PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Risk of contracting virus on airplanes - perspective
Old 26th Sep 2020, 18:11
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Peter H
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Cambridge UK
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I can only quote the referenced paper.
Given the case histories and sequencing results, the most likely sequence of events is that one or both of passengers A and B contracted SARS-CoV-2 in North America and transmitted the virus to flight attendants C and D during the flight. The only location where all 4 persons were in close proximity for an extended period was inside the airplane. Passengers and cabin crew do not generally go through the same check-in process at airports before boarding. Although we cannot completely rule out the possibility that patients C and D were infected before boarding, the unique virus sequence and 100% identity across the whole virus genome from the 4 patients makes this scenario highly unlikely. Patient D may have acquired infection from patient C, but because their test results were positive within 1 incubation period, it is more likely that patient D was infected by patient A or B. We therefore conclude that these 4 patients belong to the same in-flight transmission chain.

Our results strongly suggest in-flight transmission of SARS-CoV-2. No other COVID-19 cases associated with this flight have been identified. We were unable to quantify the virus attack rate on this flight because not all passengers were tested.
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