A study by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has found that COVID-19 spreads easily on airplanes and is more likely to be transmitted on longer flights.
The report by the CDC outlines a case study where a woman travelling from London to Vietnam in March didn’t disclose her sore throat and cough, and subsequently infected 15 people on her long-haul flight.
COVID-19 is more likely to spread on a long-haul flight, the study found.
The report acknowledges that increased health and safety control such as masks have helped this situation, as in March masks were still not part of recommended safety practice. However, it also points out the need for increased strictness when it comes to passenger compliance and airline protocols. They believe airlines are down-playing the risks.
‘The latest guidance from the international air-travel industry classifies the in-flight transmission risk as very low, and recommends only the use of face masks without additional measures to increase physical distance on board, such as blocking the middle seats,’ the authors wrote. ‘Our findings challenge these recommendations.’
‘Transmission on flight VN54 was clustered in business class, where seats are already more widely spaced than in economy class, and infection spread much further than the existing 2-row or 2 meters rule recommended for COVID-19 prevention on airplanes and other public transport would have captured.’
The study identifies self-declaration a shortfall of the COVID-19 safety protocol as people can easily lie about their symptoms. They explain that this can lead to super-spreader events in the case of long-haul flights, as there is a lot of opportunity for people to become infected.
‘As long as COVID-19 presents a global pandemic threat in the absence of a good point-of-care test, better on-board infection prevention measures and arrival screening procedures are needed to make flying safe,’ they said.
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