I mentioned last time I would fill you in on my traveling to St. Croix. It went something like this:
I rolled out of bed at 3 am to get to O’Hare for a 5:15 flight to Miami, then on St. Croix. I donned my stylish mask and latex gloves for the Lyft ride, I wasn’t taking any chances. A had letters of confirmation showing I was working as crew on board the Yantina in case you could only fly on official business. It felt good to be heading somewhere with a purpose.
The airport at that time of the morning during the COVID-19 was deserted to say the least. I was only passenger in TSA Pre-check, just me. The staff at O’Hare didn’t have any masks or PPE. Only about a third of the passengers wore masks and I alone had gloves. While waiting to board several passengers including myself had our seat reassigned to maintain social distancing. All food and beverage service was suspended (I think the airplane crew was excited about not having personal contact with each one of us). The airplane crew did wear masks and passengers were seated 1 passenger to a row, that means one passenger to every 6 seats. We still only had about 25-30 passengers.
Miami was taking things much more seriously. 90% percent of food kiosks were closed and most of the shops had no merchandise on shelves as if they had not been open for some time. I did notice that Starbucks was open and very busy, is coffee addictive? 9 of every 10 people had masks on and a few fellow travelers had what appeared to be HAZMAT suits! All airline and airport personnel had masks and appeared to be taking things seriously. We were boarded in several groups, presumably to keep the number in each group smaller. We were also given numbered circles on the floor stand on to keep us 6’ apart.
St. Croix was typical tropical outdoor small airport except for National Guard there to meet our plane in full fatigues. Each passenger’s temperature was taken and then given one of 2 pamphlets (I didn’t see anyone get the red one.). The healthcare situation on the islands could easily overwhelmed if they don’t identify carriers early. To date they have tested 637 with 56 positive and 3 deaths here on the island.
In looking back on the travel experience, I feel I had more contact and more potential for contamination going to the grocery store than my trip to the USVI!