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Quarantine questions...

So say I go on my trip... I take a plane from mco to lgw... we go to Scotland. We stay in the highlands... we are only near people for transport there and maybe restaurants for food.....

What qualifies you as close enough connection to someone to have to quarantine?

Posted by
222 posts

Our trip is in May out of TPA to Edinburgh for 16 days. At this point I’m not sure if these quarantines are working or even helpful. Seeing here in Florida we are doing limited testing who knows how many cases we already have.

Still not sure if we are going or not...

Posted by
71 posts

We were supposed to go to Germany friday but now are considering Scotland. Not sure. Just wondering how close connections I have to be to someone to qualify as quarantine...

Posted by
3985 posts

There isn’t anything black-and-white like that which can answer your question whether you are in a major city or any remote village.

You don’t know who is going to be near you at the airport, on your flight(s), anywhere. You may start coughing because you swallowed something the wrong way and somebody else hears it and contacts somebody whether it is a flight attendant or a manager in a store thinking you might be the one carrying the virus. There is a level of hysteria which makes anything possible and engenders a complete lack of civility. Hysteria can be in your hometown — not just in your travels.

I’m traveling to Switzerland next month & can’t wait.

Posted by
10120 posts

You have to get spittle particles on you. I did notice in the Paris metro very few coughs. I suppressed mine so as not to generate unwanted attention. Perhaps others are doing the same.

Posted by
71 posts

Yes I understand how its transmitted... i guess the question is... so far those who have been quarantined...were they on the same entire plane or seated next to the person in question? Know what I mean?

Posted by
3809 posts

Quarantine is more about exposure/risk than travel itself. If you are on a cruise ship with numerous cases of COVID-19 --> quarantine. If you are staying in a B&B, your host gets diagnosed with COVID-19 --> expect to be quarantined. If the guy beside you on your flight back to the US gets a fever/cough two days later and is diagnosed with COVID-19 --> the CDC will hunt you down and quarantine you.
In reality, though, Scotland is not a hot bed of COVID-19 right now (18 cases at last report), so quarantine seems unlikely.

...unless your company has a rule about not returning to work until a certain amount of time after international travel... which is not really quarantine.

Posted by
2699 posts

You are looking for reassurance and nobody on this board can give you that. Public health authorities throughout the world are using containment strategies: identify cases, isolate them, quarantine contacts. If you travel now the risk you take is not only the virus, it’s quarantine, and it’s real. I think we are getting close to seeing this in the US. I’m not curtailing my domestic travel for now, but I would not travel out of the country now for two reasons: I want to be in the US if I should be unlucky enough to get this. And, if I am quarantined, ditto, I want to be in country.

Posted by
71 posts

I definitely know no one can forsee the future. BUT, I am a person who likes to know all the facts... and I just feel like I can't seem to find all the facts. For me the idea of quarantining a whole plan for 1 passenger vs those within a 6 feet radius are very different..

I change my mind about 5 times a day on what we should do. This isn't a once in a lifetime trip for us... but it still sucks to lose money etc when honestly I feel its a media hype in a lot of ways.

Posted by
2065 posts

Wanderlust 29
Please don’t think that this is “Media” hype. It isn’t.
If you are found to be a contact to a case from an air flight, your local PHD will hunt you down and may quarantine you. If your local department is 14 days out from contacting you, ( inundated with cases and contacts) you might not be quarantined if you don’t meet any of the criteria to do so.
Dave is correct.

Posted by
7451 posts

I think the problem is that there is no one "Entity" making the rules, so no verified list of facts.

You have general actions...TSA asking about travel in China or Iran (This week they were not asking about Italy, Japan or other countries), which I suppose would prompt health screening, but not necessary quarantine. You also have specific steps...a Cruise ship with active cases being quarantined, or people evacuated from China. And finally, places like your School, or my Company who have requested self Quarantine if traveling to specific areas.

Of course all that changes every day. While I was traveling the last two weeks, my company added Japan, South Korea, and Italy. Hot spots popped up in Spain (a hotel quarantined), another cruise ship, and Italy widened it's controls.

For the most part, other than a broad declaration, others will decide if your connection is "close enough" at the extreme end, but at some point, given that you work with a potentially vulnerable population, you will need to determine if your travel presents a risk, and that could change daily.

Posted by
4540 posts

For me the idea of quarantining a whole plan for 1 passenger vs those within a 6 feet radius are very different.

The cruise ship currently off the California coast is holding the entire ship of 3500 people, with 21 having tested positive for the virus. It would be virtually impossible to know whether any one passenger had sufficiently close contact to one of the 21 to then be at risk. So everyone is being held on the ship and will be tested and quarantined until results are back.

Similarly, on an airplane, it would be quite difficult for authorities to know whether 1 sick passenger walked down the entire aisle of the plane (such as during boarding) passing within 6 feet of (for example) every already-seated passenger.

Posted by
4256 posts

My husband was saying it was media hype and refusing to cancel any of his trips to scientific meetings-until he heard what happened at the Biogen meeting in Boston. Now he's(and I ) are not traveling.

Posted by
71 posts

From what I read just simple passing by isnt typical spread.

For us this isnt a once in a life time trip. It sucks but I'm probably canceling.