4 ms·

I don’t understand why avoiding effective COVID countermeasures is desirable. If I had the need to fly somewhere, I’d want to fly private to avoid COVID exposu

I don’t understand why avoiding effective COVID countermeasures is desirable. If I had the need to fly somewhere, I’d want to fly private to avoid COVID exposure.

ghaff 5y ago
That's totally a realistic option for the vast majority of the population. </s> In any case, I haven't see any real evidence that commercial flying is a particularly high-risk infection vector.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  There are significantly more air changes per hour on an airliner than in an office building or on a train. I personally put airliner travel as being reasonably low risk for COVID transmission during the flight. (It's obviously higher than staying at home alone.)
- londons_explore 5y ago
  There isn't evidence that it is low risk either... I would take a bet that the probability of illness after 10 hours on an aircraft is worse than 10 hours at home, in the car, in a cinema, in a shopping mall, or in a park. Part of the added risk I would guess is because the people around you are not people from your hometown who all have the same diseases as you, but travellers from all over the world who can give you new unseen diseases. It's sad that we've had aircraft for 100+ years now, and yet there doesn't seem to be data on this.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I was talking about COVID specifically but yes. I'd say it's fairly clearly higher risk than being at home or in an outdoor location. Might be lower risk than an indoor restaurant or a crowded indoor sporting event. Data would be hard. If you go to a big convention in Las Vegas and get sick--of which there are plenty of anecdotes--did it happen at the airport, on the plane, somewhere at the event, in a restaurant, in a casino, etc.?
    - londons_explore 5y ago
      Some flight tickets are very cheap... You could pay some students to stay home and revise, while other students fly somewhere and immediately back, then check over the next week what percentage get any kind of illness.
henrikschroder 5y ago
Because they're not effective. It's safety theatre, just like the TSA is security theatre. "Everyone has to wear a face mask on a plane at all times to stop the spread, except for an hour here and there where everyone removes their masks at the same time to eat." On international flights where everyone has to be tested beforehand, it's even more ridiculous and performative.
- staticautomatic 5y ago
  Except that rapid tests have high false negative rates…
  - Arainach 5y ago
    [[Citation Needed]]

I don’t understand why avoiding effective COVID countermeasures is desirable. If I had the need to fly somewhere, I’d want to fly private to avoid COVID exposure.

ghaff 5y ago

That's totally a realistic option for the vast majority of the population. </s> In any case, I haven't see any real evidence that commercial flying is a particularly high-risk infection vector.

sokoloff 5y ago
There are significantly more air changes per hour on an airliner than in an office building or on a train. I personally put airliner travel as being reasonably low risk for COVID transmission during the flight. (It's obviously higher than staying at home alone.)
londons_explore 5y ago
There isn't evidence that it is low risk either... I would take a bet that the probability of illness after 10 hours on an aircraft is worse than 10 hours at home, in the car, in a cinema, in a shopping mall, or in a park. Part of the added risk I would guess is because the people around you are not people from your hometown who all have the same diseases as you, but travellers from all over the world who can give you new unseen diseases. It's sad that we've had aircraft for 100+ years now, and yet there doesn't seem to be data on this.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I was talking about COVID specifically but yes. I'd say it's fairly clearly higher risk than being at home or in an outdoor location. Might be lower risk than an indoor restaurant or a crowded indoor sporting event. Data would be hard. If you go to a big convention in Las Vegas and get sick--of which there are plenty of anecdotes--did it happen at the airport, on the plane, somewhere at the event, in a restaurant, in a casino, etc.?
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    Some flight tickets are very cheap... You could pay some students to stay home and revise, while other students fly somewhere and immediately back, then check over the next week what percentage get any kind of illness.

henrikschroder 5y ago

Because they're not effective. It's safety theatre, just like the TSA is security theatre. "Everyone has to wear a face mask on a plane at all times to stop the spread, except for an hour here and there where everyone removes their masks at the same time to eat." On international flights where everyone has to be tested beforehand, it's even more ridiculous and performative.

staticautomatic 5y ago
Except that rapid tests have high false negative rates…
- Arainach 5y ago
  [[Citation Needed]]