The End of Airplane Masking Feels Momentous

[Celerity]

Why is this mandate different from all other mandates?

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/04/cdc-mask-mandate-transportation-planes/629614/

https://archive.ph/2UgKw



If you commuted to work today on a bus, train, or metro system, you probably saw more mouths and noses than usual. On Monday, a Trump-appointed federal judge struck down a CDC rule that mandated masks on all U.S. transportation networks, including in airports and on planes. Airline passengers who were mid-flight when the news broke cheered and ripped their masks off, discarding them in trash bags that unmasked flight attendants helpfully brought up and down the aisle.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Over the past several months, vaccine requirements in restaurants, mask mandates in schools and retail spaces, and testing requirements for workers have all been reversed. But the end of airplane masking in particular has inspired a disproportionate reaction—of both extreme relief and utter outrage. One pilot reportedly called the end of the mandate “the most important announcement I’ve ever made.” An ER doctor wondered how “people who claim to love kids are totally cool” with babies dying from COVID. Why, exactly, is this rollback so different from all other rollbacks?

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

In some ways, the masking rules on transportation should matter less for public health than other masking mandates, not more. Most people who don’t work in transportation probably spend relatively little time in train stations, buses, and Jetways, as compared with workplaces, where mask requirements are already scarce. Joseph Allen, who directs Harvard’s Healthy Buildings program, told me that, in general, ventilation is also better on trains and airplanes than it is in restaurants, offices, and homes. (That’s true only as long as the HVAC system is actually turned on, which it tends not to be while a plane is on the tarmac.) On buses, ventilation depends on whether the driver has the vehicle in air-recirculation mode. “There’s been too much attention on the risk in airplanes for a long time,” Allen said. “Airplanes are not where super-spreading is happening.”

In the broadest sense, removing the transportation-network mandate is not likely to have an enormous, near-term effect on the trajectory of the pandemic. Even if mask compliance on subways and buses suddenly went down to, say, 10 percent in a major American city, any increase in cases or hospitalizations “would probably be small—small to the level of not being detectable by our current surveillance systems,” David Dowdy, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, told me.

snip

[Phoenix61]

1. I'm ok it's lifted. It was going to happen May 3rd anyway.

Seriously pissed they did it mid-flight. I’m sure there were people in the air or on their way to an airport because they believed everyone would be masked. No excuse for this other than an unqualified judge having no idea how to issue a judicial opinion.

[SoonerPride]

2. It won't move any needle on Covid numbers

Masks really help the unvaccinated.

Vaccines help the vaccinated.

Anyone can continue wearing a mask if they want.

[Grasswire2]

3. My trip by Amtrak to visit family for mother's day is now off.

Can't imagine spending four hours in a train car with non-maskers.

[Celerity]

5. What about a subway? A bus? A store? Movie theatre? Art gallery? TIA

[Tetrachloride]

4. I bought new KN95 masks today.

At least one friend is sick now. No diagnosis.

[Meowmee]

6. They should be sued for doing this mid flight

I hope they are. This country is full of stupidity, lack of intelligence and narcissism and bankrupt on caring for the welfare of others. The pandemic brought it out even more than any other event imo.

[Celerity]

7. Sued for what?

[Meowmee]

9. For potentially exposing people to covid who thought everyone would be masked

For the entire flight. There could have been, and undoubtedly were, people who are immune compromised and high risk who were endangered. The fact that a pilot thinks this is his most important announcement is disgusting. Just fly the plane please and keep your opinions to yourself.

[Celerity]

10. It would be tossed out of court instantly, as it was done under protection of following the state

of the current law/rules/regulations, and even if someone did test positive post-flight, there is no way to prove they caught it on the flight.

[Meowmee]

13. Iyo. It would be hard to litigate but if harm occurs someone should

What this was a disgusting publicity stunt on the part of many so called professionals. If someone was exposed and suffers harm they are responsible, not that they care most probably obviously, whether any potential suit would be allowed or would be successful or not. Part of the reason it would be difficult to litigate and to prove is that the US did very poor or no contact tracing during this entire pandemic.


People on those flights were guaranteed a certain level of safety thinking that passengers/ crew were required to mask for the entire flight, not that they would take them off when the pilot decided to tell everyone mid flight it was now ok to remove them.


The people doing this type of thing are part of the many major issues here.

[leftstreet]

15. Breach of consent seems possible

Passengers board a flight under safety policy guidelines that change while they're in the air?

Seems dicey

Imagine being halfway through a zoo and they announce cages can be opened

[Celerity]

19. I think the fact it was an exogenously-mandated rule would negate any standing against the airline

[leftstreet]

20. Would depend on the language in their safety policies

Wouldn't matter where a ruling originated. They write their own policies that you consent to when traveling with them.

I know it's just all in the details, but that's what lawyers will be looking at if someone decides to sue

[Celerity]

21. I'm not a lawyer, but I just don't see a path forward for a successful lawsuit. I might be wrong.

[tishaLA]

8. The people who cheered, like they were at a sporting event or something,

I just don't get. A mask isn't such a burden that losing it deserves applause or cheers.

[Hugin]

11. "Airplanes are not where super-spreading is happening."

I would not and will not ever listen to anything Joseph Allen says. Air travel was responsible for spreading Omicron globally in less than a month.

The largest super-spreader event yet.

[greatauntoftriplets]

12. I've lost count of the number of colds I've caught on planes.

All those people sitting in a very small space when someone might have COVID? No thanks, I'll still mask.

[Nevilledog]

14. I feel bad for this family...

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

Jonathan Evans
@jhewiz
·
Apr 19, 2022
I had never been shamed for wearing a mask until my @AlaskaAir Orlando-Seattle flight today. The pilot created an anti-mask party from the start, which encouraged the non-mask wearers to chide the mask-wearers. The most uncomfortable experience for me and my family. Really sucked

Jonathan Evans
@jhewiz
Just so everyone knows, @AlaskaAir has reached out and said they'll be investigating, but won't be able to tell me the results. Which is fair enough, but I told them I was taken aback by how all the staff went with it and didn't try to help those of us wearing masks.
12:39 PM · Apr 20, 2022

[Hugin]

17. An internal investigation?

Yeah, that’s going nowhere.

[Nevilledog]

18. I had the same reaction.

[Spider Jerusalem]

16. Fucksake. This article is idiotic nonsense.

This, right here:

Most people who don’t work in transportation probably spend relatively little time in train stations, buses, and Jetways, as compared with workplaces

Except for people who spend 2 hours a day on a bus or train, 10 hours a week, 40 hours a month, because they can't afford a car/don't have a license/etc. I would guess that the number of Americans who spend a substantial part of their day commuting by public transit is in the millions and potentially tens of millions; it's not negligible.

[hunter]

22. I'm going to channel my crazy grandma here, she could say the most horrible things imaginable...

... as a shipyard welder handy with knives and guns.

Soon after she retired she was removed from the home she owned as a danger to herself and others.

I can hear her voice in my head, my head at least a quarter crazy as she was, saying "Fuck off, I wouldn't touch you if I was wearing a full body condom."