Judging by the prolific coughers on my flight, it’s time to put the masks back on

The bag drop and security are accomplished in 15—20 minutes. The 10.30am flight is delayed by four hours — attributed to a “technical” problem by the airline rather like doctors attribute baffling symptoms to a “virus” — but what of it? No small children to entertain, no connecting flights to worry about, a bag of books to read. We’re on our holidays.

Furthermore, in one of those great technological innovations, passengers with the airline app were being updated about delays from about 5am. But most failed to check the app if they had one and the fear is too ingrained. Several said they would have turned up well before the appointed time anyway. Trained fear does that to people.

As an unprecedentedly infectious Covid variant surges, what that fear means in practice is hundreds of people gathered in proximity for at least six hours — two hours before the flight (probably more since the great chaos) plus the delays. Meanwhile, friends at the other end preparing to return on the same plane that evening are not even getting a whiff about delays. If our flight is going to be four hours late, then so is theirs obviously — and the airline has been aware of it since 5am. Yet the only updates they are getting are from us, by which point they are trapped airside.

The upshot is that they too are among hundreds of people crammed into tight spaces for more than six hours. Stuck in that small, clammy airport as an unprecedentedly infectious Covid variant surges.

This is not a moan about flight delays. Delays happen, delays are human, though a basic level of respect and courtesy would have allowed our friends a bonus four hours on the beach or at an outdoor cafe instead of a crowded departures/shopping area.

The more important point is that of the many hundreds of people crammed in those superspreader labs, an astonishingly tiny proportion were wearing masks.

When it was our turn to head home with around 12 mask-wearers on board, the plane had no sooner begun the ascent than it began to rock with the kind of comically hacking coughs that bellow Covid. They continued ceaselessly for the 4½-hour flight. Three marvellously uninhibited coughers in the row ahead had neither a mask nor a tissue between them.

After two years swerving Covid, it was no surprise when my antigen test showed an unmistakably dense black positive line.

It’s no big deal though, is it? If all the insta experts are right, it’s “just a cold”. And sure enough, I can still shuffle off the sofa to feed the dogs and take a shower even if the damn cough and bone tiredness are surprisingly more miserable than advertised. But even that is a vast improvement on a friend who is heading towards the end of a second week of woeful fevers and fatigue.

We face confinement until liberated by two consecutive days of clear antigen tests (for clarity, the friend reports that on the worst days, the antigen tests were negative). That means at least a week of cancelled work commitments and a long-awaited appointment deferred to God knows when.

The “just-a-cold” brigade are probably sniggering at the naivety. The alternative obviously was to stay schtum, turn up for the hospital consultation, take the cat to the vet, moderate the live audience discussion, among other things, while knowingly breathing Covid at everyone around me.

That would mean ignoring the reality of the thousand people in Irish hospitals with Covid, a rise of nearly 20 per cent in a week. Or the shocker that almost a third of those infected with the virus are getting long Covid, with up to one in 20 of all patients still “disabled” a year later, according to a real expert, Prof Jack Lambert at the Oireachtas Health Committee last week.

At least some of the prolific coughers on my flight last week must have had a suspicion that they had Covid. No one would judge them for simply wanting to get home. What is much less forgivable is the conscious, deliberate choice not to wear a mask.

Cabin crew entitled to a safe working environment may be wondering if such selfish indifference should be a tolerable part of the job. This week Aer Lingus had to cancel several transatlantic flights because of crew sickness. These are just the public manifestations of the damage being caused by the bewildering averting of eyes at all levels.

Last Sunday the Department of Health reissued advice for people to wear face masks on public transport. That includes planes presumably — and buses, where it is also widely ignored.

Ingrained fear impels us to turn up hours early for flights, yet in a country heaving with complaints about the health service, we boast no fear at all of a miserable, unpredictable illness we could control to some degree.

In fact, we choose not to try, resolutely. It’s even worse than that. Note that line in the department’s advice: “Anyone who wishes to continue wearing masks should not be discouraged from doing so”. Who are we?

I need to lie down now.