Enclosed Airliners and Recycled Air – A Breeding Ground for Disease?
How bad is the air in airliners? Is it as bad as they say it is? Apparently, the answer is yes, it is pretty bad. Not long ago, our think tank addressed this issue – the question presented was: Is the confined space of huge airliner cabins a breeding-ground for ‘flu and if so, does it assist in forming new mutations? Let’s discuss this shall we?
One of our think tankers told us a personal story from someone who travels a lot; “One of my fittest girlfriends has been languishing under something similar since early December. Since divorce, she flies OS a lot on trips, and her ex-husband did same and was frequently sick on his return.”
What do I think about this? Well, here is my reply to this topic. Yes, absolutely, re-circulated air. Even if there is a water barrier, some challenges come from water borne bacteria, it’s a huge problem. It’s not good, but in some regards being exposed to all that minus the TB types which are untreatable, it exposes people to small portions of other things and thus, heightens their immune systems, which is often needed for those of us who live in first-world rather sterile environments.
One of the problems is mixing first world with third world travelers, and the aircraft go everywhere, often the same aircraft. Domestic cross country in the US and then once they hit NY, SF, LA, they fly across the oceans. I am also deeply concerned with Cruise Ship water supply and air-conditioning systems. Also hospitals with recirculated air through water filters and the enclosed environment not allowing fresh air microbes to get in, thus more chances for MRSA etc.
Indeed, I have written a ton about these issues, and study the CDC research on it, and am up on the FLU, virus vectors and virus travels, our world is not as safe as we might be led to believe with everything so connected, even remote regions, as you can get nearly anywhere on the planet in 2-3 days – almost anywhere, with the exception of only a few places and extremely remote regions, and usually those remote regions are such for a reason; aka: not an easy place to live for human life. This is REALLY serious stuff.
So, what is being done to fix this problem? Well, a lot actually, recently there was an interesting TEDTalk put out titled: “How germs travel on planes — and how we can stop them,” by Raymond Wang who happens to only be 18-years old, he used fluid dynamic computer modeling to study what happens to the germs when someone coughs or sneezes in an aircraft cabin. He’s designed a system that will get rid of 99.98% of the germs, while preventing germs from traveling from one person sick who is sitting right next to someone else.
Maybe in the future, this will no longer be a problem. Problem solved!
