Passenger travelling whilst really ill

[Notjustanother]

Took a flight to Berlin last week. Woman next to me was coughing the entire flight; deep phlegmmy cough and spitting stuff up. Clearly should have been in bed. It was grim. As a minimum she should have been wearing a mask.

Five days later I felt very ill, and tested positive for Covid. A former colleague who also happened to be on the flight, sitting in front of this woman, has also tested positive.

Since then I have lost half a stone in weight, been horrendously ill and am having difficulty breathing. Today we were supposed to be going away for a much looked forward to half term holiday, we have had to cancel and pay the £200 insurance excess.

The woman was on a mini break with her husband, but did some work on the flight. She works for a law firm.

Would I be unreasonable to contact the law firm and complain - especially as she was working for them during the flight. I have her name.

I am furious that her rank selfishness has made me (and others on the flight) so ill. There could be no doubt that she was going to infect others on the flight, and must have known that there was a high risk that she had Covid.

I think she needs to be made accountable for her actions, or at the very least be made aware of how her actions have affected others. AIBU?

It feels so unfair when others willfully spread their germs around.

However, that's par for the course with air travel. It sounds like there's a good chance you may well have caught from her. But you may have been exposed to covid multiple times throughout the airport and plane, so if it wasnt for her then it's hardly a guarantee that you'd be healthy right now (plus it's not clear that it's actually covid, I've had many a long chesty cough after a cold).

I'm prone to feeling resentful when this happens too, but it's just part of life unfortunately, and not a part you can account for or fix after the fact by getting annoyed. Re-frame your perspective: if being laid up in bed and missing a holiday is the what you have to cope with right now then that's very deal-with-able and really quite tame (in the grand scheme of problems).

Exactly this!! October to April for us! Non stop! As long as there are no fevers, and are generally feeling themselves, we get on with life!

There are multiple posts explaining that a cough doesn't necessarily mean someone is contagious. So we need to stop with the "wilfully spreading germs" nonsense.

Although it’s probable you caught it from this lady you can’t say for certain- covid (and other viruses eg flu) are a risk you take when in confined spaces with recirculated air.
You could have been sitting beside me on a bad day coughing phlegm and wheezy - but I have bronchiectasis which is sadly a permanent condition and isn’t infectious. I still go on holidays though!
My husband contracted covid almost certainly on a (work) flight and gave it to me but there’s no way you can travel and avoid the risk.

I’m utterly convinced this thread is a wind up.

So op made a mental note (or perhaps not mental - who knows?) of this person’s name, email address and the name of their employer just in case she needed that information to report the woman to her employer for giving her Covid, in the future?!

And as for op being a former corporate lawyer… 😂

You say you cannot believe posters don't think she should be "accountable for travelling when clearly very unwell". Accountable to who?? Who exactly do you think should be holding people to account for their personal decisions to go on holiday with a cough? Their employers? The airline they travel with? The Police?

You have no proof whatsoever that this woman had covid. She had a cough, that's all you know. Even if you're right (and it's a big if) and the cough was caused by covid, you have no proof that you caught it from her. She clearly felt well enough to go on holiday, and to get on with some work on the flight. In the real world most people would not even entertain the idea of cancelling a planned, paid-for and looked forward to holiday just because they had a bit of a cough.

Just seen you've emailed the woman accusing her of giving you covid. She will think you are totally and utterly unhinged. If I was her I would be genuinely disturbed by the fact that a stranger I happened to be sat next to on a short flight had felt the need to memorised my name and place of work, then searched for my contact details, let alone accusing me of making them unwell! This is not normal behaviour.

There is not point trying to reason with you, you are clearly beyond logic.

I have a cough which will last now for 3 or 4 weeks minimum. I know this because it happens every year. It sounds awful but I feel fine

People like you make me nervous about going out even though I need to work and I feel fine and I'm not infectious

Coughing up blood isn't actually a big deal...
Sweating is annoying but normal when unwell.
People genuinely too ill to even get out of bed and sit in a chair are usually too ill to be typing screeds on a forum.
I can't imagine you've lost 7lb in 5 days, the extremely few scenarios where that's the case would have had you unable to be on a flight going on holiday in the first place. Nor would you be at home in bed now.
Given the exaggeration of the rest of your symptoms I doubt you are having breathing difficulties (certainly not proper ones) and I now even doubt the rest of your posts.
Grow up. You've a bug. It passes in the majority of cases.

She hasn't reported her. She is venting on MN about her feelings.

Your response to me feels a bit harsh! I'm not saying this IS woman willfully spread germs (I do say in the post we don't actually know she has covid), I'm trying to acknowledg that it really does feel unfair when people spread germs about because they don't care about others getting ill. It does happen, and it does suck to be on the receiving end. It may or may not have happened here.

She hasn't reported her. She is venting on MN about her feelings.

She hasn't contacted the woman's employer YET. But OP hasn't let the grass grow under her feet. .

She claims to have emailed the supposed spreader already. I'd be worried about being accused of a disability hate crime (if the woman has a chronic, non-Covid related illness) or malicious communication but hey.

It's quite easy to remember email.addresses if they are easy and from a company you recognise. [email protected] easy.

Also 'no solicitor would behave that way' is utter bollocks. I know a solicitor who is in prison for fraud, he siphoned off a percentage of every probate he handled for 20 years. Solicitors are just people. Some good, some bad, some in between. OP is more likely to understand what she's reading with a legal background.

At least you weren't on the Delta flight with the explosive diarrhoea 🤢💩 That must have been horrendous for all involved. I hope you feel better soon.

No decent solicitor would behave this way. The man you mentioned was not a decent solicitor. He was struck off I'm sure. I'm not sure what your point was as the majority of solicitors don't behave that way.

Taking someone's email address and using it to threaten them after deliberately reading their documents.when they havent done anything wrong is not something a decent solicitor or human being would do.

If you get in a flight with 200 other people you accept the risk that some of them may have germs 😱 If you're not willing to accept that risk then don't fly.

I don't blame you for being furious op. Some people are so selfish as evidenced by some posters on this thread. Their attitude is that anyone who would be at risk from covid should stay at home and never go out for the rest of their lives so they don't have to be even slightly inconvenienced by staying home for a couple of days when ill. I hope Karma gets them.

A company has health and safety duties towards its employees. If they are feeling forced to work when on holiday, when ill or if both apply, then I would argue they are not meeting those duties. If they have not provided updated guidance since say the date all Covid restrictions were removed, I would argue that they have failed too.

There are legal entitlements to holiday which could be argued are not met if you are working on holiday.

There is a duty of confidentiality for the legal profession which appears to have been broken if in a public place where someone is in the proximity for about two hours, is being breached.

There may be requirements in German law for those arriving there which are different from the UK.

All grounds I feel could be used if the OP had wanted to negotiate say an amount of money to meet the insurance excess, or even a sum which would be donated to charity. Or just be difficult to the legal firm.

Which I think have all been lost by the OP emailing the unkind individual.

So what if you don't get a response? You can still make a complaint, I'm not sure I would but I wouldn't blame you if you did. YANBU. Sorry about your holiday.

Do you think she deserves having her documents read and her name and email address taken so the OP could actually email and threaten her?

Because that's what the OP did. Interesting you think that's what the person deserves.

Also karma won't get anyone: the word simply means action. Karma is not a moral justice system.

The person said they didn't believe she was a solicitor at all, not a decent solicitor. I'm saying nothing she has said precludes her from being legally trained. It doesn't make you a saint.

Many companies have confidentiality clauses that employees shouldn't work on sensitive documents in public. The onus is on the employee to keep it private, rather than the person sitting next to them not to read it.

There may be no onus on a random member of the public not to read a confidential document but there certainly is an obligation on a solicitor not to do so. The SRA requires us to act ethically in such circumstances and the correct response in such circumstances is to stop reading and let the other solicitor know that you have seen it. Same would apply if you were sent a document by email in error. You can’t just decide to read it and then use the contents for your own benefit (or even the benefit of your client). OP has certainly committed professional misconduct in her own right here.

I would love to know if OP gets a reply. I hope she is handed her arse on a plate (in very flowery legal language) hahahaha

Well exactly. I'm sure most of us have been sent a privileged document at one time or another in error. As soon as you realise what it is, you stop reading, delete it and tell the other side.

The OP is just next level.

WTF @Notjustanother
If you think I'm struggling with empathy issues then I certainly don't think - having read every one of your posts on this thread - that I'm alone.
Odd too that almost every other reply on here is criticising this batshit idea of yours to email this ill woman and her bosses and yet I'm the one you take it out on?

Not quite comparable. The vast majority of people with HIV in the U.K. are on effective medication and no risk to any sexual partners even without condoms. We have laws on this in England regarding transmission. Where it can’t be passed on there is no legal requirement to share status.
https://www.tht.org.uk/hiv-and-sexual-health/living-well-hiv/legal-issues/how-law-works