COVID-19 Travel News

Hotels As Hospitals

More Airline Cuts, Solo Activities

Well, we're approaching the weekend, which only counts for half of our days, because so many people are out of work, work reduced hours or go from happy hour until 1 P.M. In any case, whatever your situation, you probably have more time to read these days, and with that assumption in mind, here is some travel related news that we found interesting.

Will Hotels Be Used As Hospitals?

How to tackle the growing shortage of hospital beds? Cities in Europe and China have already started using hotels as medical centers. In some cases, they are used as real treatment facilities for patients with mild symptoms of COVID-19. Other hotels house doctors and nurses. The number is not small: according to CNN, "hoteliers in the Madrid region alone have offered authorities access to around 40 hotels to add 9,000 beds for future patients".

This same article continues to explain how it works when the government enters, makes a deal with the hotel and turns it into a medical facility. It's a lot more complicated than just throwing patients on hotel beds, and an interesting read to imagine a hotel turning into this kind of operation.

"As part of the plan, contractors would use air conditioning units to create negative pressure chambers that could draw air out of the room through a vent, minimizing airborne contaminants," says the article. "Plastic seals would also be placed near the doors, while nursing stations would be installed in the halls."

United has announced that it will further reduce its domestic flight schedule, down to 52% of its original routes. Originally, he planned to give up only 42%.

A concern is whether this reduced schedule will reduce cities and leave them completely without service. Tech Crunch has addressed this issue and has indicated that, fortunately, United will not suspend service to any city.

With the reduction in the total number of flights, we can expect to see prices increasing slightly from what they were the week or the last two weeks. But, there are certainly still deals to be concluded, so search and take advantage of the lax airline ticket refund policies.

Build Independence These Next Few Weeks With Solo Activities

Okay, we are supposed to be social distancing and many states have issued mandatory home stay orders. So obviously, most of the group activities have gone out the window unless they are virtual in nature (I think I've used Facetime and Zoom more this week than my whole life).

What to do? 

How about using this time to build some independence regarding activities and exercise?

If you usually only train with a partner, this is a great opportunity to practice motivation and go out alone.

And for states that keep their trails open and still allow residents to play outside as long as they are within six feet of each other, solo or bike riding should be at the top of the list. Hiking is one of those things that I tend to enjoy more on my own anyway, which means that it's one of the only things that makes me feel like everything is normal.

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