Matt Bush, FISM News
On Monday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., and Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y. sent a letter asking the CDC and the Biden administration to require passengers on all domestic airline flights in America to show proof that they have been vaccinated.
This is not the first time Democrats have pushed Biden to require either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to travel domestically. In November, with holiday travel expected to ramp up, a group of Democratic lawmakers made a similar plea believing, “such a requirement would reduce the chances of a potential coronavirus surge, which occurred in 2020 when cases skyrocketed around major winter holidays.”
Now that the busiest travel day of the year, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, has passed with little to no effect on COVID numbers, Democrats are doubling down with a new letter to the CDC. The letter cites, “promoting science-based public health measures to keep Americans safe and healthy” but quickly moves away from any science-based facts or figures to describe why this new vaccine mandate is necessary.
In fact, a Newsweek article cites a Sept. 13 letter from Tori Emerson Barnes, U.S. Travel Association Vice President of Public Affairs and Policy, about the science behind airline travel. Barnes wrote, “The science—including studies from the Harvard School of Public Health and the U.S. Department of Defense—overwhelmingly points to the safety of air travel as long as masks are worn. And with the federal mask mandate for all forms of public transportation and U.S. airports extended through January 2022, proper tools are already in place to enable safe air travel for Americans.”
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, told the Today Show, “‘Transmission on a plane of COVID-19 is not very common because of the [air] circulation and because of the mask wearing,’ in short, there is not a major risk from flying.”
Swalwell, for his part, is spreading his version of the truth about domestic travel mandates. These two tweets show his focus on “science” when describing the need for a new mandate:
On a flight now to Bay Area and it is one-hundred percent batty that the unvaccinated are allowed to fly. It’s unsafe in the cabin and we are transporting the virus. Requiring the vaccine to fly is the LEAST we can do to stop the spread.
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) December 20, 2021
We are hurtling toward a Covid blizzard. And you should be pissed we are back at this. But aim your anger entirely at the lies America’s leaders have told to inspire an unvaccinated culture. I’m looking at you @GOPLeader McCarthy.
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) December 20, 2021
Taken from the website, democrats.org, “Democrats believe that scientific research should play an important role in advancing science and technology.” When confronted with scientific data and research that goes against the need for a vaccine mandate on domestic flights, however, it seems that talking points and agendas win over numbers.
According to Today, more than 6 million people are expected to fly between Dec. 23 and Jan. 2. If these estimates are correct, that would constitute a 184% increase in passengers from 2020. If a vaccine mandate for domestic flights was instituted, and a good portion of eligible Americans are unvaccinated, the blow to the airline industry would be catastrophic.
According to Scientific American, the science behind HEPA filters, shows that 99% of airborne particles are filtered out of the air, and the science behind air turnover in an airplane tells us that there is a complete air changeover of air every 2 minutes in a plane.