A Call for a Vaccine Mandate on U.S. Flights

Here’s the latest news from the pandemic.

Canada is doing it. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious-disease specialist, says we should seriously consider it. Yet the Biden administration hasn’t instituted a vaccine mandate for domestic flights—even though it has one for foreign travelers entering the U.S.

Flying hasn’t been tagged as a particularly risky activity compared with other indoor ones, but the omicron variant is much more contagious than previous strains. People are now two to three times more likely to become infected with the virus on an airplane than they were before omicron, according to the top medical adviser to the world’s airlines.

Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, recently took a moment away from treating Covid patients to talk to Bloomberg reporter Anna Edney about his support for a domestic flight vaccine mandate.

Why doesn’t the U.S. require domestic flight passengers to be vaccinated?

They’re getting stuck on logistics. And they’re worried the airline industry is going to push hard. Airlines don’t want to do it because it would be work for them. But for the long-run health of the traveler individually, I think it would be better. It’s a little like when restaurants put in smoking bans and thought no one would come out to eat. But what they saw was more people coming to eat. It may mean a small proportion of people won’t fly, but it will build confidence and allow other people to fly.