Travel tips for vaccinated seniors

Many seniors are now fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and are looking forward to making travel plans. We spoke with Dr. Shad Marvasti of the UArizona College of Medicine, to get his ideas on safe travel for seniors.

Host Ted Simons began the conversation by asking Dr. Marvasti what seniors need to know about traveling.

He responded, “I think it’s great that people who are fully vaccinated and I think seniors in particular, it’s a great opportunity to reconnect with family and friends because you know loneliness is actually a big deal and particularly in seniors who are more susceptible because of retirement, decreased mobility due to chronic conditions and less friends over time and loneliness really can increase your risk of a heart attack or stroke and I think that it can be as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being obese. So given the pandemic, I think we’ve been seeing a lot more loneliness and isolation in seniors who have really suffered a great deal and so I do think that the vaccine is a light at the end of the tunnel for them and I think it is important for them to really look at traveling and the CDC has some great guidelines in terms of this. You don’t need to quarantine, you don’t need to test before and after, you do need to wear a mask – I recommend wearing at least a KN-95 or N-95 with a face shield when you’re at the airport or on the plane and keep it on as much as possible – and then when you’re there visiting your grandchildren, relatives, children, all the above try to limit the number of folks you’re seeing and hopefully the majority or at least the adults are fully vaccinated, especially if you have a chronic condition because you’re still at risk. Even if the risk is much lower, it’s still something to consider.”