It’s a week before Thanksgiving and all through the house, every creature is stirring, every dog, cat and mouse. The food was selected and prepared with care, in the hopes that the family would soon be there.
The tragedy is that our holidays change, to keep everyone safe we all must refrain. For those who still travel, there’s care you must take. When one single sneeze could leave woe in your wake.
We are now entering the season of holidays, where friends, family, and coworkers gather to celebrate the year’s achievements. In the age of COVID-19, there will need to be a change in how we gather to keep everyone safe, if we gather at all.
Let me be up front and say that the easiest way to make sure you don’t get sick with COVID-19, much less spread it to the people you see, is to stay home and not attend events large or small. This is hard. This is a terrible choice that so many people all over the world are facing today, to see friends and risk SARS-CoV-2 or to stay home where it is safe. While I do advocate not seeing people, I realize that it not something that everyone can or will do. The last thing I want is to convince people that with just “a few easy steps you’ll be safe from COVID!” because it’s just not true. However, there are ways to mitigate the disease if you are considering visiting anyone between now and the end of the year.
Quarantining
Quarantine comes from quarantena which means 40 days in medieval Venetian, this was found to be a suitable period of time to ensure that arriving ships would not bring Black Death into the city. For COVID-19 we’ve found that the time between exposure and symptoms can take 14 days, cutting the traditional quarantine time down by more than half. Anyone considering travel needs to quarantine themselves 2 weeks before their trip to prevent catching COVID-19, and should be careful interacting with the people at their destination for another 2 weeks upon arrival in case they picked up the disease in transit.
A whole month? Sounds ridiculous right? Well, this is the way to be safest while traveling. People are starting to get tested before traveling but that doesn’t guarantee the virus might be detected the next day. SARS-CoV-2 is a sneaky virus that is capable of spreading before symptoms are shown. A few images have been floating around that show a realistic timeline of someone being exposed, testing negative, and seeing family before becoming symptomatic which puts everyone they were in close contact with at risk.
To this point we’ve all established our bubbles, the people we spend large amounts of time with either masked or unmasked. Usually bubbles involve family, work, and school. Every time someone new enters that bubble, the quarantine timer resets. Want to go hang out with friends in a garden party? Okay, but wait two weeks after that event before scheduling anything else. Any interactions that are with people outside your bubble for 15 minutes or greater should be considered to reset your quarantine timer. Stay in contact with the people you were around and make sure no one in that group gets sick. If someone does show symptoms within two weeks, it’s time to really isolate, monitor, and get tested if possible.
For people traveling in groups, consider those you travel with as your team. Your team are people going through the same steps and stages with you and provide you a core group of people you don’t have to isolate from. This could be your household or just some of your close friends, depending on what you do.
Travel
If you’re driving, take precautions when you’re outside of your car making rest stops and getting food. Mask use is a great way to protect yourself and the staff of anywhere you’re getting takeout, even in the drive thru! This is likely the safest mode of travel as you probably won’t be traveling with strangers or people outside of your bubble, which limits the chance of anyone in the team catching COVID-19 during the trip. If you’re on a bus or other shared transportation, take the same precautions that you would on a plane.
For work of for fun traveling has been cut down a lot since the beginning of the year. While air travel is down 42% for last year for this time [link], that’s still a lot more travel happening than I expected. Airplanes are designed specifically with air circulation in mind and are built in such a way as to minimize spread of respiratory droplets to your immediate neighbors. [link] That being said, it is important to wear a mask during all flights to protect yourself and those around you while on the plane.
The airport is a prime location for SARS-CoV-2 to spread as people generally crowd together in lines for long periods at a time. Since some lines take so long to get through, one person coughing and sneezing could have the chance to infect hundreds of others as they slowly pass by again and again in line. Masks and hand hygiene are critical to traveling safely in an airport. If you are able to, don’t eat or drink while at the airport. It’s safer to wait until you’re away from crowds and random passersbys before unmasking to consume anything. If you’re having a long day of travel and will need to eat anything then take precautions by washing your hands before eating, not just sanitizing with alcohol but physical washing, cleaning the table you will be eating at, and staying as far away from people not in your group as physically possible. With talking and eating the 6ft distance may not be enough. [link]
Visiting
You’ve quarantined and traveled safely! Now you’ve arrived at grandma’s house and want to make sure she stays protected. The best thing to do is to treat the place you’re staying at as a new environment during your second quarantine. This means for the next two weeks you should be spending time with your mask on when inside and around other people in the house. If possible, try to establish some space like a bedroom that you can go to and relax in with your mask off. The whole point of precautions is to try to keep everyone safe, and there is no one thing that will stop COVID-19 so it takes a collective effort of a lot of actions to prevent spread.
This is best showed in the swiss cheese model, where each piece has gaps but the gaps don’t always align and something would have to slip through _everything_ to have an effect rather than just passing through a single gap. To protect the people hosting you, it’s best to practice as many safety measures as possible during a 2 week integration quarantine before joining the family for regular activities. While the steps can be a pain, using surgical masks instead of heavy fabric ones can help ease discomfort, and be sure to bring good lotion as you’ll want to wash your hands a lot.
If you’re meeting at a neutral location, have anyone outside of your main bubble be the ones taking the extra precautions. If you’re in the position where you’re meeting your established bubble at a different location, perform a quick cleaning of the new space. Harsh chemicals don’t need to be used, but alcohol or other sanitizing wipes can help prevent spread from surfaces.
Returning
The visit is over and now it’s time to return home, but it’s not time to go back into your original quarantine pattern quite yet.
Just as there was a quarantine period to enter a new bubble, there needs to be a quarantine period before returning to your original one. Everyone that traveled together can continue to quaran-team where you don’t have to isolate from others in your group, but make sure that precautions are taken when integrating back with your normal schedule.
In summary:
- Isolate as much as possible for 2 weeks before traveling
- Restart your quarantine timer any time you spend more than 15 minutes with anyone outside of your bubble
- Stay masked as much as possible when not with your quaran-team during travels
- Take precautions like wearing a masks and distancing around people you visit for the first 2 weeks you spend with them
- Take precautions when returning to your bubble
If that sounds too hard or like something you don’t want to deal with? STAY HOME
We’re heading into a bad few months, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. A vaccine is almost here and while it won’t be for everyone this year, we should all have a chance to get some kind of vaccine next year.
Stay strong and count your 2 weeks,
-Your friendly neighborhood Scientist
PMP in the Lab 