December 28, 2024

Dateline – Copenhagen (airport that is)

I finished up the few things I had left undone on Friday morning, threw some clothes, toiletries, and miscellaneous odds and ends into a suitcase, made a last run to Walgreens, stopped at Waffle House for hashbrowns, sausage and a waffle, and pointed Hope, the red Prius eastbound on I-20 heading for Atlanta. Rain. Slow traffic. More rain. A few stoppages on the back road to ATL which I discovered some years ago and which avoids the beltway altogether. Good thing I allowed plenty of extra time.

Got the car parked, caught the skytrain to the terminal, and then, as the new international terminal at Hartsfield is now open, had to take a shuttle to the other side of the airport. And I was, of course, right behind the guy who was taking his windsurf board with him as carry on luggage which made for interesting embarkation and disembarkation from the shuttle bus. Finally arrive at the international terminal (still plenty of time to spare) and catch my first break. I am the only person in line checking in at the SAS counter. And the security line was mercifully short. Made it to the gate with a good forty five minutes to spare.

This trip was booked as a group through a less chi-chi company than my usual travels so, for reasons known only to their economics, I was booked to Heathrow via Copenhagen. The flight itself was the usual trans Atlantic redeye. I put old familiar movies on low and doze fitfully while trying to find a comfortable position while wedged into a too small seat in economy class. Fortunately the seat next to me is vacant so I can spread a little. (There were a lot of vacant seats which probably explains my itinerary – SAS offered a deal to get some butts in seats on the flight).

And so, I have arrived at Copenhagen international to find that my flight to London isn’t for nearly six hours. I thought for a minute about leaving the airport, taking the train downtown, snapping some pictures and then taking the train back but there’s too much that could go wrong with that scenario at the holidays so I am enjoying complimentary wi-fi and what I can get at the snack bar while I look out the window at dreary skies and planes on the tarmac. I have texted my traveling companions and let them know I’ll get to London when I get there. We have no specific plans for today so not a huge deal.

In the meantime, I am perusing the news and there are a few things that have caught my eye. Covid news has been fairly quiescent recently but H5N1 bird flu has had some disturbing trends. First, there have been some cases in Americans without major agricultural contacts and testing of those strains has shown some mutations which would make human to human contagion more likely. Second, wastewater surveillance has shown H5N1 turning up in counties where there are no known agricultural sources suggesting it’s moving beyond the factory farms where it has generally been concentrated. In a normal public health political environment, I wouldn’t be too concerned but the combination of viral illness misinformation out there combined with political hamstringing of public health entities plus the caliber of individuals the new administration promises to install in positions of power means that anything could happen. Just keep in mind that the mortality rate of H5N1 in humans is somewhere between 20 and 50%, about 50x greater than covid.

The other trend which I am regarding with some amusement is the civil war that has broken out amongst the supporters of the incoming administration over immigration and visas. The MAGA movement is all about getting rid of anyone they view as ‘not American’, generally interpreted as not WASPy enough. The billionaire class that provided the resources that actually won the election wants to import more highly skilled workers from other countries to expand their business interests. The visas on which these workers come are the same visas on which foreign trained physicians come to this country – which has been a necessity for some decades as American medical schools and residency programs have been unable to provide enough graduates to meet demand. The majority of my colleagues in Geriatrics in recent years have been foreign born. Whomever is hired to replace me will likely have started on a work visa. Shut down these programs in the name of MAGA purity and it’s unlikely I, or any other geriatrician will be replaced as we age and retire out of the system. And the boom turns eighty in a year…

I got up, got dressed, went out but haven’t figured out what today’s good deeds are. They’ll likely present themselves at some point.