Your Zoom[1] fatigue is only getting worse.
Perhaps you've already been vaccinated, which has led you toward being emboldened.
You want to get out. You want to go and see clients, colleagues, and certain secret friends whom you always manage to catch up with when you're on a business trip.
America's airlines are on your side. They know that business travel will only return slowly. But even Delta is now preparing for a surge -- in flying, not COVID-19 -- by opening up its middle seats from May 1.
Which brings me, sadly, to that very subject.
When COVID-19 began to invade our shores, airlines begged the government for jumbo loads of money, while at the same time begging passengers to fly. Yes, even in middle seats.
Last summer, United Airlines' chief communications officer Josh Earnest was most definitive[2]: "When it comes to blocking middle seats, that's a PR strategy. That's not a safety strategy."
Oh, but then some large scientific brains suggested this may not be true. One suggested[3] there was twice the risk of catching COVID-19 if middle seats are filled.
And now the CDC has come out with research[4] entitled: "Laboratory Modeling of SARS-CoV-2 Exposure Reduction Through Physically Distanced Seating in Aircraft Cabins Using Bacteriophage Aerosol."
The short version? When middle seats were left empty, there was a reduction of between 23% and 57% in exposure to viral particles deemed "viable." The research may have its methodological limitations. It was conducted with non-mask-wearing mannequins.
But you know when airlines want to put their fingers in their ears and make loud, unintelligible noises. They get pressure group Airlines for America -- which some may think of