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By Thomas J. Moore Unfortunately, too many of us have had an experience similar to this one: Florence and Gerald Berman, now retired, were in Florida last February, and boarding a plane to fly home to their condominium in Old Georgetown Village, North Bethesda. Like most flights these days, it was crowded. "When we sat down," she said, "We heard people hacking and coughing all over the plane. And one of them was very close to us. I turned to my husband and said, 'Guaranteed we're going to get sick.'" Two days later, it was abundantly clear Florence Berman was right. "We both got sick together for the first time in 42 years. We both wanted hot tea while we were sick. |
But who was going to get it? So it turned out nobody got the tea. When you have a fever over 102 degrees you don't feel very good." The modern commercial airliner ranks among the most effective instruments available to promote the spread of upper respiratory infections, rivaled only by military barracks and classrooms when school opens. Every flight involves people from all over the world, packed into the most tightly enclosed space that strangers normally occupy together, and then provided with reduced fresh air ventilation. And if the airline manufacturers and ventilation engineers get their way, the already limited aircraft fresh air supply may be cut still further. | ||
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