Travelling during the pandemic is stressful enough, but knowing that someone has tested positive on your flight can send anyone's anxiety levels through the roof.
Recent reports reveal that many travellers boarded flights despite testing positive for the virus.
One of the incidents happened in December when a couple who tested positive for coronavirus boarded a United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Kauai in Hawaii. The pair, both in their late forties, reportedly travelled with a 4-year-old child.
The pair allegedly tested for the virus and were told to isolate and not to board the plane.
They got on the plane anyway.
They were caught, arrested and charged with reckless endangerment.
In another incident, a 69-year-old man, who tested positive with Covid-19, fell ill in the middle of a United Airlines flight from Orlando to Los Angeles. He later died in hospital.
NBC News reported that the passenger died of Covid-19 and acute respiratory failure.
Incidents like these force travellers to ask crucial questions such as: “How are people tested for the virus entering the plane?”
“Why is the airport or airline not taking extra care to ensure that all passengers are healthy before the flight?”
While airlines need to take the necessary precautions when it comes to protecting travellers who board their planes, they cannot be blamed unless they knowingly allow the passenger to travel.
It is up to travellers to ensure that they do not travel if they experience symptoms or are tested positive for Covid-19.
Holidays can wait.
And, if they do not heed to regulations, they need to face the full wrath of the law.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the national public health institute in the US, points out that travel can increase your chance of spreading and getting Covid-19.
"Postponing travel and staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others from Covid-19,“ it states on its website.
”You and your travel companions, including children, may feel well and not have any symptoms, but you can still spread Covid-19 to family, friends, and community after travel."
"If you have a known exposure to Covid-19 you should delay travel, quarantine yourself from other people, get tested, and monitor your health.
“Don’t travel if you are sick or test positive for Covid-19. Don’t travel with someone who is sick."