The World Health Organization is recommending that countries re-institute masking on long haul flights, tying the policy to the XBB.1.5 subvariant of Covid-19 and should apply to “passengers arriving from anywhere where there is widespread COVID-19 transmission”.
WHO does not, however, indiscriminately recommend pre-departure testing for Covid-19, which underscores a supposition that,
- testing is costly and arduous
- while masking is effortless (many long haul airline passengers would disagree)
It was unclear if XBB.1.5 would cause its own wave of global infections. Current vaccines continue to protect against severe symptoms, hospitalisation and death, experts say.
“Countries need to look at the evidence base for pre-departure testing” and if action is considered, “travel measures should be implemented in a non-discriminatory manner,” Smallwood said.
That did not mean the agency recommended testing for passengers from the United States at this stage, she added.
There are two ways masks might protect against spread of disease.
- You wear a high quality mask correctly and it may reduce your likelihood of inhaling a virus.
- Other people wear quality masks correctly and it may reduce the virus they emit if they’re infected.
Lower-quality masks that in most places have met requirements do little to prevent emitting or inhaling of virus. They were performative.
Without a mask mandate, anyone who wishes to protect themselves can wear a properly-fitted N95 (or P100!) mask.
Whether a mask mandate makes sense is less about whether any given passenger might be protected from others (and remember, most might protect themselves) and more about whether the flight itself is likely a superspreader event and the extent to which that matters for public health systems, whether it means that the virus is more likely to mutate and whether a flight is bringing the virus into a place where it’s not already spreading rapidly.
In a country free of Covid-19, where hospital systems could be easily overwhelmed, and coupled with intense restrictions on indoor gatherings throughout the rest of life (say, bars and restaurants and offices) along with testing and quarantine of new arrivals, mandatory mask regimes might make sense if the threat is a great one.
Against a backdrop where the number of people arriving by air represent a drop in the bucket of infections, against a backdrop of immunity and where few other precautions are being mandated, it makes less sense.
This is a temporary measure, which airlines initially introduced on their own outside of mandates in order to make passengers more comfortable flying. Maybe individual passengers didn’t want to wear masks, but they preferred seeing everyone else masked.
China certainly shows the problem of temporary measures that become near-permanent stopgaps, without taking interim steps. China didn’t sufficiently expand hospital capacity and import the best quality vaccines and treatments. When their Covid protection regime fell, the virus spread like wildfire in a mostly immunologically naive population.
What would most of the world be doing while they try to limit virus spread with the band aid of masking, but only on long flights? And does this recommendation make it more or less likely that the World Health Organization will successfully influence public health policy?
who cares?
They have zero credibility and even the airlines don’t care
I’ll do that once they test illegals pouring across the border.
Please stop repeating this nonsense. We know, with 100% scientific certainty, two things: 1) masks worn by the general public are not effective in controlling the spread of Covid-19, which aligns with all scientific research done before this pandemic begain regarding the spread of respiratory viruses; 2) airplanes are not “hotspots” for the spread of Covid.
You’d have to be living in a cave not to realize these things at this point. Two million Americans fly everyday, the vast majority of them unmasked. How many people do you hear ever blaming their airplane flight for contracting Covid? Just randomly, you”d expect there to be many such people, even if their flight wasn’t the cause of their infection!
Two, we have 3 years of data from around the world now about Covid spread. Places that wear masks all the time have no better results than countries that don’t’ wear masks at all. No country has ever prevented a Covid wave by masking.
So, for the love of all that is good, please stop repeating witchcraft claims. Masks don’t work. They do nothing. Just live normally.
The COVID-19 virus is 0.125 microns and even N95 masks only filter down to 0.3 microns.
They are inefficient.
Surely someone at the WHO is aware of this?
To Doug, chopsticks, & HeckFarr:
A Men in spades!!!
A desperate, and one hopes, futile, attempt to be relevent.
This gets posted on Reddit and the basement dwellers on there start salivating at the thought of mandates coming back. They couldn’t believe masks aren’t being worn and that they are in the great monitory. Some even think everyone will die if they don’t adapt and wear masks forever. Unfortunately some of these people make decisions so should the government be successful next week I think the Biden admin might actually try to do it. Of course it would face massive pushback but that hasn’t stopped them before.
Its mind blowing how masks coming back isn’t even a thought in many European countries but a certain political party in the US has latched on to mandates despite their golden child counties like Japan have faced the same massive Covid waves as everyone else. Only reason deaths are lower is because they’re not obese with 6 pre existing conditions like most Americans. It’s like some people just can’t fathom that just maybe masks didn’t have this big effect that they were promised.
@chopsticks ” Masks don’t work. They do nothing. ” Most of your comment is accurate, but this conclusion is not. If ‘masks work’ means 100% effective, then sure they’re not. But it’s not correct to say that high quality masks, correctly worn, “do nothing.” Get yourself a P100 mask. They work, as in reduce risk.
@Gary – Is there a list of airlines or countries that still require masking? I was a giant proponent of mandatory masking on flights for the 2020/2021 but at this point enough is enough.
“Get yourself a P100 mask. They work, as in reduce risk.”
Ooh, look at Gary. “I’ll show you chopsticks, I’ll create a biased, perfect scenario to “prove” your conclusion is wrong. I believe this qualifies as a case of “stacking the deck”.
@HeckFarr The standard a N95 mask needs to meet is 95% of particles of 0.3 microns. That doesn’t say it filters 0% of particles of 0.125 micron, just that it’s not tested for that size particle. It also doesn’t mean that every Covid bacteria in the wild is by itself and not in a bigger nasal secretion that is likely to be filtered by a N95 mask. The biggest problem with N95 masks is inadequate fitting. It was disappointing to see TV news personal using an expensive and scarce N95 mask with huge gaps around the mask. They made their N95 masks into N5 masks.
As far N95 effectiveness against catching Covid, it’s hard to run an effective trial, both because it’s impossible to double blind, and it’s hard to monitor usage, both for wearing and fit. But, given poor fitting and compliance, I doubt WHO’s recommendation will be effective in reducing transmission. At this point positions are very firm on wearing masks on both sides, and it’s really about personal values. Mandates on this particular virus are not going to be effective, and will make future pandemic responses more difficult. If WHO had made a recommendation to individuals instead of recommendations for countries, it would be more respected.
Flew DXB-DPS in Dec on Emirates. They announced Indonesia required masking on planes. Everyone pretty much ignored them.
Flew around Indonesia on local carriers, nada a word about “required” masking.
Flew back DPS-DXB, the magic masking requirement never mentioned.
lolol.
As if any of these agencies or experts have any credibility.
There is no chance, in my generation, that anyone with a brain will care what WHO/CDC/FDA say again.
I’d rather do the opposite, it’s safer at this point.
@gary leff — Only a hysterical fool would walk around with a P100 mask. Would they prevent you from getting Covid? I doubt it, but I don’t expect a RCT on it. In the end, you need immunity, and you’re not going to get that from wearing a respirator (or from the “vaccines” that are being pedaled). Covid is now just a tiny risk of being alive. You will almost certainly die of something else. Live while you can, and don’t let fear of invisible things run your life.
Why do I get the strong feeling that all y’all geniuses who seriously believe that masks don’t work are the same organ donors who refuse to wear a motorcycle helmet?
The problem is that you people who catch COVID are just a tax on society. At least when a motorcyclist cracks his dome on a bridge abutment another 4-6 people might have their lives saved, so some good comes from their stupidity.
Instead, call for a fight against obesity. Obese people end up in intensive care. Also recommended for men. Women do not need it unless they are obese or 60+