Post-vaccine Amtrak travel

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For international flights just like visa requirements are different for different countries, health certificate requirements will be different for different countries, and just like for travel permits are checked before boarding, health permits will also be checked by airlines before boarding. They do it because they are on the hook at the arrival end for anyone that arrives without proper documentation, to haul them back to where they came from free of charge.
It will be a lot easier for some countries to implement than others. Australia is a good example. Qantas has stated their intention to require vaccination for international travel. That's easy for them - they're starting from zero, so a short-term "trickle" of passengers is better than none. If United/American/Delta/Air Canada are left to their own devices to impose a deadline it may never happen, since it will cut into their current business. If a majority of people are not yet vaccinated, that's a majority of their potential customers. Even government intervention won't guarantee anything. The Canadian federal government has imposed a January 7 date for having a mandatory negative test for arriving international passengers. The airlines have refused thus far to participate at the origination point on the grounds they don't have jurisdiction, aren't health experts or law enforcement officials. As a result the testing will be done here on arrival and the airlines may not be forced to transport those not complying back. I suspect that issue will be decided by a court long after it becomes a problem.
 
Checking a document is something airlines will do. Setting up a test facility is something they won't and rightly so. In the past airlines have happily checked vaccination documents. I don't see what is different this time around. Simply banning airlines that refuse tends to fix these problems pretty quickly as US has demonstrated many times in the past. They do so even for airline safety violations. The fact that they don;t do it for certain things clearly suggests that they do not consider it to be important enough.
 
What a National Circus. The Ring Master has avowed to destroy it and the vaccinated Clowns up on the Hill are practicing their routines. The Florida Governor isn't much better, but to his credit. people are getting Shots. Here in NY it looks like a long time before either my wife or I qualify under Cuomos PC Plan. The VA, "says they will call me, when "its my time." Working on Plan to get back there as Snowbirds and Condo buyers, as soon as possible. Told my son to get in the Vaccine Line or my Bro in Law says come to 'The Villages'.o_O It's every Couple for Themselves.😷😷
For the time being in Florida, I suspect it is much safer to not try to get vaccinated immediately than to go through the motions of trying to do so. Eventually the turn will come, as my doctor tells me, when I will get a call from his office. So I will just hunker down and hold tight until then. Afterall, there really is no pressing hurry as far as I am concerned.
 
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It was my understanding that the initial allotment was determined by population, not at-risk population or whether some place is a hot spot or not, just total population. How the population was determined is another story.
That is true except for a few politically determined exceptions. ;)
 
If not already, it won't be long before we see some results from the vaccine in real time. I'm hoping those numbers stay in the 90+% bracket. I'm just counting the months till they get to us 80+ folk.
I think that the surge of case we're going to be getting from the people who disregarding advice about social distancing during the holidays may drown out the results from the vaccine for a while. The case tracker on the Washington Post was showing cases dropping off, but over the last week, they've been rising again.
 
West Virginia also got one of the largest per capita allocations of vaccine among all the states. Maine did very well too. As did South Dakota.
New York was underallocated vaccines and this probably won't change until Jan. 20th. As a result New York is still working on getting all the health care workers vaccinated (we also have more health care workers per capita than many states). I'm just waiting until they announce Phase 2, which is expected to be sometime in mid-January.

I do think New York knows what it's doing. They're staying on top of things in detail: COVID-19 Vaccine Information for Providers
 
I'm dying to hear General "whatever his name is" get back on the TV and explain the massive screw-up. Last week he was blaming the weather.

If I was General "whatever his name is", as well as the Surgeon General, they might want to contemplate retirement or considering what other military job they might try to obtain come January 20, 2021.
 
If I was General "whatever his name is", as well as the Surgeon General, they might want to contemplate retirement or considering what other military job they might try to obtain come January 20, 2021.

What we really need is strong leadership that focuses on the well being of all us US citizens. C'mon! Where's the vaccine and what is the government doing to get it to us???


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I read here that some areas in the US do not have an adequate supply of syringes. Can this be true?
We will not start vaccinations here in Australia until March, more of a watch and wait thing. Also there is minimal COVID here, even with a recent outbreak. Outbreaks here are tiny compared with most of the world and come from the virus “escaping” from quarantine hotels where people who have recently returned from overseas are confined.
I could be wrong, but I have confidence vaccinations will go well here, when they do start.
Countries with National Health tend to be more organized and perform better than the "everyone for themselves " System we have in the US.
 
I sure want to know what the Hell these last several comments have to do with Amtrak!

The pandemic has everything to do with Amtrak... and all of us taking precautions, prioritizing the vaccine, and stop the squabbling in Washington... will hasten the time when life gets back to normal. That's what the pandemic has to do with Amtrak... and everything else.


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For the time being in Florida, I suspect it is much safer to not try to get vaccinated immediately than to go through the motions of trying to do so. Eventually the turn will come, as my doctor tells me, when I will get a call from his office. So I will just hunker down and hold tight until then. Afterall, there really is no pressing hurry as far as I am concerned.
OK, now having experienced actually getting my first shot (Moderna) in Florida I need to revise my assessment, for the better actually in some cases....

In Florida each County has their own way of doing things. Some (e.g. Lake) are really exceptionally bad, requiring people to show up and line up the previous night and such. Others like Brevard, where I am turned out to be remarkably good.

They are using Eventbrite to schedule appointments, and appointments are reserved only for the number of dozes that they have available. Facebook came in handy this time as Brevard Emergency Management posted the opening of the Eventbrite system on Facebook, Twitter and on their own SMS and email feeds. I was happily executing on my plan to sit around and watch until an opportunity comes up, when I chanced upon the notification on Facebook and immediately jumped on the site using my preexisting Eventbrite account, At that time it was wide open, and I chose a time slot (15 min time slots) on the 6th.

Leaving aside the misadventure on the side to get my Doctor's office to interact with DOH to provide them with some documentation they needed, which came through eventually, well ahead of time, I arrived about half an hour early. It was basically a drive through setup. They gave me a consent form to fill and then join one of two line. The lines advanced pretty quickly as they completed the documentation and stuck the entire package under my windshield.

When I advanced to the vaccination station, they took the package asked me a question about the doctor's note and then I got my jab. The nurse was very good. I did not really feel anything at all. There was a two sentence verbal instruction, and then because of a special condition the doctor had noted I was required to wait in a waiting lot for 30 mins (instead of the normal 15), before I was released to move to the next station, where the documentation package was taken and I was given a Vaccination Record card (a CDC document) with annotation about the vaccination I got that day plus an appointment 28 days out for the second shot. And that was that. I was on my way.

On the whole, things moved very smoothly and they were doing about 20-30 per hour it seemed with the number of cars that were parked for the post vaccination waiting period. Oh and the waiters were actively monitored by several nurses who were walking the lot. The entire process, from when I entered the DOH facility to when I left, including the half hour monitoring wait after vaccination, took almost exactly one hour.

So in Florida, if you are in a county with a competent DOH it is fine and safe to get vaccinated. In Brevard get yourself on the Emergency Management folk's SMS notification service to know when Eventbrite opens up again, or get in touch with Omni Health or Health First, who are getting an allocation too, for their regular patients. They might be able to spare a shot for those that are not, but quite unlikely.

In late Feb/early March Walgreens and Publix will start getting allocations too.

Now I have to go and plan a trip to New York in late February by when I should have as good an immunity as I will ever get from the Moderna shots.

One thing is, there is some uncertainty about what the residual level of immunity will be after 6-7 months. We learn as we go. The general consensus at present appears to be leaning towards annual booster shots, but yet to be confirmed based on real world experience from those that got the vaccine during the phase 3 and earlier trials.
 
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Hopefully things will start to move and improve post January 20, 2021.

One of the problems resonating with chaotic national leadership is no actual credible national plan for distribution of the vaccine. The selfish focus of the leader has prioritized disputing the election outcome... with the national infection rate soaring to a quarter million a day... and the death rate exceeding 3000 per day. Out here on the Oregon Coast nobody seems to know when the vaccine will become available.

There is certainly a lot of hope that the new administration will pull things together. But with no information regarding vaccine availability, I personally will be extremely cautious and careful... as the pandemic continues to spread. :oops:
 
One of the problems resonating with chaotic national leadership is no actual credible national plan for distribution of the vaccine. The selfish focus of the leader has prioritized disputing the election outcome... with the national infection rate soaring to a quarter million a day... and the death rate exceeding 3000 per day. Out here on the Oregon Coast nobody seems to know when the vaccine will become available.

There is certainly a lot of hope that the new administration will pull things together. But with no information regarding vaccine availability, I personally will be extremely cautious and careful... as the pandemic continues to spread. :oops:
According to the live document COVID 19 Vaccine Tracker Oregon has to date (1/7/21) received 227,000 dozes of which it has used only 55,247 dozes or a shade over 24%. For now it would appear to be an Oregon state issue that there is no information, than a federal/national issue. If Oregon was close to running out of what it has received it would tend to be a federal/national issue.
 
According to the live document COVID 19 Vaccine Tracker Oregon has to date (1/7/21) received 227,000 dozes of which it has used only 55,247 dozes or a shade over 24%. For now it would appear to be an Oregon state issue that there is no information, than a federal/national issue. If Oregon was close to running out of what it has received it would tend to be a federal/national issue.

Thanks for the info!
 
I am anxiously awaiting the post Covid time so maybe Amtrak and VIA can resume somewhat normal schedules. When that will be is the big question. Just seeing the confusion associated with the 1a rollout, I am concerned the wait may be last well into 2022. With the States establishing their own eligibility criteria, nationwide businesses like CVS and Walgreens web sites are confusing those in states like Texas where 1b included those 65 and older, not just 75 and older. The problem I ran into, being an unfortunate person with highly compromised immunity, is available inventory. There are no wait lists established here like some areas, my daughter in law has over 90,000 ahead of her on a wait list in her county.

once the threshold of 50% having taken the vaccine correctly is met, will the general public start feeling more secure about getting out? This is key to more travel, which is key to Amtrak restarting Daily Service. Even after the majority have been vaccinated, I expect wearing masks to be still required because new mutations will be or are being found that the current vaccine doesn’t cover, so we will have new waves of Covid spikes, hopefully not like what we are seeing today.

Should post Covid-19 vaccine domestic travel require government permission to travel out of your home state like other countries has implemented? So post Covid-19 travel could require vaccine certification of Both shots and permit by your state to travel, in addition to a photo ID.
 
Thinking like this has allowed the virus to surge out of control here, some estimates now are 400,000 dead by the end of the year. It’s not a Biden or Trump issue it’s a life/death/economic issue facing us all as Americans.
Please don't use the "some estimates" numbers. They are often the extremes (in both directions) used by both politicians and media commentators to push their points. The death rate of deaths vs cases is going down as the weakest of us die off, the treatment gets better and the detection by better tests gets more accurate.

It's like "Joe Smith committed a crime. He faces up to 60 years". Yeah, if he is convicted on all counts, gets the maximum on each one, gets them consecutive instead of concurrent, has no mitigating factors, the worst lawyer, no friends or family to beg the judge, and the prosecutor has no other cases and really hates him. Otherwise, it will be settled for 6 months confinement and two years probation.

I want to publicly apologize to you, AmtrakFlyer. It seemed so silly to me back on Nov 15 that there would be any possibility of being anywhere near 400,000 dead by the end of the year. While we did not hit that horrible number, it sure seems more than possible that by January 31, we might. So sad. Per the CDC, 3,865 Covid-19 deaths in one day.
 
The goal stated by the President was 20 million by the end of 2020. The feds fell far short of it even in their distribution to states. They didn't even hit 5 million. And then the President tried to blame the states saying it is upto them now. Yeah, states did not quite manage to move fast enough either, but then the federal distribution chain failed miserably too and is yet to recover, though Dr. Fauci thinks that is about to happen. Maybe by "about to" he means by the end of the month after the new administration is up and running. The present administration seems to be incredibly ill equipped do anything successfully. Just IMHO of course.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/12/trump-covid-vaccine-distribution-problems
 
No need to apologize we’re all in uncharted territory and in this together. He’s to a better 2021 for all of us.

I want to publicly apologize to you, AmtrakFlyer. It seemed so silly to me back on Nov 15 that there would be any possibility of being anywhere near 400,000 dead by the end of the year. While we did not hit that horrible number, it sure seems more than possible that by January 31, we might. So sad. Per the CDC, 3,865 Covid-19 deaths in one day.
 
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