It’s only getting worse with the slashing of public health.
Bad Astronomy Newsletter – I got COVID, and a fast radio burst progenitor found? So, some good and bad news. Philip Plait October 14, 2025 Welp, I finally got COVID Dangit As y’all might know, I’ve been a strong advocate for vaccinations since forever, and also for masking since the pandemic started in 2000 (sic). I’ve made sure I get the booster every time it’s offered, and I always wear a mask when I’m out in the world (with very few exceptions, like restaurants with adequate ventilation and the like). This has stood me well; I have been a NOVID — someone who never got COVID — for five years now, despite being in situations where people around me got infected. That ended last week. The story is complicated, but the bottom line is my wife was on travel to support an ill family member, and got it from being around another family member who had it without knowing (who almost assuredly got it while visiting the hospital). She didn’t show symptoms until two days after getting back home here, and by then it was too late. I got it.
Every person I know or know of, locally, online, in podcasts I listen to, from newsletters I read, everyone who has gotten covid this year, there has been travel involved. Either the person who gets covid was traveling, or they were around someone who’d recently traveled. Or in this case, even though Phil Plait is sure the family member who gave his wife covid got it from the hospital (not a bad guess since that’s where a lot of sick people are!) – even so, it’s still a case that someone who travelled got it off someone who’d traveled.
Yet on several of my recent road trips across the state, me and my spouse were the only people I saw masking at the highway travel rest stop restrooms. And I keep hearing people talk about how airports are a petri dish of viruses, but they’re not talking about masking on airplanes.
Get your covid and flu vaccines ahead of travel and the holidays. The covid vaccines are most effective within the first few months after receipt. And then at least at a minimum, mask on the train, on buses, at airports, and especially when you go to public restrooms. (Listen, don’t you want to avoid fecal aerosols anyway?) This really isn’t a big ask when you consider it’s not just your own trip that might be saved from misery, but someone’s grandma will live to be seen at dinner during the upcoming holidays. It’s worth it unless you’ve got hangups about masks, and if you do have hangups about masks, I suggest you get over it, because we’re going to see a lot more risk going forward.