“It really shows how society looks at our most vulnerable.”
Brooke Tansley was flying from Connecticut to Los Angeles with her two children, a 4-year-old and an 8-month-old, when the pilot announced masks could be removed. It worried her immensely — neither of her children are old enough to be vaccinated, and the younger one is too young to wear a mask.
Had she known the mask mandate would end in the middle of their flight, Tansley said they likely wouldn’t have flown at all. She and her husband are now considering driving across the country instead of taking their scheduled return flight. “I could hear the excitement in the pilot’s voice, and I can empathize with him — I know it has to have been very difficult to be in a very high-pressure job in cramped quarters and wearing a mask,” Tansley told BuzzFeed News, adding that she refrained from vocalizing her frustrations on board because she feared it would put her family in an unsafe position.
Even though airplanes have efficient ventilation and filtration, experts say coronavirus infection is still possible because passengers sit in close proximity to one another for long periods of time — a risk that’s greater now without mask orders in place. The same concept applies to other modes of public transport, like buses and trains.
A CDC spokesperson told BuzzFeed News via email that the agency “continues to recommend that people wear masks in indoor public transportation settings at this time.”
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