The notion that planes are safe is largely airline propaganda. Where else would you sit next to strangers for hours? Without vaccination screening or recent negative test results? Yes, planes have air filters, but there’s not an intake vent over every seat, so an infected passenger’s exhaled virus particles can get drawn past so you inhale them. And what about when there’s a problem and you’re sitting for minutes or hours on the runway with the ventilation off?
That’s an issue if you’re in near proximity to anyone who is sneezing or coughing anywhere, like in a grocery store. I used to actually immediately hold my breath as long as possible after someone in the row behind me on an airplane would sneeze or cough, during my great many business flights. If someone in front of me is sneezing, I don’t think I’d have a problem (but those in the row ahead of that person would). Being on an airplane where people are sneezing or coughing has always been a problem, but otherwise I think that the environment is pretty safe.
I’m not sure that I can disagree with Robert’s comment about being on the ground in an airplane, but I don’t think that the ventilation is turned off. I just don’t know.
The October article in Health24 that Robert posted is the first one that I’ve seen citing spread of covid on an airplane. There are probably others, but consider the many thousands of flights where this did not occur (no traceback to a flight).
Yes - that was often mentioned even by airline people that the ventilation at ground is quite different (and less effective) as during flight. In addition, there are articles out which describe that particular with omicron and BA2 the required viral load for infection might be so low that airplanes actually become much more likely to be a sourve for covid infection
If you didn’t know about people infecting each other on planes, you haven’t been following the news very closely. There would have been far more such reports if it weren’t for people wearing masks and in some places requirements of proof of vaccination and/or a recent negative test.
Passenger A in this diagram, who was asymptompatic until a couple of days after the flight, infected at least four other passengers.
Good point, and probably true. But that seems like a technologically solvable problem, not a good reason to leave the aircraft unventilated while on the ground (with passengers). Not in the covid era.
Eventually, possibly as soon as May 3, the US is going to end the mask requirement for passengers on airplanes. It seems that the CDC and FAA should develop requirements for aircraft ventilation that ensure high quality, unpolluted, clean air at all times while on the ground, whenever the aircraft is occupied by passengers (or crew).
Alameda County’s looking good. Cases down 50%. Slight increase in hospital admissions and beds, as expected after the slight increase in cases over the previous weeks.
It’s not likely that the hospitalization numbers will ever go to zero and stay there. Covid isn’t going to go away. The hospitalization data for Alameda look pretty good, even if they’re leveling off.
On another subject, this short opinion piece makes interesting reading:
(I think the byline was supposed to say “extended”, not “expanded”.)
Here’s an easy-to-read discussion about how T-cells provide long-term protection against severe covid disease. The article makes mention of a somewhat ominous reason (that I hadn’t heard before) why too many mRNA boosters might actually be a bad thing, impairing rather than enhancing T-cell protection, even while boosting short-term antibody protection.
The link also includes a nifty embedded video that explains the immune system response to pathogens generally, in an entertaining way.
Pretty badly written and also some wrong statements like “Also, the second booster provided little extra protection against COVID-19 when compared to the initial three doses.” - There are clearly studies out which show that the fourth shot (second booster) provided significant increase of protection
There are 2 articles from the New England Journal of Medicine this month (one of the graphs posted by @honkman comes from one of those articles) that indicate that severe illness is also decreased by a 2nd booster/4th shot.
