© Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times/TNSA shopper with his young children all wear masks to protect against coronavirus while shopping at Costco on March 7, 2020 in Alhambra, Calif.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Bernie Winston just got back from spring break in Florida with her college-age daughter, and the new coronavirus was never far from her mind. She took disinfectant wipes and scrubbed their luggage, their seats and tray tables on the plane, just about everything they touched on the trip.
She and her husband and daughter walked along Fort Lauderdale's famous spring-break beaches. But Winston wouldn't get into a swimming pool and skipped her daily workouts to avoid the germs in the gym.
She wouldn't eat any piece of fresh fruit because she's not quite sure how the coronavirus is spread. (Experts say it's usually spread person-to-person by droplets from infected people coughing.)
"My husband grabbed an apple (at the airport) and I said, 'You're not going to eat that apple. That apple's been out there for a while,'" said Winston, an education advocate and consultant who lives in Leawood. "When we got to Florida we started getting nervous being there."
Spring break 2020 coincides with the coronavirus public health emergency around the world. It has rattled some local students and parents who are reconsidering and canceling plans because they're worried about getting the virus while they travel, especially internationally.
© Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times/TNSShoppers exit Costco with their purchases while wearing masks to protect against coronavirus on March 7, 2020 in Alhambra, Calif.
On Saturday, the governors in both Kansas and Missouri announced their states' first cases. In Kansas, it's a Johnson County woman under 50 who is currently in isolation in her home. Health officials are identifying and reaching out to people she might have been in close contact with. In Missouri, it's a "presumptive positive case" involving a St. Louis County woman.
© Cindy Carcamo/Los Angeles Times/TNSCo-owner of OC Fit in Tustin, Natalia Guzman wipe down the equipment with disinfectant wipes.
"People are definitely concerned," pediatrician Natasha Burgert with Pediatric Associates in Overland Park, said last week. "I'm having these conversations every day about spring break travel. And I'm getting notified on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook every day.
"They are saying, 'I am going to France next week, should I cancel? I am going to Disney World for spring break. Should I cancel?'
"I had one family that is not canceling but they did cancel their flight. They are driving instead to avoid the possibility of getting stranded."
People seem most worried about international travel, and a map of the world on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing where the coronavirus has infected people demonstrates why. The outbreak began in China but as of Friday had spread to nearly 90 countries.
Canceled spring breaks
Some Kansas City groups have called off overseas mission trips over the next few weeks. One local family headed to Europe for vacation last week posted a photo showing nearly all the seats on their flight were empty.
"We have had a lot of phone calls around folks traveling internationally, and worried about their domestic travel," said Angela Myers, a physician and pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children's Mercy. She is with the hospital's International Travel Medicine Clinic that helps families prepare for trips outside the country.
Universities across the country - including Purdue in Indiana, Northwestern in Chicago and Oklahoma State University - have canceled school-sponsored spring break trips abroad.
The University of Kansas canceled this week's spring break study abroad program in Italy after U.S. health officials warned against non-essential travel to the country because it's been hit so hard by the virus.
"With spring break approaching, we encourage you to be thoughtful about personal travel," KU chancellor Douglas A. Girod told students and staff in a message March 2. "Specifically, we strongly encourage you to reconsider any personal international travel you may have planned."
Schools are warning college students that if they travel internationally they risk not only exposure to the virus but being quarantined when they return. At the University of Oklahoma, students who travel to certain countries affected by the virus will be required to self-quarantine themselves for 14 days before they're allowed back on campus.
But, like Winston, some people are nervous about traveling within the country, too. Winston said she found it "daunting" to be away from home while news stories about coronavirus cases were breaking so quickly.
KU student Grace Carlson wanted to visit friends in Boston over spring break, which runs March 9-15. She's spent past spring breaks in Colorado, Nashville and Charleston, South Carolina.
Then she saw how much it would cost to fly from Kansas City to Boston.
Then, the coronavirus broke out.
"I definitely don't want to" go now, Carlson said. "It kind of helped me make up my mind and decide."
Carlson, from Kansas City, is working on her doctorate in audiology. "I just didn't want to risk it," she said. "I just feel like there's a lot that we don't know about it. . We really don't know how much it has spread."
Spring break, with large crowds in close contact - people for whom "hygiene and washing your hands isn't always their No. 1 priority," Carlson said - seemed too risky.
Before Saturday, there had been no confirmed cases of coronavirus in Missouri or Kansas, which appeared to be keeping a lid on widespread travel fears for the moment.
And, popular spring break destinations for Kansas City families, such as Mexico, haven't experienced a high level of coronavirus cases, said Mark Ebbitts, president of Shelton Travel Service in Kansas City.
His company made plans for about 200 spring break travelers over the next two to three weeks, he said, and local families are not changing their plans to visit Florida - where officials last week declared a public health emergency because of cases there - Gulf Shores in Alabama or Mexican resorts.
Some of them are on spring break cruises, in spite of recent headline-making outbreaks of coronavirus on ships. One, the Grand Princess, with about 3,500 passengers onboard, is currently stranded off the coast of California while authorities await test results for passengers.
His clients are more nervous about international travel. Two weeks ago a local high school pulled the plug on a trip to Rome for about 22 of its students, Ebbitts said. Two groups from a local college canceled mission trips to India and Ecuador over spring break, rerouting some of the students to the Appalachian Mountains.
Other than 9/11, "when everything was shut down," Ebbitts has never seen a threat to the health of the travel industry like the coronavirus. "I just hope people in the travel industry can weather the storm over the next two to three months," he said.
Some countries off-limits
Recognizing that people are nervous to travel right now, several airlines, including Delta, American and United, have waived fees they usually charge to change reservations, fees that can run $200 and more. The period that covers varies with each airline.
Deciding whether to forgo spring break travel is a "practical problem" for many families who might have already put down non-refundable deposits, Burgert said.
"If money grew on trees they would probably not be struggling so much with the question," she said. "But we can't just go to the money tree and say we'll go to Disney next week."
Bernie Winston's daughter, Lauren, a freshman at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said none of her friends changed their spring break plans to Los Angeles and elsewhere because "these people have been planning spring breaks for at least a couple of months now and they're using their own money and they're, 'OK, we're going to follow through with it.'"
Burgert is advising families planning overseas trips to consult federal travel advisories. "So that's where you start," she said. "We don't have a crystal ball. We know that things are changing every 24 hours."
At the moment, the CDC recommends travelers avoid all nonessential travel to China, Iran, South Korea and Italy, all considered high-risk "Level 3" countries because they've been hit hardest by the coronavirus.
The agency advises older adults, or those with chronic medical conditions, to consider postponing travel to Japan, a "Level 2" country.
"For all other countries and also domestically, folks should just use their good judgment," said Myers at Children's Mercy. "The CDC doesn't currently recommend canceling or postponing trips to those areas."
Burgert is asking parents of children with chronic health issues - severe asthma and seizure disorders, for instance - and children in early remission of cancer to "at least reconsider, postpone or reschedule" any travel right now.
"These are the kids I'm worried about. Being potentially isolated or quarantined away from their home would be problematic," Burgert said.
And other families?
"I think many, many families will go (on spring break), and they should go," she said. "We don't live in a bubble, but we also need to go knowing that plans can change."
She herself is taking her 13-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son to New York City for spring break this week.
"I like to think of evidence," she said. "And right now the facts are I'm not worried about the direct impact of COVID-19 on my family," she said.
They won't be using public transportation while they're there, she said, but they rarely do anyway.
'Safety is a key factor'
KU junior Abigail Veneziano began the 20-hour drive to her home in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday with not one worry about running into coronavirus problems along the way, or when she gets to Florida. She traveled with her boyfriend, sister and a puppy.
She heard a lot of other students fretting about flying to popular places like Texas and Florida for spring break because they worried they'd catch the virus on a plane. She understood the worry, "because obviously safety is a key factor."
She's heeding the advice of health officials. The 20-year-old business communications major put a bottle of hand sanitizer in every bag she owns after a KU student became the first potential case of coronavirus in the state. The student tested negative.
"But I also don't understand college students changing their plans because typically they stay in the States and the CDC is working so hard to keep (the virus) contained," Veneziano said. "Changing your travel plans here doesn't make sense."
Before coronavirus hit, Ebbitts' safety advice to travelers was along the lines of be aware of your surroundings and don't go on the beach at 2 in the morning. Post-coronavirus, though, he's not sure what to tell them.
He's flown frequently in recent weeks and used Lysol wipes to clean tray tables, armrests, seat belt buckles, even the air vents above him on the planes.
He cautioned that air travelers can't take any bottle of hand sanitizer onboard if it's bigger than 3 ounces.
"Because of how air circulates and is filtered on airplanes, most viruses and other germs do not spread easily on airplanes," says the CDC.
"Although the risk of infection on an airplane is low, travelers should try to avoid contact with sick passengers and wash their hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds or use hand sanitizer that contain 60% to 95% alcohol."
Stay away from sick people
Myers said it's not a bad idea to wipe down that airline tray table and armrest.
And, as you travel, "it's always a good idea to avoid contact with sick people, avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands, which I know is infinitely hard," she said, echoing CDC safety recommendations for travel on planes and cruise ships.
You don't have to know that the person coughing next to you on the subway has coronavirus, but whatever is making them cough is something you don't want to have anyway, Myers said.
"Crowded public transportation is probably not the way to go right now," she said, adding that travelers should keep plenty of hand sanitizer with them.
She said she always advises travelers to buy travel insurance. The hiccup in that advice now, however, is that not all travel insurance companies cover unforeseen circumstances such as pandemics or infectious diseases such as the coronavirus.
Because travelers don't know what roadblocks the coronavirus emergency might throw across their path, they need to stay nimble, she cautioned.
"You should definitely make sure that if you do go to one of those countries, if the country itself decided to quarantine people that you have the wherewithal to stay there during that period of time and then get back home after that," she said.
"And you have to be able to take care of yourself while you're there."
Cautious KU student Carlson shouldn't have to worry about quarantines, travel insurance or any of that. During spring break 2020, "I will be at home doing homework," she said. "Very exciting."
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