5 ms·
The goal should be prevention instead of control. I work in infection prevention and control so can shed some light on this. The two major diseases people on
by giarc 11y ago
The goal should be prevention instead of control. I work in infection prevention and control so can shed some light on this.
The two major diseases people on planes should be worried about are measles and chickenpox. Both of which have excellent vaccines to prevent illness.
TB is airborne but not highly transmissible, for example, the public health department where I live will only conduct exposure follow up for TB patients that were on a plane for longer than 7 hours, and only start with 2 rows in front, and 2 rows behind. Only if those passengers seroconvert for TB will they test the rest of the plane.
Things like SARS/MERS-CoV are also a concern, but the control should be to prevent these people from getting on the plane in the first place (temperature monitoring).
Influenza and other respiratory viruses are a concern, but these are spread through larger droplets and therefore only really concern those directly next to you (likely family members) and you are just as likely to pick it up in the airport lounge than on the plane.
Cool invention, but just a minor cog in the chain of infection.
- jedberg 11y ago> The two major diseases people on planes should be worried about are measles and chickenpox. Both of which have excellent vaccines to prevent illness. Unless you're too young or sick to get the vaccine, or the vaccine is ineffective. I just flew on an 11 hour flight with my 4 month old, and my biggest concern was measles since she can't be vaccinated yet.
- giarc 11y agoCorrect, but she would be protected if all the other adults were vaccinated. We did a very good job over the past 60 years of almost eradicating measles and it's only be recently that cases have appeared in groups of anti-vaxxers and spreading to those too young to get the shot.
- moron4hire 11y agoThat's unfortunately not a good assumption to make.
- giarc 11y agoTechnically it would have been a good assumption up until recently. Now parents need to consider whether they would like to fly with a child. I recommend they use readily available data to determine if the risk is elevated due to the city they are flying into or out of.
- cmdrfred 11y agoIf I ruled the world: "Oh you don't trust technology and aren't vaccinated? Fine, don't get in that metal tube and fly at 500 miles per hour."
- moron4hire 11y agoChrist. Then technically it's not a good assumption today.
- giarc 11y agoWhat? 10 years ago when measles was only affecting very tiny populations, your risk of getting on a plane with one of these people was near 0. Now with the outbreaks in California (and many other places around the world), the chances are getting higher and higher. Therefore decision making will have changed.
- moron4hire 11y agoNo shit. That's what I meant. You got pedantic about unrelated details about the past.
- giarc 11y agoSorry I'm not following... what are the unrelated details about the past?
- alextgordon 11y agoThe situation with chickenpox is actually quite complicated. The vaccine is not routinely offered in the UK. They say something interesting, which is that adults get a boost to their immunity whenever they are exposed to the virus (as most parents are). If children were vaccinated, then adults who had had chickenpox would not receive this boosting effect and it could cause a higher incidence of shingles in the adult population. Because chickenpox is mostly harmless in childhood, they reason that it's better to just hope that as many children as possible catch it, and vaccinate the adolescents that don't. http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/vaccinations/Pages/chickenpox-vaccine-questions-answers.aspx#routineschedule http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/vaccinations/Pages/chickenpox-v...
- giarc 11y agoThere is a shingles vaccine now though. Basically a booster.
- btilly 11y agoTo that I would add that if you improve control slightly but the average number of people an infected person infects remains more than 1, the disease will continue to spread exponentially. And beyond that threshold, the relationship between how well it spreads and the course of the epidemic is chaotic. The example that I like to use is that if you are good about washing your hands, your odds of not catching a seasonal flu improve. But if everyone is good about washing their hands, then the flu spreads slower, there are sick people around you longer, and your odds of catching it might or might not wind up better.
- minthd 11y agoYou might be right. but most inventions are minor anyway.innovations is a cumulative business. Do you think that this will be implemented ?
- giarc 11y agoLikely not, airlines margins are razor thin and when there are cases of measles on a plane for example, they simply hand over their flight passenger list to public health and they do all the work. By implementing this system, it won't save them any money. The only time I could see this being beneficial for the airlines is if there were another SARS scare and people were not booking trips out of X city due to fears of catching SARS from someone on the plane. I think recent ebola situation in West Africa has really improved our systems at airports and therefore would likely try to restrict sick passengers from getting on planes, rather than control their illness once onboard.
- mahyarm 11y agoI think if they market it right, it will get them the business of neurotic people for relatively low cost.
- edc117 11y agoAgree with you, but defense in depth.
- giarc 11y agoSure - but I'd rather take the risk than pay the "Safe Air Plane Tax" of $0.75 per flight.