Note: This article pertaining to Why This Video is Nothing to Sneeze At… was originally published on Thursday, November 6, 2014 at 1:29 in the afternoon and has been updated.
What happens to the germs which are expelled from the mouth of a passenger aboard an airplane when he or she sneezes? Do the germs simply dissipate before they disappear?
Why This Video is Nothing to Sneeze At…
According to the video of a computer simulation of a sneeze aboard an airplane, the droplets can spread quite far and affect as many as ten other passengers in the surrounding area of the person who sneezed.
However — as you probably already know — the risk of catching the flu or similar infections during a flight aboard an airplane may not be as high as you think.
A number of incidents in which diseases are transmitted are known; but many more incidents exist in which the transmission of diseases are not known — and why that is the case is still not known to this day. Getting sick from someone else on an airplane is obviously possible; but given the number of people who fly aboard airplanes and the relative infrequency of it, it is not something over which one should worry about obsessively.
You already know at least one reason why from reading The Gate With Brian Cohen: I keep espousing practicing proper hygiene — including in this article from Wednesday, November 5, 2014 which pertained to catching the Ebola virus — which includes properly washing your hands thoroughly…
…and that you also know at least of one way on how to suppress a sneeze if and when it is absolutely necessary from reading The Gate With Brian Cohen certainly does not hurt.
On my unintentional trip around the world in 2014, I had been coughed on, yawned on, and sneezed on — well…I lost count of how many times — in at least eight countries…
…and yet I felt just fine — not a cough and nary a sniffle.
Final Boarding Call
Since this article was published exactly eleven years ago, I had been coughed on, yawned on, and sneezed on literally hundreds of times as I traveled to dozens of countries around the world — even during the 2019 Novel Coronavirus pandemic — and I still have not contracted an illness as a result.
The reason is not because I have this exceptionally amazing immune system, as I used to get sick on a regular basis like many other people typically do. Practicing proper hand washing and ensure that sensitive parts of my body — such as my eyes, nose, mouth and ears, for example — are not infected by my fingers or affected parts of my body until they are washed after the sneeze or cough or yawn from someone else.
It works for me — and it can possibly work for you as well.
Photograph ©2023 by Brian Cohen.
