Pandemic Travel Protocols and Precautions

Mayoral travel fails, pandemic travel protocols and precautions with Dr. Kiona from the How Not To Travel Podcast and how to say “travel fever” in Swedish.

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First Stop:

Austin mayor Steve Adler urged his constituents to avoid Thanksgiving travel in a Facebook video last month, according to The Austin American-Statesman.

“We need to stay home if you can,” he said in the video. “This is not the time to relax.”

Except he wasn't exactly staying home. He made that video in Cabo.

Denver mayor Mayor Michael Hancock wasn't much better, according to the Washington Post. He took to Twitter to ask his neighbors not to travel before Thanksgiving...then hopped a on a plane to Mississippi an hour later.

Face palm. They do know they're public figures, right?

Next Stop:

Everybody wants to travel this holiday season. But that doesn't mean it's safe to do so. To help us weigh the risks, we turned to Dr. Kiona, host of the How Not To Travel Podcast. (You can also find her at @hownottotravelpod on Instagram.) Properly implementing Dr. Kiona's safety tips can help us make all of our trips (either across town or across the country) as safe as possible.

If you're planning to travel or gather this holiday season, we encourage you to review safety advice from the experts at the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Mayo Clinic also offers some basic pandemic travel safety tips and links to relevant sites for updates.

Then review orders and ordinances by country and U.S. state. The situation is fluid and can change very quickly (Exhibit A: this week's UK Travel Ban), so make sure you have a long term back-up plan in place in case you're stranded in your destination longer than intended.

You can read more about the Harvard School of Public Health survey on COVID-19 transmission on airplanes that Dr. Kiona referenced here. You also may want to read through several news stories that interpret the results of the study.

And remember, if you're not willing to test, mask up, wash your hands, keep your distance from people outside of your travel pod, and have difficult conversations about your health, boundaries and mortality with your guests or travel companions, travel and gatherings should wait. None of this is fun, but it's the new reality.

Language Love:

Resfeber

Swedish

"Travel fever," or the mixture of nervousness and excitement before a trip begins

Thanks to Alicia's colleague Josefine Törnqvist, (a.k.a. @josefinethequeen on Instagram and co-host of the Veckans Ölhäng podcast) for verifying this translation.

What about you?

What will it take for you to feel comfortable traveling again?

What safety precautions are you taking when you travel -- or just leave the house?

How are you making your holiday gatherings as safe as possible this year?

What's the first place you want to go when the pandemic is over?