By the way, over the years I have been sneezed on, slobbered on, thrown up on, sweated on, and even bled on by fellow passengers on commercial airline flights. I have never personally had sexual relations with anyone on a commercial airline flight but I know people who have. Explain to me again how safe commercial airline flights are from a communicable disease standpoint.
I still don’t think there’s reason to panic but I do think we should recognize that public announcements are still getting far out in front of the known facts. To the best of my knowledge there aren’t any particularly good studies of disease transmission among the passengers of commercial airlines. One of the complications is that diseases have incubation periods and if you get sick three weeks after flying you might not attribute it to that guy who sneezed on your tray.
I’m fairly certain that anyone who flew with Duncan to Texas and then comes down with Ebola will attribute it to him.
I really can’t tell why America is being mentally crippled by this virus. If I was a health-care worker I would be terrified of working on someone who is suffering from it. I would be mentally preparing right now for that possibility. Otherwise–no one who flew Duncan got it. No one who lived with him has come down it, apparently. So it’s terrifying but understandable as a virus. We should be doing everything possible to halt the ballooning of it in W. Africa rather than getting fixated on it in America.
I’m guessing you know people who CLAIMED they had sex on a commercial airliner. As they say these days, “Pictures, or it didn’t happen.”
We need a PSA from Samuel L. Jackson stating, “Get this motherfucking Ebola off this motherfucking plane” to air at the start of each flight, right after the emergency procedure & barf bag announcements. At least it would get a laugh, and it can’t be less effective than current air travel screening procedures.
Remind me not to sit next to Dave on the plane, sounds disgusting.
Also, don’t sit next to this guy:
“Gerard Depardieu’s entourage has said he tried to urinate into a bottle “as discreetly as possible” while on a flight, and said he was “sorry” to have spilt some on the plane’s carpet.”
Things could get pretty rowdy on flights in the old days, particularly on the NASA contractors’ circuit (Chicago-DC-Miami-Huntsville-Houston-Chicago).
Hmm. I don’t ever recall having been urinated (or defecated) on during a commercial air flight. At least there’s that.
Am I the only one troubled by Schuler stating that he _can’t_recall_ being urinated or defecated upon? As though acknowledging that it may have happened without his knowledge?
Exactly how many of those little bottles of booze do you drink on a flight?!!?
There are a lo tot studies on disease transmission on planes (and airports too). WHO summation of studies at link. Studies behind paywall suggest that there are no recorded cases of TB contracted from air travel. SARS spread rapidly at first on airlines, but once they started screening there were no more cases found.
http://www.who.int/ith/mode_of_travel/tcd_aircraft/en/
Steve
Hand waving here, but I’d expect that planes are about as clean (or as dirty) as most other forms of commercial transport. The exception might be in ground travel, you’re pretty much breathing the same air as everyone else for the whole trip, and the air is pretty much the same as well. For instance, smoke a cigarette in a car and the odor can linger for days. I’ve got the impression that cabin air on a plane is filtered and exchanged much more frequently, which probably ought to reduce airborne infections.
But I might be wrong. Call this my 1 cent bet.