Air Crew No Jab No Fly…No Work!
Airlines are now thinking about getting their staff vaccinated against COVID-19. In Australia QANTAS has already said it will require all its frontline staff to be fully vaccinated if they want to continue to be employed. Now it seems that Virgin Australia will follow suit.
The question is who exactly should be vaccinated?
When they say frontline staff I would assume this to mean the pilots and flight attendants. I’d also assume it will be all the workers that have contact with travellers such as, check-in and boarding gate staff and lounge attendants. I’m not a hundred percent sure if that includes baggage handlers. Logically speaking they do get their hands on the passengers’ property, which may or may not have traces of the virus, so you would expect them too to get vaccinated.
Flight attendants would seem to be the ones at most risk according to how this virus spreads and where it is mostly contracted, which is in enclosed spaces and in close contact with people. Pilots have less contact with passengers but they do mingle with the flight attendants and they do stay in the same hotels so you’d think they too are vulnerable. The question now is what would happen if a pilot has an adverse reaction to a vaccine?
All the vaccines that are being offered (AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, etc.,) are untested and untrialled. They basically have been rushed into usage. No one knows exactly what is going to happen in the next few years and how these vaccines will effect a person’s health. In the short term the vaccines are known to have adverse effects, whether minor or not. Imagine what would happen if one or both pilots had an adverse reaction while in the air? This is why I’ve learned that they are only offering the Pfizer vaccine to pilots and not the Astra Zeneca which has been connected to blood cloting in a number of patients. It would be very dangerous if one or both pilots had a heart issue or a blood clot (thrombotic episode) impair their handling of the plane.
We know from reports that people have had adverse reactions, with some having actually died, which the mainstream media is not reporting widely enough. We don’t know what complications may arise in future, like the possibility of organ or heart failure which would be the worst case scenario. Hopefully the pilots will be screened during their yearly medical checkup, but more importantly catch these issues way before they get worse.
One thing we know is that even with two vaccinations (referred to as fully vaccinated) it is still not enough to give immunity to new variants. Boosters will be required. This also means those (fully) vaccinated are still carriers of the virus. So how much difference is it going to make? Would it be best to treat patients with other therapeutics and let the person gain immunity by themselves rather than compromise their future immunity by getting vaccinated? I don’t have the answer but I think there has to be a combination of treatment protocols and vaccines to keep a lid on this virus and make air travel safe.
Just a note: the vaccines currently being pushed by Western governments are not fully approved and are only being administered under an EUA (Emergency Use Authorization). The Pfizer BioNTech vaccine just recently was given full approval by the US FDA, however this does not mean it is out of the woods. It still will cause problems. In fact the Pfizer jab got its regulatory approval in a very shady way and has been questioned by the editor of the BMJ (British Medical Journal) a highly respected medical publication. The editor wants to know how it got its approval when none of the latest data on its lagging efficacy was considered, instead they used old data when the vaccine had better efficacy witht the original strain. Makes you wonder.
Anyhow, airlines need to tread very carefully. Last thing passengers want is for pilots to have a serious medical episode in the cockpit. Let’s pray this never eventuates.
Disclaimer: I’m not an anti-vaxxer, however I believe in evidence-based medicine and balanced discussion. I’m not interested in politicians, bureaucrats, business people, big pharma, social media and celebrities making the vaccination policy. Also anyone that has a conflict of interest.
