Airlines have announced plans to enforce their policy of mandatory face mask use among passengers. This week, United Airlines said it will “strengthen mandatory mask policies to further mitigate against the spread of COVID-19 and help continue to keep passengers and crew safe.” Starting June 18, United will take steps during boarding and into the flight to ensure compliance. “While the overwhelming majority of passengers are complying with United's mandatory policy, starting on June 18, any passenger that does not comply when onboard a United flight will be placed on an internal travel restriction list,” the company said in a statement. “Customers on this list will lose their travel privileges on United for a duration of time to be determined pending a comprehensive incident review.”
Too bad the FAA doesn’t just come out and say how dangerous this is. Wait until an airliner has a pressurization failure at altitude and see just how many passengers and/or flight attendants pass out trying to get O2 masks on without removing medical face coverings. The industry got lucky that did not happen when TSA mandated the airlines remove O2 generators in lavs. And what about passenger briefings? If a flight attendant takes mask off to do the briefing (since the mask does muffle voices depending on the person), kind of defeats the entire purpose. Just another item to make the airline experience that much worse than it already is. Actually this will just help drive more business from the airlines to charters for those who can afford to do so, which helps me stay employed!
Once again, the narrative of doing something so contradictional as having to keep any kind of facemask on, which by medical standards is only used to prevent contamination of open wounds in Hostipals in particular during a surgery. I agree that like in Asia, if someone is having a cold or a flu, people may want to wear masks to lower the spreading of their own germs and viruses by wearing a mask. The efficiency of that in studies shows that even that is minimal more protection. The viruses are so small that they pass through just about every simple mask, let alone the eyes being exposed anyway. So what is the point? The point is to further the fear from an kind of threat which is bolstered by the official narrative. It is really time that the public starts to ask serious questions, does their own due diligence and stop following the narrative of the main stream media. Businesses must obey while the latest protests are being sanctioned from the mask. It is really sad how the greater part of the public succombs to these kind of regulations without asking questions. Aldous Huxley is either crying or laughing. We are doing it to ourselves.
Once the aircraft ventilation system is operating, the air flow moves from over head, down past the people and is removed at floor level. There is little lateral flow so any viruses that are expelled by passengers are sucked down and out at the floor and not whirled around at face level. There should not be any need for mask to keep virus from being inhaled. Only those people with runny noses or sneezing should wear mask so they don’t shotgun the viruses toward others. Normal breathing will not project virus around because of the downward air flow. Flight attendants will be breathing air from above the passengers so should be safe unless they lean over to make face-to-face contract. The only time mask might be effective is during ground operations when the ventilation system is not operating and people are walking around. Even then the effectiveness of most mask is questionable. I agree that most of this is fear mongering from the government and media. The airlines are forced to follow the agenda or face lawsuits based on no facts. I don’t plan to fly again until all the hype has settled and reason is back in fashion.
Guess the airlines forgot about all that money that the TAXPAYERS just gave them and less and less people are going to want to fly with this mask mandate. Instead they want to act like bullies for something that is recommended by the cdc. Flying is miserable now and I avoid it at all cost. We need to stop bailing them out with out tax dollars if they quickly forget about the people in the back that bailed them out.
I agree that the use of masks has questionable benefits, particularly in modern pressurized airliners. But enough with the “fear mongering from the government and media”: the media is just reporting what the experts are recommending, which is that mask wearing be mandatory. There’s no agenda by the media, and of course they are going to be focusing on the doom-and-gloom because as the saying goes, “if it bleeds it leads”. And the “government” seems to have even less of an agenda because it’s such an uncoordinated mess of patchwork rules across the nation. If it wasn’t over such a serious matter, it would be laughable.
But getting back to the original topic, it will be interesting to see what would happen in a depressurization event. Thankfully those are pretty rare, but using the FAA’s risk/consequence matrix, it’s a “remote” likelihood but at least “marginal” risk that wearing a mask will delay or impede using an oxygen mask, so that’s at least a “medium” risk. Exactly what the risk of covid works out to be is subject to interpretation, but I suspect it’s anywhere from “low” to “serious”, so the risk/benefit of mask wearing probably averages out to 50/50. For me personally, that’s questionable enough that if I were making a risk-based decision, I’d think twice about it. And given that it appears the airlines are going to make this mandatory-mandatory, my risk-based decision says I should just stay home or find other means of transportation.
Absolutely right K.B. Being part of establishing and enforcing a “New Normal” is just plain wrong. They could at least have argued about the Ventilation Systems and the safety aspects. Insteadhe are following suit in becoming the long arm of Pharma interests… if you want to boil it down to the essence.
I shouldn’t think it would be any different than how the other airlines enforce the mask rule. Sure, it’s open seating, but the other airlines also line up passengers for boarding. And I presume it’s at the door to the gate or the aircraft where the enforcement is done.
There was a time not too long ago when a news media was succumbing to pressures of business competition when an anonymous report was given from a soon to be exposed whistle blower. The Pentagon Papers revealed three decades of government obfuscation, preventing main stream media and the American public from learning about clandestine military operations during the Vietnam war.
On June 30, 1971, the Supreme Court decided, 6–3, that the government failed to meet the heavy burden of proof required for prior restraint injunction. The nine justices wrote nine opinions disagreeing on significant, substantive matters.
Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.
— Justice Black
Media’s agenda is to inform the public in a free society. The attacks against “main stream media” is nothing new since the New York Times and Washington Post were served injunctions (and lost) against reporting documents revealing government’s role in escalating the Vietnam war with predicted losses ultimately proving intervention was unwinnable. A poor chapter in American history and repeated again by Russia invading Afghanistan. American soldiers did what was asked of them and gave their lives in belief of patriotism.
I’m reading these comments from the perspective gained from 35 years in public health. I’d like to emphasize that masks are a rather weakly effective tool among a very limited number of options in controlling the spread of the pandemic. But in environments where frequent hand washing and “social distancing” are not possible, there are no practical options. The fact is that if the passengers can be made to wear a mask it will reduce the incidence of infection to cabin crew, gate agents, passengers and flight deck crew… in that order. Certainly these masks are uncomfortable and a nuisance. And some people just cannot tolerate them. Still it makes sense and is good public health practice to do what ever is possible and necessary to enforce their use.
I’m not qualified to assess the added risk of hypoxia that may result from the necessity to remove a cloth mask in the response to a cabin decompression. But based on intuition and and decades of observation of the typical passenger behavior to all of the safety cautions from take off to landing, I suspect it is negligible. I do know something about the risks of corona virus disease and it’s transmission. And I don’t like the odds among employees of the air transport industry. I urge you to use your influence to be sure you and your colleagues support the use of masks.
If you disagree, please invite me to ride along on one of your upcoming trips. I’ll share my advice and opinion on your airmanship. I suspect you will value it at least as much as I value your views on pandemic controls.
I don’t get these comments. What part of “Every reputable heath institution says wearing a mask is one of the most effective things people can do to protect others from contracting COVID-19” are we missing here? And the media is biased in reporting that?
The airlines also expect me to wear a shirt and pants and all that protects others from is seeing my ugly body. I suppose I should protest that.
As for depressurization – it takes virtually no time to strip off a facemask, and no doubt that’s part of the passenger safety briefing now. There might be some added risk but it would be minimal and for a very rare event.
Another issue is that since the cabin pressurization is not held at sea level and the masks restrict breathing this is a very dangerous thing to be doing, especially with older passengers.
The problem is, I’m seeing all health experts saying “it’s a fact that face masks help prevent transmission”, but I have yet to see the actual data that supports that hypothesis. The little data that I have seen lumps face masks in with social distancing, stay at home orders, and hand-washing to the point that it’s virtually impossible to pull out the effectiveness of each individual action. And I especially have not seen or become aware of any data that shows the effectiveness of cloth masks after an hour or more of continuous use: does it increase their effectiveness, or decrease it, or have no effect at all? And how often do these masks need to be washed, and what is an effective means of washing them? And does the amount of time they are worn affect how often they need to be washed (e.g. if I wear a mask for one hour cumulative time a day, is it more or less or the same as someone who wears the same type of mask for 10 hours cumulative time in a day)? Also, if I just keep my mouth closed and breath through my nose, how does that compare to wearing a mask?
But in addition to all of that, I simply find wearing a mask to be very uncomfortable, to the point of being intolerable after more than a few minutes (perhaps around 15 minutes).
I also worry that face mask usage has become a feel-good measure that has the wearer let their guard down and assume that as long as they wear a mask, they’re safe. Just based on local observations, it seems most people have essentially gone back to business as usual, and I will be surprised if we don’t see nationwide flare-ups of covid cases within a month.
Not all of us are of the “face mask requirements are an affront to my freedoms” crowd, but have actual worries and problems with mask usage.
The mainstream media are freaking out about Trump rallies, but have no problem with “protest” rallies.
THOUSANDS of people attended the THREE public funeral services for George Floyd, even while local Boards of Health continued to prohibit private funeral gatherings of more than 8 people.
Here in the Peoples Republik, you cannot worship in a church with more than 9 other people. But a mob of hundreds of “peaceful protesters” can burn down that church, without receiving the usual sanctimonious Covid Theatre treatment that is visited upon the rest of us. The Suffolk County (Boston area) District Attorney refuses to prosecute rioters, while she lectures the rest of us about white privilege and systemic racism.
Yeah - the media is biased; they don’t even try to hide it anymore. The New York Times stopped being a newspaper when Donald Trump won the 2016 election. They now are an unapologetic opinion journal. Good for them; bad for us. But I completely support their first amendment right to be as biased and untruthful as they want to be. Two words: Russian Collusion.
TDS belongs in the DSM. It’s more prevalent than Covid 19.
I was careful in my post to emphasize the limited effectiveness of each of the universally recommended general preventive measures. In the absence of a vaccine, a therapy, a screening lab test and/or a safe and effective treatment, masks are crucial in reducing transmission. Because you “haven’t seen the actual data”is not a reason to not wear a mask. I don’t see the pilot’s certificate and medical before buying a ticket on your airline. Nor do I ask for the TC and logs for the aircraft. The masks are for your protection from covid19 transmitters. What don’t you understand about that?