A senior figure from Emirates airlines predicts that airline passengers will continue to wear face masks on flights for at least another 2 years.
Zack Zainal Abidin is the Senior Vice President of Emirates Group Security. He commented on Sunday at an aviation security conference, the Avsec Global Symposium, at Dubai’s JW Marriott Marquis Hotel.
“Covid is here to stay and it won’t change until it’s regarded as endemic rather than a pandemic,” Abidin was quoted in the UAE National News. “It used to be the case that the flu was regarded as a dangerous disease until it became part and parcel of life.
“It’s going to take some time before Covid-19 reaches that stage.”
It was when discussing international travel that the topic of masks arose.
“It’s going to be a while before the status of Covid-19 changes and there’s going to be at least two more years of people wearing masks,” he said.
Abidin continued that the pandemic has made for changes in ensuring passenger security. Fingerprint identification isn’t practical due to physical distancing, and current technology for facial recognition wasn’t developed to include wearing a mask.
Of course, no one likes to wear masks and the prospect of wearing them for that much longer probably isn’t something that anyone wants to think about. And granted, Mr. Abidin didn’t offer any scientific evidence for this prediction.
That being said, we know that it will be a while before Covid ends. Well, that is, if it ever does. It may never go away and simply evolve into something less dangerous. But until then, it will remain a danger to many for quite some time. So the aspect of continuing to wear masks in certain situations such as the enclosed space of an airplane, although disappointing, wouldn’t be very surprising.
Feature Image: Pixabay
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
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