[flagged]
That doesn't follow from what you wrote.
Anyway, it is easy to look at actual research on cabin air quality and see your claim is false.
"Typical levels of SHS-RSP on aircraft violated current (PM(2.5)) federal air quality standards approximately threefold for flight attendants, and exceeded SHS irritation thresholds by 10 to 100 times. From cotinine dosimetry, SHS exposure of typical flight attendants in aircraft cabins is estimated to have been >6-fold that of the average US worker and approximately 14-fold that of the average person. Thus, ventilation systems massively failed to control SHS air pollution in aircraft cabins."
How do you know if the reduction in filters / bleed air causes more people to get sick? Filters would naturally require less replacement since they don’t have to take away as many toxins. Couldn’t that allow filters to free up more viral particles?
Many things are not harmful if just done one, but you are not alone. I understand that if you are allowed to smoke many other people would also, and it would have a noticeable detriment in peoples live quality.
And you’re comparing that with actual smokers who would actually light up at every opportunity.
Oh it’s “just one cigarette” that you would smoke right? Just one. Why are these unreasonable people persecuting you unreasonably for just one. Of course you wouldn’t smoke a second. Of course no one else would smoke one after seeing you.
In terms ten second-hand cigarettes damaging you on a flight, or ten coughing children, I don't understand how you think the smoke would be more dangerous. Cancer risk from smoke is cumulative, whereas risk from contagious diseases is immediate.
I take it you didn't live through the era of unrestricted tobacco smoking then. Smokers absolutely do not ask whether they can smoke unless they know they really shouldn't, but hope they'll be allowed to anyway.
Aside from that, it is obviously ridiculous to compare disease (which is rarely something one gets willingly, and cannot be stopped at will) with smoking (a wilful decision, and something that can be stopped at will).
Disease is an unavoidable fact of human life and children are a necessary piece of society, but tobacco is entirely unneeded.
[edit] Taking a break from the internet is never a bad idea, though. I could probably use one myself. I could use another trip. I do wish the alternative to staying home wasn't getting on a plane with everyone else's children... only slightly kidding.
That's not my experience, at all. In places where they are allowed to smoke, which used to be everywhere, they either take it for granted that they can smoke and just do it; or they 'ask' with something like "surely you don't mind" while already lighting their cigarette. And some of them do the same even in places where they're not allowed to, but fortunately that's a shrinking minority.
That is a very reasonable approach. We are billions of humans living in close quarters. Let's make a little effort to offer high quality spaces to everybody. This happened with seat belts in cars, many people were offended by the idea but it is saving many lives each day.
In some Asian countries it was already common courtesy to wear a mask if you even suspect you might have a respiratory disease before Covid. Saying everyone suspecting a respiratory disease should stay at home is fine but detached from reality, people need to go places.
Ergo, wearing a mask in closed spaces is a compromise between being grounded and being an a** h***.
Edit:
About this
> I do contribute to the wellbeing of the 95+% of the people who choose not to wear a mask and want to engage in human connection with the full range of emotional and facial expressiveness we were blessed with for that purpose
What exactly is the benefit strangers in a closed space (like public transportation) get from seeing your facial expressions? What kind of human connection do you expect with strangers on public transportation? Believing the viewing of your face to be to the benefit of the public is narcissism unlike any other.
So what you write is really the basic truth: Try to contribute to the wellbeing of people around you. That shouldn't be so hard.
Coughing is not necessarily the problem. You can cough without having a respiratory disease, and respiratory disease can transmit without coughing.
It's impolite to ask.
> I also have never coughed on an airplane
lol, sure
I think it should also be something that cabin attendants can force you to do - if they notice you have cold/flu/Covid symptoms, and you are not wearing a mask, they should be allowed to bring a mask to you and ask you to wear it, and you shouldn't be allowed to say no.
And plenty is lost about a society that focuses more about preventing illness than just staying generally healthy. Smiling is good for you, engaging with your fellow humans, with full facial expressions available for communication and connection, are absolutely essential to a happy and fulfilling life.
While masks are far from 100% efficiency, they are still much much much better than doing nothing, while self-isolation for minor illnesses like a common cold is not in any way realistic.
Also, I'm explicitly not saying that we should always wear masks - the dangers of un-treatable, un-vaccinatable Covid (that 100% justified universal mask wearing) have passed. But, when you're sick and for various reasons have to be in closed spaces with others, wear a mask.
And before you say "I don't care if I pass my flu around.": Stay home /for your own sake/. What the fuck do you think is going to happen if your mild illness takes a turn for the worst right when you're overseas? I hope you have good traveller's insurance, or otherwise sufficient savings to afford medical and emergency care out of pocket.
Also, if you have mild respiratory symptoms (say, you're sniffling and your throat is a little sore), do you immediately go and run various tests to see what specific pathogen it is, or do you take some symptomatic treatment and go about your life? Why not add "and wear a mask outside" to that?
The irony is that the top 0.1% and the bottom 80% both have shit manners, and only when you make the top 20% act well and put on their shoes do you have something resembling civilization.
You can’t kick them off, you’re not going to get violent with them and coerce them so the only answer is turning the plane around if they don’t and how do you think the other passengers will react to that.
End of the day the rest of the world has moved on and no longer consider all this an issue and would rather just get on with their lives without inconvenience and yeah we can imagine a world where they have a bit more empathy for those that haven’t but I just don’t see how you can imagine that scenario playing out.
How do you think the mask mandates were enforced mid-flight when they were universal?
Also, everything in saying is already common practice in much of the world, especially in East Asia.
Smoking can.
Sorry! I skipped over the part where I was disturbed and disgusted at the fact that American had cut their filter expense by 80%. My friend's dad was not a smoker but was also appalled that the airline took that decision once they were free from the particulate strictures imposed by cigarettes, because he believed it made the air in the cabin filthy.
So, overlaying all of my angst about children and anti-smoking zealots, I do understand that we've all been thrown into this arena by corporations who have lowered my standard of living. Those corporations have, to be fair, raised the standard of living of people who fly with 3 sick kids to Hawaii, when from my perspective without massive credit they would be raising those kids in a coal mine. In a way, it's almost socialism.
If not less. My educated guess is they used to get changed more often than required due to clogging, and now they’re just changed based on some minimum required.
Have you ever lived with a smoker? My grandmother’s house used to have to be repainted every other year before her death. Do you think we just “greedily cut painting costs by 80%” because we repainted it once in ten years since, or might it have to do with walls yellowing due to particulate?
Where did you even hear about this specific number in how often they used to change their filters vs now? Do you have any idea what the reasons are for them changing filters, how they decide? What the minimum is? How they measure it?
You seem to not really even understand how air filtration works.
Do all the other particulates, e.g. viruses and bacteria, drop by 80%?
No? So what makes you think the filter needs to be changed 1/5th as often?
I don't have the full paper handy (and can't be bothered to look this up just for you) but the highlights should be enough for you on this one:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489...
If you were allowed to smoke on the plane then I should also be allowed to bring aboard my bucket of rotten fish.
[1] https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2012-08-14/airplane-bathr...