You know what’s Crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
I’d be like a mad fire fighter trying to extinguish a towering infrerno of influenza.
abc news tried to cover this story. Charlie Gibson stared blankly into the teleprompter asking me in the lead: What are the chances you will get sick when you fly?
The reporter interviews an engineer who tells me that when a sick person coughs, droplets spread outward. The animation shows a passenger expectorating a fine mist of death across row after row.
It looks like a nuclear blast of microbiology.
According to abc; 15 minutes later, the germs from this passenger travel 15 rows away. There is exposure potential to the other flyers, but that doesn’t necessarilly mean you get sick, they say. But it also means there’s a real good chance you could get sick.
The report then focuses on air circulation in the cabin.
According to abc ; the cabin environment in a jet-liner is cleaner than the air you breathe on the ground. The cabin air is reportedly refreshed 15 -20 times per hour which is better than your home, your office, or the swine flu breeding ground of North America: your neighborhood schools.
I talked to the lady featured in that report. She is the General Counsel for the Air Transport Association. She tells me that 50 percent of the air is brought in from outside the aircraft. She says that air at that altitude is as pure as you can get. The air is brought in through the engines and it is forced through HEPA filters, similar to the kind used in hospitals. The cleansed air is then mixed with recirculated air in the cabin that is also forced through the industrial strength filter. This air is pumped back into the fuselage row by row.
Even though airlines claim the air is safer at 36,000 feet than it is at your work station, they realize perception is reality. So airlines are stocking up on gloves and masks for employees. They provide wipes and cleasing sanitizer at gates so passengers can be healthier or at least feel healthier.
I don’t know if I buy the claim that the air in a plane is safer than the air in my office. In my office I am not belted down and fighting the guy next to me for elbow room. His sneeze isn’t my next potential breath. At work, I rarely walk up to a co-worker and sneeze in his mouth. Though there are some co-workers who need a good dose of crazy contamination.
Have some swine you co-worker pain in the ass!”
I found this report on YAHOO NEWS:
DATELINE; WASHINGTON Airlines are stowing pillows and blankets, and rolling out the disinfectant wipes to discourage transmission of the swine flu virus, all the while stressing planes are as “safe” as trains or schools.
Personally I wouldn’t say anything is as safe as a school. That’s like saying this boat with holes in the hull is sea worthy.
“The airplane is a vehicle for transmission,” said William Schaffner, head of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University medical school.
I spoke with Dr. Schaffner as well. He is an easy going guy with a quick wit and not one to fan the flames of fear. He tells me that he basically believes airlines are doing all they can to purify cabin air. He says influenza is an airborn virus. That means you can’t catch swine flu from sitting on a seat cushion. According to my grandmother you can get pregnant this way, but that is another story for another time.
According to this world reknowned infectious disease doctor, Influenza is heavy and it doesn’t float in the air very long. It only has time to contaminate people around the infected individual.
That’s reassuring huh?
When you stuff a bunch of sniveling, chrotling, gurgling, disgustingly sick passengers into a narrow fuselage and then latch the doors shut, you are just asking for trouble. You might as well shove a ham sandwich laced with H1N1 into my mouth and use a plunger to ram it into my blood stream.
To combat contamination, some airlines like Southwest are doing away with blankets and pillows.
Dr. Schanffner tells me that you breathe in Swine Flu and you cannot catch it from arm rests and pillows. But once again, perception is reailty. if the perception is Swine Flu exists in the headrest, then clean the headrest. Perception is reality.
Meanwhile a growing number of airlines are charging me extra to put a 2nd suitcase in the bottom of the plane. I think that’s extortion! But you know what I would pay extra for? A diving helmet complete with port holes that affords me all the visibility of a hammer head shark.
I don’t care about visibility. I care about pure air. I want my own personal air compressor filling my own personal lungs with my own personalized fresh clean O2. Make my air mint flavored, Winter Green, anything that doesn’t reek of swine or bubonic contamination.
Hold the nuts Southwest, just bring me some purified air that nobody will breathe but me.
Once again, to quote the Air Transport Association (ATA)
“The air inside an airplane is completely exchanged with outside air 10 to 15 times per hour. The air in the average office building is exchanged only once or twice per hour,” the ATA stresses.
“We want people to understand that if you do travel there is no greater risk of traveling by air than there is going to school or work using public transportation,” the association says.
Do you trust that? The ATA represents the airline industry?
It would be like asking the American Hot Dog Association to be honest when asked; will eating Oscar Meyer products expedite visits to the restroom?
My advice :If you don’t have to fly, don’t. If you don’t have to get sick, don’t. If you don’t have to breathe in an airplane, don’t.
Anyone for a diving helmet?
Now that is crazy.