Airlines’ maths on in-flight infections is wrong, says scientist

A staff member of Japan Airlines wearing a protective face mask and gloves cleans the cabin of a plane after a domestic flight in Tokyo, Japan, in this May 26 2020 file photo. Picture: REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Airlines and plane makers are anxious to restart international travel, even as a second wave of infections and restrictions take hold in many countries. But Freedman, who co-authored the paper in the Journal of Travel Medicine with Dr Annelies Wilder-Smith of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said he took issue with Iata’s risk calculation because the reported count bore no direct relation to the unknown real number of infections.

Plane cabins are considered lower-risk than many indoor spaces because of their powerful ventilation and their layout, with forward-facing passengers separated by seat rows. Ceiling-to-floor airflows sweep pathogens into high-grade filters. Airbus showed similar findings, while Embraer tested droplet dispersal from a cough. About 0.13% by mass ended up in an adjacent passenger’s facial area, falling to 0.02% with masks.

In March, 11 infectious passengers on a five-hour Sydney-Perth flight passed the virus to 11 others, according to a paper in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal.

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