Skiing 20/21

maddness · 20-10-2020 12:48pm

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

Have booked the family in for a week in France in the run up to Christmas.

Not going with a tour operator for a change. Gives us a bit more flexibility.

Considered Austria but they make everyone get a test on arrival and it's quite intrusive so don't want to put the kids through it. (neighbour got one and said it's like scraping your brain! :eek:)

There's great value out there at the moment. I don't expect apres ski to be like it normally is but should still be nice to get out and enjoy the bit of skiing. Back home on the 23rd and hopeful we can have a normal Christmas this year if level 5 works.

Anyone else heading over? What country are you thinking?

Sounds great but what will you do when you come home on the 23rd? Will you all quarantine for two weeks? No having a good at you just genuinely interest to see how you will manage.

a148pro · 20-10-2020 5:23pm

I was thinking similar as Christmas is one of the easier times to quarantine - not in work, only seeing close family

The one good thing about this current lockdown for skiers is that we may have low numbers come early December and be a green light country for easy access to ski countries. Depending, obviously, on what kind of traffic light system is in place.

maddness · 20-10-2020 6:43pm

a148pro wrote: »

I was thinking similar as Christmas is one of the easier times to quarantine - not in work, only seeing close family

The one good thing about this current lockdown for skiers is that we may have low numbers come early December and be a green light country for easy access to ski countries. Depending, obviously, on what kind of traffic light system is in place.

That’s what I am hoping for too. If say Italy/France/Austria was a green light country it would be very easy to get a few days pre Christmas. The issue i would worry about is coming home and spending Christmas Day with elderly parents.

a148pro · 20-10-2020 11:44pm

Yeah. My "hope" is that they'll decide not to do an indoors christmas dinner. To be honest I don't think I'd relax indoors whether I'd been skiing or not? I mean cumulatively there'll be like 9 different grandkids from probably 6 different schools there. A careful ski trip might be the least of their worries.

But there's no right answers here.

the beer revolu · 25-10-2020 10:35am

maddness wrote: »

Sounds great but what will you do when you come home on the 23rd? Will you all quarantine for two weeks? No having a good at you just genuinely interest to see how you will manage.

Obviously, Paddy and all his family will isolate for two weeks after returning. Just like anyone would, right?

Dial Hard · 25-10-2020 10:42am

a148pro wrote: »

But there's no right answers here.

Eh, there are: everyone on the trip self-isolates for two weeks. End of, no exceptions. That literally means no leaving the house except for short walks, alone.

blue note · 25-10-2020 2:56pm

I would have thought people would be unsure about Christmas Dinner with their parents this year and if you go skiing I would have assumed it was out of the question while you're supposed to be self isolating.

a148pro · 25-10-2020 4:48pm

Dial Hard wrote: »

Eh, there are: everyone on the trip self-isolates for two weeks. End of, no exceptions. That literally means no leaving the house except for short walks, alone.

I was talking about having Christmas dinner with my parents, irrespective of whether I'd been skiing, not travelling.

By the way, people can be as pious as they want about self isolating, but it's predicated on either the place they have visited having a greater incidence than here, or the act of flying itself being dangerous. I've just seen the first report today of cases being spread on a flight. I think in months of reading the news thats the first confirmation I've seen.

If you're visiting a place with the same or lower incidence of the virus and if you are not engaging in any more close contact than you are at home then there's no argument for self isolating, unless flying itself is more dangerous.

At the moment I am forced by incompetence of others to work in a building with perhaps 400 visitors a day. The incidence is reasonably high where this building is located (Dublin). But I'm not required to self isolate after each work day.

We were fixated on foreign travel for a while, probably correctly, because people were coming from places with high prevalence and low control. But once we're all as ****ed as each other place that concern probably diminishes.

a148pro · 25-10-2020 6:36pm

To be clear I am NOT advocating not self isolating. I'm just questioning where we're going with travel and society into the future. We can't live in this bunker for ever, at some point we are going to have to live properly with these things.

kippy · 25-10-2020 6:39pm

a148pro wrote: »

I was talking about having Christmas dinner with my parents, irrespective of whether I'd been skiing, not travelling.

By the way, people can be as pious as they want about self isolating, but it's predicated on either the place they have visited having a greater incidence than here, or the act of flying itself being dangerous. I've just seen the first report today of cases being spread on a flight. I think in months of reading the news thats the first confirmation I've seen.

If you're visiting a place with the same or lower incidence of the virus and if you are not engaging in any more close contact than you are at home then there's no argument for self isolating, unless flying itself is more dangerous.

At the moment I am forced by incompetence of others to work in a building with perhaps 400 visitors a day. The incidence is reasonably high where this building is located (Dublin). But I'm not required to self isolate after each work day.

We were fixated on foreign travel for a while, probably correctly, because people were coming from places with high prevalence and low control. But once we're all as ****ed as each other place that concern probably diminishes.

Surely on a personal level you'd still be concerned about picking up the virus and risk of same.

a148pro · 25-10-2020 7:37pm

I don't know - would depend on what I was doing. Visiting a country with high prevalence and spending a lot of time in Ski bars and cable cars, yes. I wouldn't do this obviously.

Visiting a warm country with low prevalence (say greece early summer this year), staying in self catering and eating outside in restaurants would be low risk. Functionally little different to getting the train to Cork for a staycations.

In the middle, going to a country with same prevalence as us, staying in a hotel and getting chairlifts, eating in mountain restaurants. Gets messy.

I just don't know but I think where you're going and what you're doing is more important a factor than that you're going abroad in itself?

kippy · 25-10-2020 8:34pm

a148pro wrote: »

I don't know - would depend on what I was doing. Visiting a country with high prevalence and spending a lot of time in Ski bars and cable cars, yes. I wouldn't do this obviously.

Visiting a warm country with low prevalence (say greece early summer this year), staying in self catering and eating outside in restaurants would be low risk. Functionally little different to getting the train to Cork for a staycations.

In the middle, going to a country with same prevalence as us, staying in a hotel and getting chairlifts, eating in mountain restaurants. Gets messy.

I just don't know but I think where you're going and what you're doing is more important a factor than that you're going abroad in itself?

I think getting on a plane with other individuals and passing through airports and the commutre to and from airports is the issue, together with the general issue of not knowing who your contacts are or where they've been.
While where you are going to maybe relatively low risk you cannot say that your method of travel or those you travel with are low risk. All it takes are a few people on the flight to have come from/passed through a higher risk spot and the best laid plans are up in the air and very little you can do about it.
Never mind the heightened issues around travel insurance and/or actually getting/being sick with the virus while there or here just before you go etc...

So where you are going may not be the problem but the logistics around it may be.
Just not worth it for the next few months/years/whatever length of time.

a148pro · 25-10-2020 9:53pm

Yeah, I think when I was debating greece I figured it was a plane full of irish on the way out and back, and probably half full if even, and I figured that was no worse than the train.

I see what you're saying about airports, and obviously hubs would have a lot of through traffic but others wouldn't. I mean there's probably a difference between Heathrow and a small regional airport. But it's hard to quantify that.

Re plane travel in general, that study reported today in the irish times was literally the first confirmation I've seen of people getting it on the plane. I'm kind of surprised there haven't been more. I'd like to get the actual study as they often refer to the other literature or studies on the same topic. I mean you can see why it would be an issue - you're all sitting close together breathing recycled air. But it's also been suggested the filters might "clean" the air.

kippy wrote: »

Just not worth it for the next few months/years/whatever length of time.

Well that's a question I'm increasingly knowing the answer to. I mean we were all very scared of this virus at the start but even from the off the death rate looked to be about 2.5 - 5 per cent. Worth worrying about giving it to the population generally, and certainly worth avoiding but not worth losing sleep over.

But now i'll seems it's much lower, and if you take the elderly and people with underlying medical conditions, it's miniscule. There's a lot of controversy about this figure but I've heard as low as 0.05% if you're under 80 and have no underlying conditions.

If that is a realistic death rate I'm travelling. You can't live your life running from stuff like that. I'll quarantine if necessary and reasonable. It'd be worth it. I'm not going another year without a sun holiday and I'm very unlikely to miss skiing. We have to live.

kippy · 25-10-2020 10:15pm

a148pro wrote: »

Yeah, I think when I was debating greece I figured it was a plane full of irish on the way out and back, and probably half full if even, and I figured that was no worse than the train.

I see what you're saying about airports, and obviously hubs would have a lot of through traffic but others wouldn't. I mean there's probably a difference between Heathrow and a small regional airport. But it's hard to quantify that.

Re plane travel in general, that study reported today in the irish times was literally the first confirmation I've seen of people getting it on the plane. I'm kind of surprised there haven't been more. I'd like to get the actual study as they often refer to the other literature or studies on the same topic. I mean you can see why it would be an issue - you're all sitting close together breathing recycled air. But it's also been suggested the filters might "clean" the air.

Well that's a question I'm increasingly knowing the answer to. I mean we were all very scared of this virus at the start but even from the off the death rate looked to be about 2.5 - 5 per cent. Worth worrying about giving it to the population generally, and certainly worth avoiding but not worth losing sleep over.

But now i'll seems it's much lower, and if you take the elderly and people with underlying medical conditions, it's miniscule. There's a lot of controversy about this figure but I've heard as low as 0.05% if you're under 80 and have no underlying conditions.

If that is a realistic death rate I'm travelling. You can't live your life running from stuff like that. I'll quarantine if necessary and reasonable. It'd be worth it. I'm not going another year without a sun holiday and I'm very unlikely to miss skiing. We have to live.

Yeah look, I can see the rationale in wanting a sun/ski holiday but personally with so little known about the virus, including long term effects, if any, I'd rather not get it at all or at least until a bit more is know about it. Each to their own on that I suppose.

a148pro · 25-10-2020 10:33pm

Ok - so here is the report:-

https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.42.2001624#html_fulltext

Makes for fascinating and sobering reading. Basically the cases involved people whose journeys commenced in three different continents. They looked at the dna of the virus in each of their samples and it looks like all were related - ie, they only could have logically gotten it on the plane.

You can see the seating plan in the study and they were seated throughout the plane, well away from each other. Plane was less than half full. Most seem to have been wearing masks (I presume all were).

Cliffs - even if sitting well away from someone on a relatively empty plane with everyone wearing masks you may get covid.

Now it does seem the authors were surprised at quite how many got it, so this may be an outlier, but pretty sobering stuff.

Oh, and, very surprisingly, multiple passengers on the flight were not traceable. Reassuring given that those traced passed the virus on to multiple others.

blue note · 27-10-2020 2:53pm

I'd absolutely love to ski this year, but I there are a number of points on a ski trip that jump out to me as being unavoidable opportunities to get the virus. The airport and plane, they'll try to keep gondolas safe, but you'll end up in them with other people, getting straight in after people get out and breathing that air, restaurants and toilets on the slopes will have some interaction, queues will get crowded close to the lifts, the ski lockers of they're open will have lots of shared air. If you're staying in a hotel or pension you'll have shared spaces there too.

There's just a good bit of risk to skiing. If you're in a job where you're at risk as well, I'll just be honest and say it - I think Christmas Dinner with family would have to be cut. You'd be a high risk person yourself, grandkids would be high risk too and grandparents are vulnerable from a covid point of view.

the beer revolu · 27-10-2020 3:53pm

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

Considered Austria but they make everyone get a test on arrival and it's quite intrusive so don't want to put the kids through it. (neighbour got one and said it's like scraping your brain! :eek:)

YOur neighbour is talking rubbish. I sat next to my wife while she had a test done and there wasn't a wince or a murmur from her and she never even mentioned the experience afterwards. While I do accept that for a very small minority of people with nasal medical issues, the test can be quite uncomfortable, why do people go around saying how awful this test is? What do they hope to achieve by this?

Also, your kids are mature and resilient enough to go skiing, you are willing to put them through the journey and a skiing holiday in the middle of a pandemic but, for some reason, they are too delicate to have a cotton bud put up their noses for one second.
Really?

Edit, I spoke to my wife about the test after posting here. She described it as not pleasant but went on to say that that sensation that you get when you get water up your nose when swimming, is much more unpleasant.

a148pro · 28-10-2020 1:46am

May be taken out of our hands anyway, europe is seeing huge surges and lockdowns likely which may close ski resorts. Cervinia opened on saturday and was closed by government decree on sunday after images of the lift queues went viral. I think they've closed all Ski resorts for next month.

Between that and travel restrictions will be significantly tougher to ski this year. At the moment at least - maybe if there are lockdowns and numbers go down there might be better prospects later in the season.

maddness · 28-10-2020 8:32pm

I’ve only missed one winter skiing since 2004 and that was due to a ski injury from the previous winter but I’m pretty much resigned to the fact that unless things change drastically this winter it’s just not going to happen.
Big sad face emoji

a148pro · 28-10-2020 9:16pm

I'm kind of making it my mission to go. Not sure how exactly, but will manage it. Kind of like a determined secret agent in the war.

It'll happen, I'm nearly sure of it. The more the circumstances conspire to stop me the more I'll want to go!

maddness · 28-10-2020 9:38pm

a148pro wrote: »

I'm kind of making it my mission to go. Not sure how exactly, but will manage it. Kind of like a determined secret agent in the war.

It'll happen, I'm nearly sure of it. The more the circumstances conspire to stop me the more I'll want to go!

If feel exactly the same but just don’t know how I can manage it. I’ve even thought of driving over through France in order to avoid flying.

Skiing 20/21

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