@thirzajane @BE @augieray This is a good study, thanks. My read is that given that only seven passengers out of 86 were infected on a 19-hour flight, it's actually pretty _safe_ to fly, at least on a short flight, if you're vaccinated and keep a good mask on the whole time. I'm assuming they didn't keep their masks on the whole time because the paper doesn't address that and it's exceedingly unlikely for a 19-hour flight.
@jik @thirzajane @BE Thre is more risk on a 19-hour flight than a three-hour flight. Except, since the safest part of a flight is while the plane is in the air with filters engaged and the most dangerous is on the ground (boarding, deplaning, taxiing), I think your analysis may be overstated. Both short and long flights have equal risky time on the ground. From the start of this conversation, you've gravitated to the assumption flying is safe. I don't think we have data to show that.
@augieray @thirzajane @BE I don't think flying is safe and haven't said I do. Despite its causing personal hardship, I haven't flown since COVID and don't plan to. Interestingly, you have, so which of us thinks flying is safe enough?
My position, which I've been clear about, is that the Malaysia study is worse than useless, and that there is thus far no evidence that flying with a good mask is significantly more risky than time in public in other contexts.
@augieray @thirzajane @BE My attitude about flying in the age of COVID is the same as my attitude about any other exposure to other people: I'll do it if there's no other practical choice, and I'll take sensible precautions. I assume on this we agree.
Safe/unsafe is meaningless. Nothing involving contact with others is "safe" nowadays. All we can do is minimize risk, not avoid it entirely.
I was last on a flight January of 2020, personally.
The reason I find this discussion so interesting is that the only number I ever see thrown out there by people calculating their own risk of flying is Professor Barnett's model and he himself said there was practically no data behind it.
So, yeah, it doesn't change anything for me, but, a lot of people do probably use the 1/1000 number to decide whether or not to fly still, sadly.
Not to beat this fully to death or anything....but I found an interview with Prof. Barnett that I hadn't seen before from this past summer where he discussed this quite a bit. The host seemed to spend a lot of time trying to get him to say that driving was more dangerous than flying, but, there's some good parts so I'll link to it.
He talks a bit about how he said that US Airlines wasn't being forthright about the COVID risk on planes. Some of the answer's here:
"Well, part of what I was doing was reacting to what USairlines were saying, and US Airlines do a fabulous job at preventing crashes, but to other sources of risk, I don't think they especially distinguished themselves and United airlines and said that the risk of getting COVID-19 or United flight was, was nearly non-existent quote unquote in Southwest airlines. Not to be out done said that it was virtually non-existent well, it's not non-existent. And what I pointed to in terms of data in that article was the many flights overseas in which we have evidence in the peer reviewed medical literature that an infected person caused COVID to many others on the plane to several others.
Now, not everyone you'll have to be seated pretty close to the infected passenger. It is true that the planes have good air air, air purification systems. So if I'm in seats eight, an and someone is infected in 20 B, it's extremely unlikely. This will affect me. But if the infected person is in 20 B, that's not great news for the person in 28 or 20 C or a 21 B. So I have done calculation, but I cited several instances there. You know, one of the earliest examples was a passenger on a flight from London to Vietnam here on air, via Vietnam era airlines was infected with COVID-19 and of the 12 business class passengers within two rows of her, 11 of them came down with COVID on the flight. Okay. And whereas other business class passengers who are further away from her, the risk was I think one and nine or something."
@BE @augieray @thirzajane Yes, exactly this. The messaging we need to get across isn't that flying is particularly unsafe, but rather that it isn't particularly safe, despite what the airlines were claiming at the start of the pandemic.
(They're not really claiming that anymore, since they're not really claiming anything at all about COVID, since like everybody else they're trying to pretend it doesn't exist.)