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- Airlines may be trying to reassure passengers that flying during the coronavirus pandemic will be safe, but there are no guarantees at this time.
- We know that a SARS patient infected 22 people on a plane during a three-hour flight from Hong Kong to Beijing during the 2003 pandemic.
- The research that followed shows that coughing inside the cabin could expose others to a pathogen, even if social distancing measures are applied on flights.
- Visit the BGR home page for more stories.
I showed him a scary study from China a few days ago that told us it will be a while before we can trust restaurants again. The economy will open slowly and you’re probably dying to eat out, but that study suggested that social distancing measures in a restaurant may not be good enough to stop the possible spread of the coronavirus. The problem is not food, it is the ventilation system in closed spaces that can promote transmission. The researchers discovered that a single person with COVID-19 was responsible for infecting two other families who were eating at the same restaurant, after being exposed for about an hour. The air conditioning unit may have spread the virus to other tables, according to the investigation.
Now I’m about to show you a clip of what happens when someone coughs into an airplane cabin, and the conclusion could be even worse. It will be a while before we are comfortable flying. Unlike restaurants, airplanes have more advanced air filtering systems that can prevent infection. However, it seems clear that it will not be enough to reduce exposure to the virus.
Let’s go back to the history of the restaurant first. Patient A1 in the table below was infected with the new coronavirus but showed no symptoms when eating out. Person A1 then infected other members of his family, as well as people in two additional parts:
Now let’s look at the scary video I mentioned earlier:
The clip shows what would happen when someone coughs into an airplane. The simulation was performed by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. Part of a 2014 study for Boeing that looks at possible changes in air flow with the plane’s ventilation system that could reduce the risk of infection from a contagion like SARS.
The clip shows that the drops can travel around the coughing person and take time to calm down. The video was not created for COVID-19, but can be applied to the disease. This is because the new coronavirus is transmitted through drops that a person expels by sneezing, coughing, or even breathing or talking. Other people can inhale those drops directly or indirectly by touching a surface where they landed and then touching their faces.
Airline officials will tell you that the planes have a sophisticated air filtration system that can remove 99.999% “of even the smallest viruses.” That’s Delta, by the way, speaking of HEPA filters for The Washington Post. But even with those filters in place, there is no guarantee that the aerosol virus reaches the plane’s filters before infecting other passengers near a sick person.
Research can’t tell how far these drops can travel, and we’ve seen an increasing number of clips looking at SARS-CoV-2 aerosols that could be infectious. Some people believe that just talking is enough for an infected person to expel small droplets that contain the virus. And these can float in the air for quite a while longer than the largest droplets that land on surfaces.
What is interesting in the Send The report that addresses the above investigation is the reason why it was done in the first place. The anecdote involves the precursor to SARS-CoV-2 called SARS, which caused the deadly outbreak in 2003 that killed 774 people worldwide:
On March 15 of that year, a Boeing 737 took off from Hong Kong for a three-hour flight to Beijing, with a feverish 72-year-old man seated at 14E, a center seat.
Of the 120 people on board, 22 were later diagnosed with confirmed or probable cases of SARS, according to a reconstruction published in the New England Journal of Medicine that year. Investigators said the “most plausible” explanation was that they were infected on the plane by the man at 14E. He died of atypical pneumonia a few days after the flight.
The researchers said that people who are within three rows in front of the infected person are most at risk. But two flight attendants and two people sitting seven rows in front of this particular patient were also infected. The researchers believe that these people could not have been infected before joining the same flight, although that hypothesis cannot be ruled out. Still, research has shown that an infectious disease can easily spread inside an airplane.
Purdue University professor Qingyan Chen helped lead the major FAA-funded research project on transmission of diseases like SARS:
Their results, published last year, were surprising. They found that passengers seated with a SARS patient in a seven-row section of a Boeing 767 would have a 1 in 3 chance of falling ill on a five-hour flight. On a shorter 737 flight, the risk was 1 in 5.
It is unclear if the same would be the case with the new coronavirus, but this research is proof that various measures may be necessary to reassure us when flying during the pandemic. Airport controls, wearing face masks, social distance seating, and changes in AC airflow may be required
Chen said that changing the ventilation system so that the air flow runs from the floor upwards would cut transmission risk in half for SARS. The expert also noted that there are still uncertainties about how SARS-CoV-2 behaves in the air, and that remains a reason for caution. Chen also said that stool sprays could pose a risk to people inside the plane, citing recent research on the matter.
The charge He explains that airlines could explore the use of a certain type of UV light that could be harmless to the skin and eyes, but could kill the virus in drops and work together with the filtering system to reduce the risk. However, there is no guarantee that such measures will be widely implemented, and these UV products are still under study.
That being said, if you do have to fly, you should take every possible precaution and hope that no one has the virus around you. The publication The full article is definitely worth reading.
Image source: Qingyan Chen / Purdue University School of Mechanical Engineering via YouTube
Chris Smith began writing about gadgets as a hobby, and before he knew it, he was sharing his views on technology topics with readers around the world. Every time you don’t write about devices, you unfortunately don’t stay away from them, even though you desperately try. But that is not necessarily a bad thing.
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