Study Finds Risk of COVID-19 Transmission On Airplanes Is Low Written 30 October 2020
An Austrian Airlines flight attendant directs a passenger to his seat | Credit: Austrian Airlines; Wikipedia; CC BY-SA 2.0
The Los Angeles Times reports that on Tuesday, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health released a study, “sponsored by Airlines for America and a consortium of other airline businesses,” on the likelihood of contracting COVID-19 on an airplane. The study concluded that “there has been little evidence to date of onboard disease transmission.” The study “said airlines have kept onboard transmissions low by requiring masks on all passengers and crew members, pushing cabin air through HEPA filters, disinfecting cabins between flights and screening passengers for COVID-19 symptoms.” The study recommended “that to further reduce the risk of onboard infections, airlines should continue to operate the air ventilation system while passengers are boarding and leaving the plane. It also said passengers should be encouraged to maintain physical distance from one another when they file into the plane’s cramped aisles to find their seats and when filing out to exit the plane.”
Full Story (Los Angeles Times)