According To Experts, The Risk Of Transmitting COVID-19 On A Flight Is Less Than 1%
Thinking about how flights were “Pre-COVID”, it is easy to see why we all thought getting on a flight could be a very risky position to put ourselves in but according to experts, that might not be the case.
Definitely not “Unfounded” but the fear of flying borne out of the pandemic has drastically reduced air traffic globally. That, coupled with the border closures made flying seem like an impossible task but as the world reopens, scientists claim that our phobia for flying (solely in relation to COVID transmissions) could be unfounded.
Don’t get us wrong, there have been cases of infected passengers passing the virus on to an aeroplane’s crew or fellow travellers in recent months but the transmission rates are low. Take for instance this case; about 328 passengers and crew members were tested for coronavirus after it was learned that a March 31 flight from the US to Taiwan had been carrying 12 passengers who were symptomatic at the time. However, all the other passengers tested negative, as did the crew members.
According to experts, one possible explanation for the low risk is the air filtration system on aircraft. The air in modern aircraft cabins is replaced with fresh air approximately every two to three minutes and asides this, most planes are fitted with air filters designed to trap about 99.9% of particles, this means the air isn’t stagnant and doesn’t give enough room/time for the virus to travel.
In addition to this, new mandatory protocols have been implemented in the flying process. For instance, face masks are obligatory for both passengers and crew, temperature screenings as well as more intensive cabin cleaning now take place, a lot of airlines leave the middle seats empty to allow for some social distancing and some even limit movement in the cabin during flights.
According to CNN Travel in an interview with Arnold Barnett, a professor of statistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, while onboard a short flight, (and assuming everyone is wearing a mask) the risk of catching the virus on a full flight is just 1 in 4,300. Those odds fall to 1 in 7,700 if the middle seat is vacant.
To quote directly from the interview: “Most things are more dangerous now than they were before COVID, and aviation is no exception to that, but three things have to go wrong for you to get infected (on a flight). There has to be a Covid-19 patient on board and they have to be contagious. If there is such a person on your flight, assuming they are wearing a mask, it has to fail to prevent the transmission. They also have to be close enough that there’s a danger you could suffer from the transmission.” he tells CNN Travel.
While it might be true that being on a flight is not as “risky” as we thought, it is still very important that we stay as safe as possible while on them. In addition to wearing a face mask throughout (asides when eating or drinking), some airlines like Emirates are beginning to implement extra measures like wearing shields and distributing masks and hand sanitizers as part of the on-flight care package.
