Suspension of mask mandate adds to my anxiety

Immunocompromised travelers fear for our lives

A federal judge 1,200 miles from me just decided that my first flight since the pandemic started would be a risk to me.

I have multiple sclerosis and am on treatment for it, so I’m one of the 3% of Americans who are immunocompromised. Even before the pandemic, I used to wear a mask on planes because if I caught a cold, it would last for several weeks. But now, studies show that immunocompromised people don’t respond well to the vaccines, we have a higher risk for hospitalization and death, and our isolation period if we get COVID- 19 is longer – making us at risk for mental health complications, job loss and spread to our families and to our communities.

I’m a little confused and a lot disheartened by U. S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s miserable decision to suspend the transportation mask mandate.

I’ve been living and working from my house since March 2020. I’m a pediatrician and have learned to work via telehealth – something I never would have anticipated before the pandemic. I love the ability to still meet with families and talk about how to keep their kids healthy, and to guide them when they are not. And I love teaching our trainee physicians at the hospital, as well as the research I do.

After being vaccinated and boosted, and receiving an extra medication because I don’t have antibodies despite all that, I was supposed to go to Denver last weekend to attend our big Academic Pediatric Association meeting, and talk about those families, trainees and the research. I was thrilled when organizers decided attendees would be masked, and I was excited when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week decided to extend the mask requirement for public transportation until May 3.

Instead, I flew to Colorado in a state of anxiety. I went to the airport, I got on a plane and I had to breathe other people’s air through my N95 mask. While it is a terrific mask, it carries the label “95” for a reason. It filters out 95% of stuff – but you still have 5% left, some of which carries viral particles.

People will say that there’s great ven

tilation on planes, that most people don’t have COVID- 19, that my wearing of the mask will cut my risk. That’s all somewhat true.

But the ventilation isn’t perfect – a sneeze or cough will spread through multiple rows. And rates of infection have been rising again; we are up 51% in the past two weeks.

While wearing my mask is helpful, it certainly isn’t as good as the sick person near me wearing theirs. The Pee Test is a great analogy – it’s better to keep the particles out of the air in the first place.

The Americans With Disabilities Act may help people like me. It requires that governmental organizations and companies make reasonable accommodations to their practices, policies, and procedures to allow people with disabilities to partake equally and safely of the services that they provide.

Which may mean, for example, that the next time I fly, my air carrier should ensure that people in my plane row as well as those in the three rows in front of me and behind me wear masks. It may mean that the airports require people to wear masks when moving about, and that there are “masked and vaccinated” zones for people like me while we are awaiting our flights. And when I get to my destination, that I am assured there will be masking in the public transit system I rely on, which almost certainly has worse air handling than the plane.

But the wheels of justice turn slowly, and there was no way to get a reasonable accommodation for my trip.

So, for me and for the other 3% of your fellow Americans: Please do get tested and wear a mask if you are sick. And if you fly, please consider wearing a mask even without the mandate, because the odds are, one of us is on your plane, and we want to live both through that flight and after it.

MATT ROURKE/ AP Travelers wear masks last week at the Philadelphia airport.