NEW YORK (WBCS 880) — After more than a year of societal shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, there are many things that Americans have been missing.
Among those are summer staple-pieces such as sporting events and leisure travel.
However, as more and more people get vaccinated and as more industries begin to reopen, people all over the country are beginning to see a return to normal.
The question now is: are we safe?
In this week’s 880 In Depth Podcast, we looked into what it’s going to be like to climb out of the pandemic safely.
For travel, we turned to CBS News Travel Editor Peter Greenberg, who is known around the world as the “Travel Detective.”
We wanted to know when Americans can expect to safely travel on airplanes again, but Greenberg assured us that it’s already safe to do so – and has been throughout the pandemic.
“I’ve been traveling since last July, actually, throughout the United States, I’ve been to Mexico then to the Dominican Republic, over to Turkey, Croatia and I’m continuing to travel,” he explained. “As long as you can do it responsibly and play by the rules and be situationally aware – not just of your own behavior, but of the behavior of the people where you’re going – you have a really good chance of doing so in a safe way.”
Already, air travel is up again throughout the country with Greenberg saying that the country is seeing an average of 1.5 million people being screened at TSA checkpoints in airports every day, “and that number continues to go up as more and more Americans get vaccinated.”
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He believes airlines, which had been parking planes in long-term storage areas at airports during the pandemic, will have their entire fleets back in the air in just under a month.
Greenberg also notes that airplanes are among some of the safest places to be in terms of air circulation.
“The actual technology about the airplane environment itself has always been very, very good. The recirculation systems on the plane, these high-energy filters take out about 99.4% of all the particulates in bacteria,” he explains. “It’s a matter of how you protect yourself, the air circulation bringing in new air every three minutes is a good thing – the key though, is the behavior of the people once you get to where you’re going.”
Greenberg notes it's not a bad idea to wear two masks when on the plane but, believes that vaccination cards are going to become a somewhat “golden ticket” as we head into the summer months.
“It’s become a very large political issue, however, it’s really being driven – not so much by government as much as by the private sector worried about liability and giving passengers a sense of security,” he says of a “vaccine passport.”
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He believes, in the next few months a vaccination pass will likely become a requirement throughout the country – and not just on airlines, but as movie theaters, grocery stores, shopping malls, cruise ships and dozens of other industries.
With increasing vaccinations, of course, means a return to more industries, and potentially overcoming the pandemic.
Dr. David Hirschwerk, an infectious disease expert and Interim Chair of Medicine at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, spoke with our Peter Haskell this week, saying he is optimistic about the coming months.
“For the next two months, we’re going to experience – I believe – a much better situation with rate of transmission and I’m sure more and more things will open up,” he said. “But, I think that there really are a lot of question marks and some bumps over the next several weeks and we need to try to get through that time safely and get as many people vaccinated, continue to wear our masks and physical distancing and avoiding indoor crowds as much as we can until that time.”
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He says most things will be safe to return to, but as the summer approaches, he is encouraging everyone to take advantage of being outdoors noting: “Just about anything you do outside, it's going to be safer than inside.”
Dr. Hirschwerk says, like Greenberg, he is already beginning to do things that he would not have done during the pandemic – especially since he is now fully vaccinated.
“I was at the Islanders game and saw a great game on Saturday night,” he tells Haskell.
He agrees that indoor events themselves are not the issue, but rather overcrowding. His best advice is that people remain smart, and keep their distance from others, especially if they haven’t received their shots.
Dr. Hirschwerk cautions that we’re not out of the clear yet, and most likely will not be for a while so long as the coronavirus continues to mutate.
“I think the next month, the thing that concerns me is the degree of penetration of these more contagious variants,” he explains.
But, he says vaccination production is improving, and soon everyone will be able to be protected, if they choose to be.
“It is really very, very close that anybody who wants to get a vaccine in the very near future is going to be able to get the vaccine,” Dr. Hirschwerk said.
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