Should You Still Wear a Mask on Planes, Trains and Buses? Here’s What the Science Says

conducted for the U.S. Department of Defense—and carried out by researchers from Boeing and United Airlines, among others—found that aircraft ventilation and filtration systems reduced the risk of airborne SARS-CoV-2 exposure by more than 99%.”

The population mix on planes makes a difference too. People gather in airports from all over the world—many from places with high vaccination rates and low levels of transmission and many from places where the opposite, more infectious conditions prevail. That raises the health stakes for everyone onboard: “It is a time of high mixing from an epidemiological perspective,” Althoff says.

“Oftentimes there are wooshes of air,” Althoff says, which can help sweep away some of the stagnant atmosphere on the platform. Once you’re aboard, the fact that the trains make frequent stops with doors continually opening and closing and passengers continually climbing aboard and getting off also helps with air exchange.

“On the east coast,” she says, “we have trains that go from D.C. to Boston every day. People jump on and jump off; people work in Philadelphia, but live in Baltimore or D.C.. So this is a situation where there’s a step up in the level of mixing of people from different communities with different background rates of transmission and vaccination.” No matter what Amtrak or your local transit system permits, staying masked on trains remains the best way to stay safe.

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