Nearly 5,000 Flights Canceled Globally As Omicron Infects Airline Employees (nbcnews.com) 153
"Almost 5,000 flights were canceled across the world over Christmas weekend," reports NBC News, "as holiday travel plans were brought to a halt amid the rapidly spreading omicron variant of Covid-19."
About 2,800 global flights were canceled on Christmas Day alone, according to flight tracker FlightAware, with some airline companies citing the spread of the new variant as the cause for the disruption...
Several major airlines, including United, Delta and Alaska, said they had been forced to cancel hundreds of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day flights after the omicron variant infected employees and crew members. United said some of its 210 cancellations Saturday were also a result of close contact situations.
Several major airlines, including United, Delta and Alaska, said they had been forced to cancel hundreds of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day flights after the omicron variant infected employees and crew members. United said some of its 210 cancellations Saturday were also a result of close contact situations.
Welcome to the mandate world (Score:1, Troll)
Airlines were early adopters of the "No Jab No Job" rules, so the percentage of non-vaccinated people should be quite low.
However, since the vaccines are as effective as vaccines usually are, they're still getting infections, then those pesky quarantine rules kick in, even for vaccinated people, and even if the infected person is asymptomatic.
Traveling long distance by car keeps getting more and more appealing.
Re:Welcome to the mandate world (Score:5, Informative)
The vaccines are plenty effective. Sadly, one in three American still refuse to take a free, life-saving shot because of [reasons].
Re: Welcome to the mandate world (Score:2)
(Shrug)
1 in 5 people still smoke for (reasons)
People drunk drive for (reasons)
People drive without seat belts for (reasons)
People routinely don't secure their drugs or guns from the reach of children for (reasons)
People have unprotected sex for (reasons)
I don't know if you noticed, but Human behavior pretty famously isn't guided strictly by rational choices.
What's for you so bitterly, sneeringly angry on this one?
Oh yeah...politics.
Well, as I said: not always purely rational are we?
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The vaccines are plenty effective
I keep seeing this statement. It doesn't mean anything even if you highlight it in bold.
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The vaccines are plenty effective. Sadly, one in three American still refuse to take a free, life-saving shot because of [reasons].
Omicron was reported as being 5 times more infectious, and then last week it was reported that the current vaccination was only 33% as effective against it, which means that it is practically spreading uncontrolled. So the vaccinations may have been initially effective for reducing R below 1, but no longer.
There are still good reasons to be vaccinated, but vaccination is not a solution to stopping the spread and politicians who continue to say that it is are undermining their credibility and the credibilit
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Why would a pharmaceutical company want to provide treatment to a disease that has potential to infect nearly every person on earth? Such a tiny niche market that....
India officially stopped using Ivermectin weeks ago. Have any other countries with any evidence whatsoever? It's over for ivermectin and covid, keep up with the news, even the conspiracy cranks have moved off of it. All about naturo-therapies now.
Re: Welcome to the mandate world (Score:2)
I'm not your personal Twitter. Read the news yourself, India's health service determined Ivermectin had little to no effect and study after study showed there was little to no causation in actual nonlab usage.
Ivermectin is an extremely effective anti-parasitic. That was mainly the cause of better recovery rates in underdeveloped countries. When you don't have worms you can fight covid better it turns out.
That's also why every immigrant gets it, it has nothing To do with anti viral. Dont pull that suble
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I'm not your personal Twitter. Read the news yourself, India's health service determined Ivermectin had little to no effect and study after study showed there was little to no causation in actual nonlab usage.
No, they didn't. They had administered billions of doses and their virus problem mysteriously went away.
Ivermectin is an extremely effective anti-parasitic.
No, it's an anti-parasitic, anti-bacterial and an anti-viral no matter how much you tell yourself it isn't. It isn't horse dewormer or sheep dip either. That's conspiracy crap you learned from CNN.
That was mainly the cause of better recovery rates in underdeveloped countries. When you don't have worms you can fight covid better it turns out.
That's also why every immigrant gets it, it has nothing To do with anti viral. Dont pull that suble misinformation tactic nonsense with me, I can see right through it.
Your brain appears to be scrambled dear. I recommend psychiatric treatment.
Re:Welcome to the mandate world (Score:4, Informative)
The vaccines are plenty effective.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that. If the bloodclot shots actually worked, why would Pfizer bother making Paxlovid?
Blood clots? You mean the blood clots, and organ damage [mayoclinic.org], that covid itself causes?
Meanwhile, countries far less "vaccinated" than the UK/US/etc have been doing a far better job of erradicating COVID using Ivermectin.
No such "country" exists. Stop with your delusions. If Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic, did anything against a virus, people wouldn't [newsweek.com] keep dying [2oceansvibe.com] from covid [fox5ny.com] while using it [businessinsider.com].
Re:Welcome to the mandate world (Score:5, Insightful)
The vaccines are plenty effective.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that. If the bloodclot shots actually worked, why would Pfizer bother making Paxlovid?
To profit off the people like you who are too stupid to take the vaccine.
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To profit off the people like you who are too stupid to take the vaccine.
And you think people who steered clear of the ineffective and unsafe vaccines are going to just jump at the opportunity to take unproven Pfizermectin over taking the safe and effective Ivermectin?
You are correct. There will still be some people stupid enough to miss both boats.
Re: Welcome to the mandate world (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally while sitting my finals some 18 years ago had breakthrough measles so yeah dip ship it happens. Oh and for the record despite getting a shit degree as a result I have long "measles". This is all on a disease that only a few hundred get every year, so I suggest you shut the fuck up you ignorant dip shit.
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You don't hear of breakthrough measles because with so few people getting measles in the first place there are very few break through cases. If there where a few million people getting the measles then you would hear about it all the time. On the other hand the medical profession are perfectly well aware that break through cases of measles happen so it's not news.
Should never have been flights to begin with. (Score:1, Interesting)
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Your desired scenario does not work in the modern global economy, unless you'd also like everyone to succumb to a diet consisting mainly of Tasty Wheat and corn meal. I'll take a hard pass on that. Meanwhile, these made in Mexico avocados and tomatoes are a delicious breakfast. Props to the farmers of the world!
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There is a pandemic going on last I heard, in a normal world that would mean quarantine and limited travel. And no travel between countries. But here we are.
There *you* are. I'm living in Western Australia (pop 2.6million), where we still have quarantine and limited travel. We recently had our first outbreak in months, so had to start wearing masks indoors in public. But only one new covid case yesterday, so maybe vaccinations and masks actually work. Delta, not omicron though, fortunately.
AC: Your desired scenario does not work in the modern global economy
The economy is doing brilliantly, thankyou for asking. The ports are still busy, but plenty of bio-security.
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The epidemiologists I've heard about have consistently stated that restricting air-travel has little or no effect on the spread of diseases like COVID-19.
The measures that actually work are vaccines, masks, social distancing, socialising outdoors, ventilating enclosed spaces, & avoiding prolonged periods (more than 1 hour) in enclosed spaces where other people gather even if they're no longer there (the shed COVID-19 aerosols remain in the room for a long time after).
Did you really just write those 2 contractionary statements in one short paragraph?
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In the case of commercial passenger planes, the air filtration systems are modularised into short sections, which effectively isolates passengers into small groups. Additionally, they include HEPA filters, which remove airborne viruses. Passengers are also required to wear masks for the duration of their flights, except when eating or drinking. In addition to that, many countries, passengers are required to present the results of COVID-19 tests taken within the last 48 hours as well as vaccination certifica
One good thing about the pandemic (Score:3, Interesting)
Is that the sky has been far bluer and less covered in polluted water ice contrails not to mention the probably quarter million tons of CO2 that haven't been created from those 5000 flights and less noise pollution around the airports. IMO this is a good thing though I suspect many are going to disagree.
What is the dominator? (Score:2)
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Out of a few hundred thousand over a couple days? I knew people stuck in Mexico in the summer because they had tickets on one of those fake airlines, but otherwise I have been traveling, and the delays have been weather. And it seems every Christmas in hectic. That why I try to leave a few days before and get back before or after New Years.
"Stuck in Mexico" has a whole new meaning when you consider the risk of driving to flee Mexico.
Oh goodie. (Score:5, Insightful)
Another covid clickbait topic that adds nothing to the conversation and ends up in a shouting match.
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..and what if this goes further? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, cancelled flights are bad. But what if grocery stores close for a few days because too few can work? Or what happens if hospitals become even more under-staffed, or other city essential services? House on fire? Sorry, the fire hall all has COVID.
This is one of the big problems with the 'just let everyone get COVID' mindset. This is going to happen every few months with new variants. And keep in mind the reason we have more variants, and will see more and more, is because it's allowed to run rampant. We also know now that people can get re-infected even if they've had COVID (so much for 'natural immunity'.)
Imagine these kinds of close downs every few months because too many are sick to work.
Part of the equation is missed here: either we lock down, or the virus will lock us down. I prefer to choose when we lock down, but it's becoming less of an option as numbers get really out of hand.
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Part of the equation is missed here: either we lock down, or the virus will lock us down. I prefer to choose when we lock down, but it's becoming less of an option as numbers get really out of hand.
Indeed. But the morons cannot see that far.
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There is a third way though.
Wife and I are vaccinated and boosted, and we both got COVID last week. She started with a sore throat, I got one a couple days later, she lost her sense of smell and taste a few days after that. In between, we both had an antigen test that came back negative. Once she lost her sense of smell she got a PCR test which came back positive. I took another home (antigen) test which was negative, and we will both do one today. Only other symptoms are minor fatigue, and the sore throats
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Vaccines are less effective because the uptake rate is too low. The tests are only worthless if you don’t understand what they are capable of and their limitations; they are accurate but not definitive.
A quick primer:
PCR tests are extremely sensitive and will detect RNA fragments that may not be indicative of current infectious state, but are indicative for presence of the virus.
Antigen tests are considerably less sensitive and will therefore only detect an active, likely infectious condition. They a
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Some anecdata: close friend of mine took 8 antigen tests all along the week of being down with high fever, essentially close to death (no joke). Later turned out that it was COVID. All 8 tests were negative, despite having been taken essentially at the peak of the symptoms.
So don't count me in on trusting antigen tests anytime soon.
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I'm not vaccinated and I've never lost my sense of smell or taste. Anytime I started getting any sniffles, I just drank some green tea and had some food containing zinc -- knocked it out flat overnight every time.
I'm starting to think maybe these vaccines and media hype are making you vaxheads more susceptible to catching the disease. And the tests are completely unreliable/worthless. SMH.
Yeah, I've heard that taking overdoses of Ivermectin, malaria pills, & drinking & injecting bleach work pretty well too. You could also try depleted uranium milkshakes. That's gotta work amazingly well.
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The big problem is long COVID as well. Imagine doctors, paramedics, firefighters, police etc., all sidelined with long COVID. And the chance of t
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Forget the economy, how will people handle that? If it's allowed to keep spreading, there'll be more and more variants, potentially making people sick every few months, increasing their chance for these side effects. Imagine if, say, 40% of the population is sidelined with various side effects? (And the virus STILL mutating and spreading).
Sounds like a horror film.
Just wondering... (Score:1, Troll)
Omicron would be a brilliant way to give yourself 3 or 4 days off over Christmas...
1. Call in sick on the morning of the 24th, say you were exposed or just have a scratchy throat
2. Get your sample taken as late in the day as possible
3. The labs won't process the PCR test for a couple of days
3. Maybe go back to work on the 28th?
The timing of this over Christmas seems very suspect to me
A.
Re: Just wondering... (Score:2)
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positivity rate
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Regardless of what one might think about the timing of Omicron, I do believe that allowing the whole testing and test processing infrastructure to (substantially) go home for the holidays is grossly negligent at a time like this.
There's going to be a big gap in the data right when its needed most, followed by a big surge simply due to everyone catching up (over any above any changes in actual positive cases).
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Yes, but..
The infection rate for the fully (I.E. booster shotted) vaccinated against Omicron is around 20% subject to exposure.
In a full airplane where say 10% of people are anti-vaxxers and untested, you are pretty much guaranteed to be in the presence of several covid-positive people breathing the same air. Airline staff are on planes multiple times a day. So at least 20% probably more are really getting it.
In comparison, I flew to the UK earlier in the year (with good reason), pre-Omicron. The UK rules m
Self imposed pain (Score:2)
No need to test any staff that is vaccinated, boosted, wearing mask and feeling well. Omicron is mild unless one has exceptionally luck or bad decisions. What's the use of testing flight attendant when your neighbor could well be infectious?
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Re:!00% Vaccinated (Score:5, Insightful)
The things that were eradicated after years of routine vaccinations, you mean?
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Ah yes, the vaccines had nothing to do with their eradication.
If you hear supersonic crack, that's just the point whooshing past your head. Move along.
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The smallpox vaccine doesn't stop smallpox? Polio?
Yeah, they should have just worked on treatments for smallpox and polio. Because treating sick people makes so much more sense than trying to prevent them.
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Trying to prevent people seems to be a generally good idea at the moment. We seem to breeding them stupid and it's not going to end well.
Re:!00% Vaccinated (Score:4, Informative)
How Vaccines Reduce Transmission [substack.com].
Re:!00% Vaccinated (Score:5, Informative)
"Among those vaccinated, 79 deaths have been reported till March 13. More than 50 per cent died either due to heart attack or brain strokes, which is very similar to what is found in elderly people in the general population."
"No causal linkage’
The experts looking into AEFIs were already given background rates for myocardial infarction (heart attacks) and strokes among Indian population much before the vaccination was launched here. Subsequently, they were told to gather age-specific mortality data for these two causes of mortality in general population. The data that they thus collected came in handy while analysing these deaths among the vaccinated people.
“There is no causal linkage between adverse events and the vaccine, except for anaphylaxis, or severe allergy. All these were managed adequately without poor outcome because these were picked up within that half an hour period when people develop the severe allergy. That is why waiting for half an hour after the vaccination is very important,” said Dr Arora."
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Every time you troll this ventilator nonsense, you'll get the same fact check, no matter what variant of trolling you use. [slashdot.org]
Re:!00% Vaccinated (Score:5, Informative)
You can keep your bloodclot shot if you want. Green Tea + Zinc for me.
Soon to be another dead antivaxer for us. THIS is how science advances "one funeral at a time."
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Soon to be another dead antivaxer for us. THIS is how science advances "one funeral at a time."
If you want to take an injection you don't need for a virus your immune system will happily deal with where the risk/reward doesn't add up at all, be my guest sweetie. Keep it to yourself. When you need a heart transplant don't come crying.
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I'm curious: how does a human being get to be like you? Exactly as predicted, a rabid Space Nutter turns out to be a misanthropic hunk of shit. What a surprise.
Wishing antivax nutters dead promotes humanity, the opposite of misanthropy.
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Wishing antivax nutters dead promotes humanity, the opposite of misanthropy.
If you ever need a heart transplant I shall keep that in mind.
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Every time you troll this ventilator nonsense, you'll get the same fact check, no matter what variant of trolling you use. [slashdot.org]
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Every time you troll this ventilator nonsense, you'll get the same fact check, no matter what variant of trolling you use. [slashdot.org]
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Every time you troll this ventilator nonsense, you'll get the same fact check, no matter what variant of trolling you use [slashdot.org]
Re:!00% Vaccinated (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind this is an industry where the employees are 100% vaccinated.
Why? Why is it so hard to grasp what vaccines are intended to do for you idiots?!
Because Joe Says So (Score:4, Informative)
Why? Why is it so hard to grasp what vaccines are intended to do for you idiots?!
Because they believe the media. President says vaccines will stop this, media amplifies it.
Knowing the truth doesn't help when hype is high.
Re:!00% Vaccinated (Score:5, Informative)
Keep in mind this is an industry where the employees are 100% vaccinated.
Why? Why is it so hard to grasp what vaccines are intended to do for you idiots?!
Because they were so gullible to begin with, that when the con artist came along and vehemently refused to implement basic precautions [cnn.com] and refused to allow briefings by experts [businessinsider.com.au] until vaccines came out, that when vaccines came out, they weren't going to get the shot. In fact, they're so brainwashed against vaccines, they have turned against the con artist [rawstory.com] to the point of booing him [cnn.com] when he mentions he's been vaccinated.
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I had to follow your links to see if you were talking about Fauci or not. Fauci started off deliberately lying about masks, and then belatedly admitted it, which trashed his credibility and the credibility of those who supported him, including the CDC and NIH.
Because they have multi-million dollar (Score:5, Interesting)
When we let large corporations attack science so that we could ignore climate change we paid a price. It created a large group of people who have a distrust of science in general because the only way to keep them away from the climate change scientists was to go after all of science.
Re:!00% Vaccinated (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? Why is it so hard to grasp what vaccines are intended to do for you idiots?!
Partly willful ignorance (and on this site, trolling), but also partly because vaccines tend to have quite different effectiveness rates depending on the disease they're fighting. Some vaccines offer near lifetime perfect protection, while some are required yearly with variable effectiveness. There's bound to be some confusion here.
People sometimes prefer simple answers, and when reality only provides complicated, messy answers, they blame the messenger.
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Why? Why is it so hard to grasp what vaccines are intended to do for you idiots?!
Errr, they were supposed to get us back to 'normal' moron, and apparently more of the same and endless boosters will do that where the first two injections somehow didn't. I can't help but laugh my ass off at the notion that people who actually think like this think everyone else are the conspiracy theorists.
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Well, when 1/3rd of the US, you included, refuses to get the damn thing, this is what happens.
But hey, have fun with that horse dewormer paste.
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Well, when 1/3rd of the US, you included, refuses to get the damn thing, this is what happens.
What happens? Get what 'damn thing'? Apparently there was going to be one, then there was two, now there's three or four and beyond. Hell, it's impossible for anyone to know whether they're even 'vaccinated' any more. Let's also not talk about natural immunity.
But hey, have fun with that horse dewormer paste.
Ivermectin is an extremely well established anti-viral, anti-parasitic and anti-bacterial that has been administered by medical professionals to humans in billions of doses. It is not horse dewormer past dear. You've been watching too many wild conspi
Re:!00% Vaccinated (Score:4, Insightful)
So, you didn't even bother to google "vaccine" i reckon.
Re:!00% Vaccinated (Score:4, Insightful)
Just in case you (also) missed the point: his answer was incorrect, and founded on a wrong understanding of vaccines. Whose definition is, again, is just a fucking Google search away.
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Big Pharma also makes ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and all the other garbage the antivaxxers are always screaming about.
Long established, well proven, and very safe anti-virals are 'garbage'. Wow. Just wow. There's a lot of mental illness to unpack in that statement.
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And a flu vaccine... oh wait, yeah, this works just like flu vaccines, huh? You need to get those yearly, and effectiveness varies from year to year, based on how well the particular flu variants were predicted.
Re: !00% Vaccinated (Score:5, Insightful)
Time to move on.
5000 grounded flights is us "moving on", in case you weren't paying attention. You can't wish away a pandemic diseases, no matter how inconvenient it feels to you.
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That's most certainly not how you move on. The vaccine has been long enough available in my country so that those that wanted to get it already have by now. The rest have chosen their path as far as I'm concerned. Sure they increase the risk for the vaccinated part of the population but I'm against forcing people to vaccinate against their wish. It's not about wishing the pandemic away, I just don't care anymore. I've done my part for protecting myself and those around me. The unvaccinated for me are simila
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It's not about wishing the pandemic away, I just don't care anymore.
Again, you can't wish problems away... which is exactly what you describe here. The fact you wrote those two sentences end to end, without even noticing, is pretty remarkable.
I've done my part for protecting myself and those around me. The unvaccinated for me are similar to people driving unsafely on the road.
They're not. If people driving unsafely made other people drive unsafely with a R0 of 9-15, you'd have hospitals swamped with car crash victims. Meaning those resources will not be available for those you love if, god forbid, something happens to them.
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I respectfully disagree. Wishing it away would mean just going back to normal while doing nothing about it. This is not the case. I locked myself down while waiting for the curve to flatten and the vaccine to come out. Now we also slowly get pills for treating the disease, which decreases the life-threatening risk down further, even for the unvaccinated. I'm just willing to accept the residual risk. This is a concept that I've gotten familiar with and find it very applicable in my everyday life. Also, note
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Since you mentioned the ICU, why not prioritize everyone else against the vaccination deniers?
For the same reason the Hippocratic Oath is, thankfully, still a thing.
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For the same reason the Hippocratic Oath is, thankfully, still a thing.
The last eighteen months have obviously blissfully passed you by.
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Yeah, who can forget the images of all those piles of COVID infected patients kept out from hospitals because they refused vaccinations.
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Holy living shit, you cannot be this stupid for real.
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Ok, i'm feeling bad for you now.
Please read what you're replying to before typing.
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Dude, you really need to work on your reading comprehension skills.
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Please check who made the analogy, then try again. Slow. It will come to you eventually.
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*sigh*
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They are short handed because of the vaccine mandate. Jab or job.
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Keep in mind this is an industry where the employees are mostly union! Anything to keep from doing an honest day's work at an inflated salary. On Monday, when the holidays are over, this will pass.
The airlines come with perks (high pay (with seniority), free trips, etc.) and negatives (having to work holidays, weird hours). You don't get to have A unless you accept B.
Re:There is something queer about this piece of ne (Score:5, Informative)
I've seen it repeated in about every news outlet I know of. And it's really a non-event. Yearly flights before COVID were 40 millions. Now they are at 25 millions give or take. So the covid pandemic has reduced yearly flights by 15 millions. Against that, 5000 flights more or less are a rounding error.
You're comparing annual flights, which means over a year, to a number of flights over a weekend, which means say 3 days?
If there's 25 million flights a year, and 5,000 were canceled across three days of the year, that means about 2.5% of the entire flights in the world over those three days got canceled. That smells like a lot. Plus - that's probably pretty regional, so it had a larger impact where it was happening than simply 2.5%. On the other hand, you might make the argument that there are more flights scheduled at this time of the year, but I'm certain it's not going to change the order of magnitude. I'd still call that a hell of a lot more than a rounding error, and as it impacted millions of people (all the family these people traveling either didn't have to visit or got stuck with for example) and business (all these travelers not showing up spending like travelers) it's significant news to a significant number of people.