Why Delta Air Lines' health chief thinks the airplane mask mandate will soon be lifted

[Dial H For Hero]

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/30/deltas-health-chief-thinks-the-plane-mask-mandate-will-soon-be-lifted.html

Delta Air Lines Chief Health Officer Henry Ting said that he believes that the federal mask mandate for airports and airplanes will be lifted on “April 18th or shortly thereafter.”

Speaking at CNBC’s Healthy Returns event on Wednesday, Ting said that while he does not know if the mandate will come down on April 18, the CDC, TSA, and the White House are all “looking closely at this” and will “certainly provide a roadmap.”

“We’ve always known from the beginning of the pandemic that all restrictions should be lifted as soon as it’s safe to do so,” Ting said, adding that there is a transition occurring right now from “a global pandemic to a seasonal respiratory virus.”

Ting, a renowned cardiologist who was named Delta’s first chief health officer in January 2021, said that amid the pandemic, the airline’s efforts around air ventilation, cleaning, and masking have resulted in “few if any outbreaks that could be attributed to a flight.”

(Excerpt)

Works for me.

[hlthe2b]

1. Personally, I'm not sure I'll ever fly without a mask again. I had years of URTIs after even

brief shuttle flights. Beyond the jetlag, arriving overseas with a respiratory infection when you need to be at your best-- is miserable. People are infectious disease vectors--that's the bottom line. So when I'm stuck sucking the same recycled air in that narrow metal tube for hour upon hour, somehow a good mask doesn't seem so hard a choice.

[Blues Heron]

2. by seasonal I think he means spring, summer, fall, and winter - and maybe mud

which of those hasn’t seen a wave? Anyway good luck I guess, BA.2 is here, seems like a small scrap of cloth wouldn’t be that big of a deal but I guess it is for some people.

[Arazi]

3. Scrapping the airline/airport mask mandate is a no-brainer

Americans don’t give a shit about their fellow citizens dying in droves. Biden needs to just scrap it. He’ll get an immediate bump in the polls.

The rest of us will continue masking because we care about each other/want to live. The biggest downside are those who are susceptible to the virus will be in bigger jeopardy but make no mistake, those mask mandates are going away and soon