That's why I'm not in charge. It would certainly cause me to expand my definition of "drive vs fly" distance too. I stress out enough, I'm lucky my wife doesn't take a different plane, probably from a different airport than me.And this level of stress would cause airlines to fold. I'd actually drive and I cannot tolerate distances in cars well if this were required.
We all have our own levels we're comfortable with. That stress though? Nope. Not going to put myself through that.
That's easy. Domestic travel is clearly "me" while international travel is clearly "you" even if lots of those travelers are from the US. It doesn't have to make sense, we pick tribes and groups all the time and impose stricter rules on the others all the time.I guess I don't see your point with air differences. To me it is a smaller portion coming in and out of the US vs those traveling domestically. So why single out the smaller group? I guess I don't find it as consistent as you do.
From a spread mitigation, we should be dealing with both. The airplane spreads viruses around large geographic areas better than anything else. That we've choose to deal with the international and not domestic isn't an epidemiology decision. It's that we're unwilling to accept it domestically. Air vs boats is relatively easy, air travel is "better" as spreading a virus than boat travel over a larger geographic area. If you take a ship from NY to London, the ship will break out and be denied entry long before those passengers create a large spread in London. With a plane, it just happens in a few hours. Nobody is driving NY to London (yet).