Filtered, Scrubbed and Virus Free

Twenty seven months into the Pandemic, COVID is on to its fifth variant. Cases are increasing. Despite all that, masks are no longer required on public transportation including air travel.

“Experts” claimed that the atmosphere in a plane is filtered, scrubbed, and absolutely virus-free. Have these “experts” ever breathed the foul miasma when everyone stands after the plane lands? Hours of intestinal “gas” are released. Have these “experts” checked the atmosphere in a plane’s rest room after a lengthy flight? If that air is “filtered, scrubbed, and virus-free”, it does not smell that way. Pandemic or not, airline passengers should wear masks. For that matter they should wear Scuba Tanks. Nearly two hundred people cooped up in a confined space for hours breathing and re-breathing the same limited volume of air is a disaster waiting to happen.

Of course, the in-flight mask mandate had exceptions. Passengers could remove their masks when eating, drinking, enunciating, applying chapstick, or picking their nose. COVID viruses no doubt said to one another, “Here comes the beverage cart, guys. Passengers will be un-masking. It’s time for us to take a break and not infect anyone while they are not protected.”

Come to think of it, there shouldn’t be any rules in an airplane, anyway. Once you’re off the ground you’re in neutral sky territory. There is no sky CDC! When cruise ships are ten miles off-shore, there are no rules. Their casinos open and you can eat all the shrimp you want. Why is it not the same 30,000 feet above the ground?

The CDC emphasized that passengers should still wear masks. It just isn’t required any more. Human nature being what it is, I’m sure that pretty much everyone will keep wearing them as a courtesy to fellow passengers who might be immunocompromised. Sure they will.

By Ed Dufton