On 2 Nov 2004 16:44:09 -0500, David Combs wrote:
Gotta take a 3-hr flight in a few days.

Settng the stage: they say this year's flu might end up being
*very* dangerous -- that plus unavailability of the vaccine --
pus being 62.


So, suppose there's people on-board horribly sneezing and coughing,
expelling all kinds of (flu-) stuff into the air.

What with the super-low fresh-air input in these planes
[CEO says: **** the customers -- we gotta save money on the fuel
that'd be needed if we were to have better turnover of cabin-air --
*else* I don't get my $30million bonus (just my usual ****ty
$10million!)]
, and thus all that stuff's being circulated and recirculated
and recirculated and recirculated ad nauseum in and out of our lungs.


It all makes you (well, me) wonder what one can do to
ameleoriate the hazard (other than staying home!).

Well, a few years I got from HD a:

"AOSafety Multi-Purpose respirator".

Fits over nose and mouth, with two cannisters.

Never did open it -- it's still in that wraparound plastic thing it
(and so many other things these days) comes in. So it should
be "like fresh-off-the-HD-shelf".

Anyway, any (expert?) opinions about its anti-flu effectiveness?

----

And, if not this model (holes in filter too big to stop
flu-carrying stuff?), then *which* model?

(Clearly, viruses are super-tiny, but when people sneeze, etc,
they don's expel jillions of single independently-flying viruses,
but much bigger things that the viruses are on or within.)


Regardless if whether or not it's effective;

Do you REALLY think that you're going to be allowed to bring,
much less use, something on an airplane that looks like you might
be expecting to need protection against a biological and/or
toxic material threat?

I'm guessing you'd be staring at some institutional green
walls for quite a few hours, discussing the matter with friendly
government employees. ;-)

- Rich