We’ve long wanted to take Amtrak from Seattle to Chicago/Milwaukee and back. Friends in Milwaukee have invited us out for a couple of weeks in April. It’s hard for us to evaluate the Covid risk and so, we turn to the Dope.
We’re both over 65, fully vaccinated, likely will get another shot before the trip, had Covid one early on. The train trip is about 2 days there, 2 days back, and we would spend another day and overnight in a hotel getting to Seattle and then again getting back home to Vancouver. Onboard, we would have our own room with our own bathroom.
Writing it out, it sounds like a death sentence, especially when we consider wtf Trump may do or fail to do between now and then. How cautious is too cautious? What factors would you consider most seriously? What might you do?
I agree with the above post; if you’re both fully vaccinated the chance of having an issue is small, but if you’re really that concerned you can stay in your room the whole trip and have the car attendant bring you all your meals there. But IMO if you did that you’d be missing out on a big part of the train travel experience: dining in the dining car with your fellow passengers, and hanging out in the observation car and socializing.
How is your overall health? Other than your age, do you have other significant health conditions that would make you more vulnerable to COVID?
Other than being at the train stations, you’re probably going to be able to avoid big crowds more easily on the train than you would on a plane – though, obviously, your time spent in public will be longer.
Which part? I mean, yes, there will be other people on your train and in your hotel, but then, there are also other people on your block and at your place of work and at wherever you go at home for hobbies. I’m not sure what would make this trip any more dangerous than staying home.
Given that, it seems to me that, with reasonable precautions (having the latest booster, washing and sanitizing your hands, avoiding big crowds and masking up if you have to be in big crowds, avoiding people who are coughing/obviously sick), while taking the trip isn’t zero risk, the risk level feels to be reasonable.
As you note, the two of you have wanted to take that train trip for a long time. As time goes on, and you get older, the ability to manage such a trip is likely to decrease. COVID’s not going to go away, but you’re taking precautions, and other than your age, even if you get it, the odds of a serious infection are likely to be low. Were it me, I’d take it this year.
More specifically, somewhat concerned about US rates of vaccination. The points raised here are all sensible and helpful. And as noted by others, we’re less likely to able to travel as time goes by.
American here not in the best of health and age 67. Totally vaccinated and I have been traveling as much as I can because my ability to do so is probably time limited in the near future.
I am not in the best of health. I take precautions when I travel but it’s a crap shoot.
I ended up with a second bout of Covid in Ireland a few months ago (have no idea where I caught it). It kept me down for one day but I managed.
And if your alternative is flying – I don’t know about the comparative risks; but while you’d be spending more time on the train, you’d be spending a lot less of it jammed into unreasonably tight quarters with people you can’t get away from if they start coughing unmasked.
If your alternative is staying home: are you in general still in near-isolation at home? If so, that’s less risky; but if you’re now going to stores, work, meetings, and/or restaurants unmasked, even occasionally, then the accumulated risk of all that may well be equivalent, if over a somewhat longer period of time depending on how often you go out.
If it were in general a “death sentence” to take this kind of trip, Amtrak and hotels would be out of business by now. You could talk to your doctors about your specific risk factors.
That you were down for only one day shows the amazing progress in vaccinations, treatment and so forth. During the worst days of the pandemic, it would have been far worse.
Are you in somewhere other than the US right now? If not, then again, that’s a risk whether you stay home or travel, and not really avoidable.
Well, maybe. Covid has a very broad range in how it can go: Even at its worst, there was still something like a 50% chance of no symptoms at all. A single bad day is certainly within the range of possibility.
Though, of course, the vaccines make the mild outcomes much more likely.
The confined quarters in poorly ventilated spaces, limited ability to retreat to a separately ventilated space, the unwillingness of people to cancel travel plans even when sick.
And there are still people being infected and dying. At 3.3 deaths per 100k people and 1.8% of all deaths (making it the 10th most likely cause of death in 2023), it isn’t as if COVID-19 has just magically disappeared even if it isn’t causing mortality at the same rates as during the 2020 through early 2022 peaks. And there are, of course, other respiratory and food-borne illnesses commonly encountered during traveling which may be of concern to someone 65+.
That being said, being vaccinated and assuming the o.p. and his wife do not have underlying immunocompromised conditions, and are otherwise taking reasonable precautions, the risks are manageable. Frankly, on Amtrak (or a cruise liner) I would be more concerned about getting norovirus or have concern about RSV or other respiratory diseases for which you are not immunized. Actually, I’d be concerned on Amtrak about just getting where you are going in a timely fashion instead of being sidelined for hours or even days at time, the generally shoddy condition and poor food offerings of the trains, and being cornered by some lout in the dining car who is insistent upon sharing their political/philosophical/socioeconomic/alien invasion theories with everyone with a pulse. But then, my ideal vacation is finding a nice remote lake or a difficult-to-reach peak with a scenic view, reading and fishing, and going my best mountain lion yowl to frighten off slack-jawed gawkers and errant hikers from disturbing my calm.
Definitely a good idea for anyone over 60, as mortality due to RSV jumps precipitously at that age. But there are plenty of respiratory illnesses which do not have vaccines developed, and at 65 and older it is shocking how quickly a minor respiratory infection (especially bacterial, which is a concern on trains and cruise ships that are an epidemiologist’s hygienic nightmare) can developed into a pneumonic condition. Which is not to say that anyone over 65 should never go anywhere or expose themselves to any risk but the o.p. is asking about evaluating risks (specifically Covid, which has not, despite the hopeful pleadings of many, disappeared, but should also encompass other potentially pathogenic hazards).
Still, aside from health concerns, my major reservation would be having your train being sidelined for an extended period while the railroad operator which controls that line claims priority for freight and leaves you stuck looking at the bleak, unending wasteland somewhere between Harve and Minot while the train kitchen hands out cold cheese sandwiches and biscotti because they’ve run out of real food.
I worked in an airport, on an airplane, and stayed in hotels all throughout the original COVID crisis while folks were dying in droves. Out in public a LOT. Meanwhile back then other folks were hiding in their basement afraid to pick up a package delivery at their front door until the driver had been gone for 10 minutes and the breeze had blown await their COVID-laden breath.
People die of something every day. Yes, COVID is in addition to all the risks we had 10 years ago. But the incremental individual risk is very, very close to zero.
Some of those basement folks are still hiding in their basement 5 years later. Absent significant near-crippling pre-existing health conditions, being afraid of COVID in public in 2025 borders on debilitating paranoia, not reasonable caution.
I just got back from my 6th week-long cruise in the last 12 months. I’m 66, mildly but truly diabetic, and vaccinated against everything. I’m far more concerned in my completely pre-2019 style daily life about being in a car crash than I am about being harmed by COVID.
The OP notes (or at least strongly suggests), in their first post, that they live in Vancouver (presumably, Vancouver BC, rather than Vancouver, Washington):