A study suggests that the flight to Ireland is linked to 59 cases of Covid-19

Onboard transmission of Covid-19 may have infected 59 people statewide, including 13 passengers on the same long-haul flight, according to a new study.

The outbreak occurred despite low occupancy levels on the long-haul flight, the fact that different groups of passengers who tested positive were not sitting close to each other, and the fact that most were wearing masks, notes the study.

As the Irish Times reports, the authors of the Eurosurveillance study say the outbreak demonstrates the potential for the spread of Covid-19 linked to air travel.

Subsequent transmission of the 13 passenger cases resulted in a total of 59 cases in six of the eight HSE health regions across the country.

The 13 passengers, aged between one and 65, had flown to a flight to Ireland via a major international airport, having flown to Europe from three different continents.

One group of cases reported spending up to 12 hours overnight in the transit room during the stopover; another shared a separate transit room; while two other groups had separate short waits of less than two hours in the general departure area of ​​the airport.

Fast action

The flight to Ireland lasted seven and a half hours and had a passenger occupancy of 17 percent, with only 49 of the 283 seats taken and 12 crew members.

The study suggests that the high number of cases could be related to “high intensity of infection and high viral shedding” in the index case, which was not identified.

Onboard transmission is a plausible exposure for some of the cases that occurred during the flight, and the only common exposure for others, according to research by a team of HSE public health physicians.

It took between two and 17 days before symptoms appeared between the cases.

Eleven passengers on the flight could not be reached and one declined to be tested.

The study concluded that swift action is needed when cases arise with no other link beyond the close contact radius of two seats that is generally applied in the investigation of outbreaks involving air passengers.