effective COVID-19 vaccine. No knowledgeable scientist thinks it's a sure thing, nor that it will be widely available anytime soon. Airplanes are uniquely awful in that people are packed closely together and the air is almost entirely recirculated. Nothing else even comes close.
- JadeNB 6y ago
  Every little dribble of terrorism made flying a lot worse. (An infinitesimally small one of the reasons to curse Richard Reid.) Just imagine every way flying will get worse when future diseases flare up, and diseases aren't limited by human resourcefulness as terrorism is.

GordonS 6y ago

Things in air travel did not go back to normal though. Cockpit doors were reinforced, with nobody allowed in during flights. Things on the ground were even more changed, with security still heightened to this day (even if much of it is theatre). AFAIK, it was also around then that tickets became non-transferable. People's luggage can no longer travel with out them. We have 3D body scanners and can only carry small quantities of liquids in a tiny bag (I realise this came a bit later, but the point stands). Being brown results in even more unpleasantness. Things absolutely did not return to normal after 9/11.