rickfromla

Seriously, what planet are you living on? This is a travel forum...

MarcusP

And this is a discussion about how to address the problem of travelers negligently (or, as other posters have made clear, maliciously) putting other travelers at risk by failing to take basic safety precautions. The facts are not at issue, "what planet are you on" dismissiveness notwithstanding.

The question is how to best respond when another traveler jeopardizes safety. The best answer I've seen yet is to bring the issue to the cabin crew's attention. That this may be socially uncomfortable is beside the point, as is the fact it violates pre-2020 social norms, because today this is a safety issue.

rickfromla

With all due respect, I do not, have not, and will not fly sick. There are hundreds of reasons why someone will sneeze or cough or clear their throats on an airplane. Sitting with a boom microphone waiting to strap a mask on someone the second their throat tickles means you have a sickness that is worse than covid. In my experience traveling through the pandemic (200 plus flights) the people that make the most noise about what OTHER people are doing have at least 3 visible co-morbidities themselves. People need to get back to taking care of themselves (mix in a workout and a salad) and start minding their own business- get a pair of noise cancelling headphones and a book about something not covid.
If someone coughs in your face that's another story, but if you're sitting in 3A complaining to the flight attendant about the person who may have sneezed, coughed, and/or farted in seat 12B you need a therapist.
And I did say with all due respect...

fransknorge

MarcusP post was in answer to someone writing he will deliberately cough in the face of people if he does not like how they look. [mod edit]
Not about people farting 10 rows away.

Badenoch

A cough is a symptom of many things. There are also other symptoms of COVID that aren't as noticeable and many infected people are asymptomatic. For all you know the passenger got tested before the flight and is negative.

Nevertheless you want to offer a mask and then exchange personal information with a request to contact you if they get COVID. Were I on the receiving end I'd refuse both the offer and the request in no uncertain terms.

If you "need to be careful" and are frightened to the point that someone coughing would cause you to scurry off a flight if the door is still open then perhaps commercial flying and other forms of mass transit are not for you just yet.

MarcusP

Much of the progress in air transport safety over the past few decades has been via curtailing the influence of social pressures on decision making. "I don't want to seem scared/silly/worried", "I don't want to be ridiculed", "he might get mad if I say something", and "I guess he knows what he's doing" are natural impulses that have to be trained out of aircrews when making safety decisions. So it's disheartening to see the the argument against taking pandemic safety precautions being framed using exactly those dysfunctional social pressures.

We're in a pandemic where on the order of 1% of the population at all of our Western air hubs are infectious today, and where around 20% of the infected will go on to suffer Long Covid effects. This is a magnitude of risk which would be imperatively addressed if it occurred at the level of aircraft design/manufacturing, aircraft maintenance, or flight operations. On-board infection-control precautions are safety measures, and need to be addressed as such, which means being aware of and overcoming the all-too-familiar social pressures to ignore them.

WeekendTraveler

But that was before a respiratory virus killed millions of people and face masks became common.

Basic courtesy is to wear a mask if you are potentially spreading germs through coughing.

Silver Fox

Prove this part of the equation for the benefit of the thread: cough in the face of people

Badenoch

Anytime someone coughs for any reason they are "potentially spreading germs." Those who continue to live in terror of COVID and stand ready to shove masks at people who cough and demand that they be contacted if the cougher tests positive should perhaps go back into lockdown and isolation. Imposing on people who don't share their fears is well outside the bounds of "basic courtesy."

the810

I believe planes weren't even invented before "a respiratory virus killed millions of people".

I don't travel to places where face masks are common. I'm very respectful towards local social norms and stay away from places where masks are commonly worn, even if not legally required (although I don't know many places in the western world where masks would be worn by the majority when not compulsory - Germany is the only one that comes to my mind and even that seems to be improving).