Here at least I agree with you. Sadly much of the world has been shut down for more than 6 months and has put over 150,000,000 people OUT of work. Totally ridiculous and it's carrying on now with the UK closing the stable door long after the horse has bolted:rolleyes:

I never believed for a second what IATA claimed. Yes modern airliners carry hepa filters that filter 99.97% of virus etc, but sitting in a cramped cattle class seat for 7 hrs (or 17) next to a person shedding virus is a recipe for guarranteed infection - regardless of masks etc.
From there to infecting the whole airplane that’s just plain stupid and physically impossible.

Meanwhile the UK government have added the UAE to the hot list meaning EK are operating their last pax flights to the UK today.

Those filters MAY filter out 99.97% of virus particles but that is only AFTER it has passed through the filter. Not to sound childish, but if you fart on an aircraft then the number of people who smell it is roughly the same as the number of people who could ingest the virus via your breath? 2 rows back (6 people) sounds right to me. YMMV. I assume you only need one viral particle to contract a disease whilst you need lots of fart to be able to detect it?

aussiefarmer

This is why we need a sort of electronic vaccine certificate. It won't completely eliminate the risk of infection, but it helps reduce the risk of infection.

Experiences may vary. I moved my daughter down to Los Alamos in mid December and had no choice except to fly back. I flew Delta; they had every other seat vacant so I wasn't sitting next to anyone. I wore an N-95 mask the whole time; passengers in the SLC terminal were keeping social distances. This seemed about as safe as it could be made under the circumstances but I was happy to get off the plane. I received the first vaccination about 10 days ago.

Keeping every other seat vacant solves nothing.

My wife and I both caught an unpleasant (non-covid) infection from a sneezing passenger sitting behind us on a long-haul flight.

There are some scientists who take an extremely single-sided viewpoint on this and preach that lockdown should last for another couple of years and some industries and venues should be permanently shut down even after mass vaccination, just in case. It kind of reminds me of the perverted fantasies of building a "locked-in economy" that circulated in the early days of the pandemic, during the first round of lockdowns. That involved bright suggestions like allowing people to work in cycles of 4 days, followed by 10 days of home detention, correction, quarantine. Needless to say, this is practically impossible for many reasons.

For now, one year into this mess, close to 200 million jobs have been destroyed globally. Many, many others are hanging by a thread and will disappear the moment government support is pulled - and government support cannot last indefinitely. More than two decades of progress in fighting global poverty have been reversed - and poverty happens to bring reduced life expectancy. That's not to mention all the countless deferred scheduled treatments, mental health issues affecting a double-digit percentage of the population, exploding domestic violence and all the other great things brought up by the "new normal".

We're constantly being told that no price is too high when it comes to keeping the numbers low. But when does collateral damage outweigh the direct damage from infection? Nobody seems to have an answer for that - and it should be pivotal to any policies.

ATC Watcher

A further question here - what exactly is meant by "contaminated"? Most here seem to be equating that to "infected" - but IMHO, it's equally likely that they mean "exposed" people who need to be quarantined/tested.

osborne

That is what the mask is for. Stopping distance spread of droplets through the air.
The middle seat free is to avoid you touching a surface, as the armrest, that somebody with CoVid19 have touched plus minimising the risk from sideways expulsion of droplets from the sides of the mask.
And yes you can sanitize your hands, but will you after every time you have come near the passenger beside you through an hours long flight and and for the whole time avoiding touching your face?

If the vaccination strategy proves to be a failure for example because the rate of mutation exceeds the time lag from vaccine formula to delivery, then you will have your answer. For the last year and the rest of this year the objective in most/all Western countries is to avoid health system overcapacity -- the suppression strategy. That cannot go on for ever. But equally, the new normal may be different from the old normal because of voluntary changes in human behaviour and preferences.

jugofpropwash

Good point, but I was not in the head of this Professor. I do not know what he meant. One thing is coming up though is that if you are "exposed" to the new variants your chances of getting "infected" are far higher. Maybe that was his message.

That was mostly about the US Department of Defence. If the US can't safely transport soldiers by air, then they can't invade anywhere. So one has to read their conclusions with caution.

What I can say is that since March I've been on an international across industry COVID safety body, initially looking at the risk of transit passengers in terminals. Since then the scope has changed and increased. Within the company I am trying to make sure that SOPs are adapted to COVID. So I do know more than many.

What I can say is that HEPA filters are pretty effective, but there are other factors.

The three big things are:

1. Community rates in the passengers (quite hard to know) If you are flying between two ports with low rates and few transfer pax, then in theory there is very little risk. NB: Quick tests as part of the security process would really help here, because they do pick up the vast majority of people with a high enough viral load to infect someone. They've managed it in Rome, but clearly there's practical issues.

2. Length of sector, the infection rate greatly increases as sector times increase. The latest I've seen was something like add 3 hours and the risk doubles.

3. Air replacement frequency: In theory cabin air is replaced 10-15 times more frequently than a building at ground level. That means you can be closer to someone with less risk than on the ground. Air replacement frequency actually can vary quite a bit proportionately based on a whole heap of factors.

For crew the risk of catching COVID from pax is lowered by air circulation flowing down. Conversely that increases crew to pax transmission. Masks help but really you need medical grade P2 or higher.

Touch transmission looks to be less of a problem than feared and swab samples haven't found any on cabin surfaces, not that I'm aware of anyway.

So if you're a passenger flying to NZ via DXB from Europe or Africa, then you're facing high community rates and very long sectors, putting you right at the top of the risk range.

I think a big risk for air transport are border rules dampening demand. Health will become a prerequisite to international travel and old school style medical checks (remember when vaccines were an entry requirement for many nations?). Add an expensive fitness tests (e.g. private negative test of x type within y hours - all different of course) and you begin to price people out.

Excellent post an.other. I add a link https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taaa178 to a article in the journal of travel medicine published in December on the subject. At the start it refers to the China airlines 112 in flight transmission episode, which I have referred to several times on here. The ensuing study looked at the increased risk due to proximity to an infected person.

blue up

Just asking but what are those filters doing when the aircraft is on stand with the engines off?

APU on. Why that isn’t std practice is strange.

Cost and noise pollution are two reasons for not running the APU on stand. In fact it is often explicitly forbidden longer than for a few minutes before and after flight at a lot of airports.

SaulGoodman

APUs when parked?

Welcome to the 1970s.

Nice to know then when I sit on an aircraft with a delayed departure or even just boarding my Covid risk exposure has increased somewhat while the airlines claim I am protected with non functioning switched off filters.

Correct LTNman. Cost above safety. Nothing changes.