Research Points to Low Risk for COVID-19 Transmission Inflight

[avcanada]

Research Points to Low Risk for COVID-19 Transmission Inflight
https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/pr/20 ... GdL6HHwCHM

With only 44 identified potential cases of flight-related transmission among 1.2 billion travelers, that’s one case for every 27 million travelers.

[Kejidog]

Stop. These facts go against the panicdemic fear mongering narrative that the 24 hour news cycle perpetuates. Into the memory hole it must go.

All ranting aside this goes to my experience. 3 flights since March 2020 and me and my family are healthy. But we “could” be asymptomatic. And our numbers “may” increase. But based on the press by rights we should be dead.

[montado]

Low risk is not no risk. And even if we only save one life by grounding all flights it would be worth it. Don't you guys have any empathy?/s

Seems reasonable that air travel is low risk. Will this make a difference in government policies... Nope.

[iflyforpie]

That’s because it’s full of weasel words like “in-flight”.

Will IATA stand by their numbers when they include everything from check-in to baggage claim? It seems very odd that they’d focus specifically on in the airplane... vs the entire process which definitely has super-spreader potential. People can’t just be beamed in and out of their seats.

I agree that this pandemic is mostly BS.. but junk science reeking of selection-bias doesn’t really help public opinion.

[valleyboy]

I agree that this pandemic is mostly BS

I have to disagree and state the pandemic is very real and it's people who refuse to accept the legitimate facts that are BS. It's peoples' stupidity, selfishness and mental instability that is the root of the problem. There have been pandemics in the past but ironically it's the aviation industry that was the accelerant for world wide occurrence.

[7ECA]

There have been pandemics in the past but ironically it's the aviation industry that was the accelerant for world wide occurrence.

Diseases of the sort that become epidemics or pandemics tend to be of the sort that are transmissible via close contact with infected persons. Previous pandemics like the Black or Bubonic Plague spread throughout Europe in the days before there was any large scale movements of people/travel - but rather via trade routes. Later pandemics also spread around the world, such as the Spanish Flu (H1N1) as troops and people moved about the world during and in the aftermath of the Great War - in the days when marine and rail travel were still very much dominant in the movement of people; with aviation in it's infancy.

The WHO rather correctly stated, that shutting down the airlines, and air travel, would have no effect on the progress of COVID-19s spread across the globe; other than potentially slowing it marginally. A virulent disease will make its way around the world, and through populations regardless of the efforts to contain it. Containment was likely never an option, in our highly interconnected/globalized world but rather a dream from simpler times - and even in those simpler times it was nigh on impossible to stop a virulent disease from spreading...

It's a bit like how the President of the US can crow about banning flights from China, only to end up with COVID-19 spreading to the US from Europe...

[iflyforpie]

I agree that this pandemic is mostly BS

I have to disagree and state the pandemic is very real and it's people who refuse to accept the legitimate facts that are BS. It's peoples' stupidity, selfishness and mental instability that is the root of the problem. There have been pandemics in the past but ironically it's the aviation industry that was the accelerant for world wide occurrence.

Ok... the fact that it’s a pandemic isn’t BS. The common cold is pandemic.

What is BS is the severity of COVID-19 and the global reaction to it.

According to the CDC, 94% of all COVID-19 fatalities (which represents a fraction of a percent of COVID-19 cases) have comorbidities. As in.. COVID-19 was one of two or perhaps even more contributing causes of death. Those typically include things like bacterial pneumonia, COPD, emphysema, heart disease, diabetes, renal failure, etc etc etc.

Let’s take the example of the largest comorbidity: pneumonia. Pneumonia kills about 4 million people every year. That’s double the number COVID-19 will kill.

There are lots of cases where pneumonia is caused by simply aspirating the agent that directly causes it.. like MSRA, for example. But in most cases, it happens to people with an already weakened pulmonary system or immune system.

During the Spanish Flu pandemic.. a very large percent of the people who “died” from H1N1 actually died of bacterial pneumonia. This was a combination of overcrowded hospitals with poor sanitation, the lack of antibiotics, and their already weakened state—though not yet fatal—due to H1N1 infection.

Well.. this happens every year whether we pay attention to it or not. From many different causes. And we haven’t been paying attention. The seasonal flu is a large comorbidity for pneumonia, but even the CDC only releases a flu burden estimate every year because until now nobody bothered to differentially diagnose a DNR octogenarian who died of “the old man’s friend”, pneumonia.

Severe cases of outbreak like in NYC were the result of the stupid herd mentality when people panic. Oh.. let’s only run half the subway trains to stop the spread. Gee, the subways are overcrowded.. why is it spreading?

And like anything like a cattle stampede or a bank run or people hoarding TP we were never ever short of... the reactions are worse than the ailment. Anyone with the sniffles who could have stayed home with chicken soup is now going to a hospital ward because they believed this was a super deadly disease. They went there and because of overcrowding they caught what they actually died from (MSRA is everywhere in hospitals and resistant to antibiotics). People who really needed help couldn’t get it. Or people who really needed to go to the hospital didn’t because they were too afraid.

There’s the unintended effects as well. People dying because of scheduled surgeries that were cancelled. The worsening opioid crisis.

While it’s interesting to see a spike in “excess deaths” from March to June it’s also interesting to see the actual number of deaths on the vital statistics page. For BC.. for example.. it’s just over 3000 per month.. every month.. for years. Excess deaths are just the tiniest sliver of a trend with huge peaks and valleys if you’re only looking at the top couple hundred. March 2020 is the highest but only beat out January 2020 by 15 deaths. Jan 2018 beat out Mar 2020 by 139 deaths!

Air travel did have a role to play in the spread of the disease in the early days. But now that it’s a global pandemic, the further movement of infected people isn’t really a factor.

What we are dealing with now is the lingering fear. That’s it. I was never afraid of COVID-19. I fly with worse stuff on a daily basis. I was all set to go on a trip and the only reason I canceled it was more of that dumb herd mentality that would have left me stranded as flights were cancelled for lack of passengers.

And that fear will subside as people find new things to be afraid of as people get bored of COVID-19 and the media looks for a ratings boost. Kind of like how terrorism disappeared overnight.

['97 Tercel]

That’s because it’s full of weasel words like “in-flight”.

Will IATA stand by their numbers when they include everything from check-in to baggage claim? It seems very odd that they’d focus specifically on in the airplane... vs the entire process which definitely has super-spreader potential. People can’t just be beamed in and out of their seats.

I agree that this pandemic is mostly BS.. but junk science reeking of selection-bias doesn’t really help public opinion.

I guess the idea is if the risk is low jammed together in a metal tube for hours, the rest of the process should be fine given equal precautions(ie. face cover)

[valleyboy]

I wish statisticians would use numbers instead of % points. It might give a better perspective. Take the USA at almost 350 million people and even 2% is about the toll in the death camps of ww2. Were we not horrified at that?

I guess for the millennials' age range it's normal to figure one is never going to die or at least not think about it, yes most of us who have passed through that age felt the same thing. It's tough to deal with one's own mortality. It's not about you or me, it's about consideration for others.

If you want to move around and run the gauntlet to catch a flight, good on you, just take into consideration the other people around, the mask you should wear is more for them and not so much for you. People are wearing masks for you so it's just common courtesy to return the favour.

Enough said, I digress and before too much of a thread drift develops. I'll leave those thoughts.

[Hot Wings]

I wish statisticians would use numbers instead of % points. It might give a better perspective. Take the USA at almost 350 million people and even 2% is about the toll in the death camps of ww2. Were we not horrified at that?

I guess for the millennials' age range it's normal to figure one is never going to die or at least not think about it, yes most of us who have passed through that age felt the same thing. It's tough to deal with one's own mortality. It's not about you or me, it's about consideration for others.

If you want to move around and run the gauntlet to catch a flight, good on you, just take into consideration the other people around, the mask you should wear is more for them and not so much for you. People are wearing masks for you so it's just common courtesy to return the favour.

Enough said, I digress and before too much of a thread drift develops. I'll leave those thoughts.

I hear you, but a few salient points: the upper bound for the estimated infection fatality rate is 0.5%, so a quarter of your “2%” scenario. Also, your scenario figures that 100% of the population will catch covid and be symptomatic, when that is definitely not the case, and for those that do catch it about ~25% will remain asymptomatic. Certainly don’t mean to minimize your concerns, but it’s not as bad as 2% of 350 million people dying.

That said, while I’m technically at the top end for the millennial age group, I don’t want to see my parents getting sick. So it’s up to them to manage their own risk, decide what they’re comfortable with, and make informed decisions. For the rest of the world, the show must go on.