1100 deaths today in the US. Yet airlines are starting to sell all seats. Mixed messages all around....
That's an interesting point. I'm not sure what to think about flying right now. Based on what I have been reading lately, there does not seem to be a great deal of risk flying if everyone consistently wears masks. Having said that, I do not think I will be flying any time soon.
>>>Freedman and his colleague have been analyzing these data, with a specific focus on one airline: Emirates.
"Since April, Emirates has had a very rigid masking policy," Freedman says. Not only does the airline require passengers and crew members to wear masks, but flight attendants also make sure everyone keeps on their masks, as much as possible, throughout the entire flight.
Freedman looked at all Emirates flights from Dubai to Hong Kong between June 16 and July 5. What he found is quite telling. During those three weeks, Emirates had five flights with seven or more infected passengers on each flight, for a total of 58 coronavirus-positive passengers flying on eight-hour trips. And yet, nobody else on the planes — none of the other 1,500 to 2,000 passengers — picked up the virus, Freedman and his colleague
report in the
Journal of Travel Medicine. . . .
In fact, since airlines have started to require masks, Freedman says, scientists have not documented one superspreading event on airlines. "Flights that had significant transmission documented were flights early on in the pandemic."
All together, these data suggest masks are working — and working well. "There's encouraging evidence from a number of flights that masking does help greatly, but it would be nice to study it better," he says. "The circumstantial evidence is, your risk is low on a plane, if there is rigid masking."
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On an eight-hour Emirates flight, with mask-wearing enforced, a whopping 27 coronavirus-positive people boarded the plane in Dubai. Guess how many passengers got infected?
www.npr.org