I would hope bathroom air would not flow out into the cabin, but the way these things go, if it saves a kg, it could happen. Most airlines added HEPA filtration if they didn’t already have it and some added UV-C disinfection lamps in the ductwork, so it’s likely the bathroom was the best place to isolate.
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AFAIK it all goes through HEPA filters? So as long as you have a physical barrier between you and the others (like a bathroom door), they should be fine.
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About 40% of cabin air is recirculated through Hepa filters. The rest is outside air from the engines.
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Plus that it seems she wore her mask even while in the bathroom, which is a good move.
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That’s always a good move in an airplane bathroom, pandemic or not
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Three masks, it appears
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What is wrong with the world that someone doing the responsible thing is news?
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Unpopular opinion: it’s very likely there was someone else spreading germs outside the bathroom, with the false negative rate of the tests used for air travel. So she made a conservative decision, but she didn’t necessarily reduce the spread of illness on that plane. And her fellow travelers have all by now had the chance to be vaccinated and chose to or chose not. So even if she did infect someone, the risk of serious consequences to those people is either very low or by choice, higher. So not really a moral issue either: it is no longer the job of vaccinated people who wear masks to go to extraordinary lengths to protect unvaccinated people.
Bravo, madame. But for all the people who would have (and already undoubtedly have) chosen differently, cool. We’re all doing the best we can here and the time has passed for extraordinary heroism.
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What I read…
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I believe it’s confirmed to live in animal populations, so that’s no longer true (I mean, in theory if you threw all the animals into individual cages too you could do it but that won’t work for obvious reasons.)
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Right? This sounds like the setup for a rom-com.
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Its more space than a coach class seat!
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Maybe it’s me, but I’m getting mixed messages here.
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It’s not a matter of popularity- it’s pretty factual that she reduced the risk of others on the flight. We know she was ill with COVID afterwards and that was confirmed by PCR testing by reporting and her postings.
We know that physically isolating reduces transmission. And besides having walls and a door between her and others and masking- we know that airline restrooms have a separate air source that is hepa filtered to hospital standards. And that the waste system operates on a vacuum system drawing air out of the enclosure, not into the passenger space.
She greatly reduced the chances of transmission to others. It was a real substantial reduction and I doubt any of us would have been sanguine about sitting next to her had she not so discomforted herself.
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Yep, this. Most importantly: she took personal action to greatly reduce the chances of her personal transmission to others. She knew for a fact she was positive, and knew for a fact that going back to her row would have put others at risk, and so she did the most responsible thing she knew how to do, which was isolate herself.
It’s a shame that her reward is going to be isolation in Iceland, which is truly one of the most magical places on the planet. Here’s hoping she gets to tack on another two weeks at the end of her quarantine so she can experience as much of it as possible. (Also, since we’re in the depths of winter, the good news is she can probably still see the aurora from her hotel.)
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I wasn’t talking about her transmitting the virus. She quarantined and didn’t transmit it, bravo.
But there was likely at least one, perhaps several, other passengers on that flight infecting people next to them. So her good manners didn’t change the outcome, which was “some people got off that plane, like all planes, infected”. If you use lateral flow tests taken 24 - 36 hours before boarding, there will be infectious people on planes, there’s no getting around that fact.
Travelling results in infections. Vaccination results in mild symptoms and very rare death. Declining vaccination occasionally results in death.
All I’m saying is, choose wisely: travel or don’t, vaccinate or don’t, sit in a bathroom for 5 hours or don’t.
But they did. First, you don’t know for certain there were contagious people on that flight besides her; negative PCR tests were required, not lateral flow tests. But more importantly, by quarantining, as @KathyPartdeux points out, this thoughtful teacher didn’t expose others unnecessarily on the flight, meaning fewer people infected. Unless your hypothesis is that she would only have exposed only the exact same people as your hypothetical other contagious passengers.
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It may well have changed the outcome for those who would have been seated next to her for hours - the cloud of aerosols is higher near the source even if the plane does have good circulation. Masks only reduce the possibility of transmission, making it take longer. They don’t eliminate it. By isolating in the bathroom she absolutely reduced the overall likelihood of transmission of the plane and more so to those who would have been next to her on the rest of the flight.
I’m really not getting your motivations in diminishing her level of personal responsibility. We need more of that, not more fatalism or more lack of personal responsibility.
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