People who fly on airplanes while contagious can indeed get other people sick, but the risk is mainly to those seated next to them or in the adjacent row, US researchers said Monday.
The study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is the first to quantify the odds of getting sick based on a passenger's proximity to an infectious person.
Researchers studied 10 transcontinental flights and meticulously tracked passenger movements to estimate the likelihood of common respiratory infections like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and influenza, which are spread by tiny droplets in the air and on surfaces.
"Passengers seated within one row and within two seats laterally of the infected passenger had an 80 percent or greater probability of becoming infected," said the study.
"For all other passengers, the probability of infection was less than three percent."
More
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
5 comments:
Funny how I always get seated in that very row.
Am I being dumb, or is this a "duh" moment article. We paid money to research this....to report that the people closest to you on a plane are the most likely to be infected with an illness we have. I'm not a researcher but I'm willing to bet the results will be the same in a bus, a train, a car, a truck, a movie theater, and the mall. WTH, this is what I would call....."presumably smart people acting with less than good common sense".
What makes us sick will kill aliens.They are like the original Hawaiins who never got sick until Captain Cook and his crew arrived.Then a simple cold would kill them and a large portion of their population was wiped out.
10:31 AM - You are not being dumb and common sense would lead to your conclusion. I believe that the study was conducted to see if there is any additional infectious transmission due to the completely closed ventilation systems that are unique to commercial aircraft.
And what about the next person to take that seat - do they have a chance of getting sick. I would assume so but that wasn't discussed or mentioned.
Post a Comment