HOW YOU WILL GET SICK ON AN AIRPLANE

(March, 2018) People who fly on airplanes while contagious can indeed get other people sick, but the risk is mainly to those seated next to them or in the adjacent row. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is the first to quantify the odds of getting sick based on a passenger’s proximity to an infectious person. Researchers studied 10 transcontinental flights during flu season and meticulously tracked passenger movements to estimate the likelihood of common respiratory infections – like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and influenza – which are spread by tiny droplets in the air and on surfaces. The findings:
– Passengers seated within one row and within two seats laterally of the infected passenger had an 80 percent or greater probability of becoming infected. For all other passengers, the probability of infection was less than three percent. This runs counter to traditional thinking that if a person coughs or sneezes anywhere in the cabin, they will infect the entire plane.
– Researchers also said that infectious crew members could infect an average of 4.6 passengers per flight.
– Swabs for respiratory viruses on tray tables and seatbelts also showed no trace of viruses, suggesting that most illness is spread by sneezing and coughing, not droplets that fall on surfaces or the ground.
* Clearly, these flu viruses need to step up their game.
* How did they know someone on the plane had the flu? Did they purposely plant Typhoid Mary on the plane for this study?
* Imagine getting on a plane and being asked, “Would you like to be a part of our infectious disease study?”
* This is why I always climb into a dry-cleaning bag before boarding.