Snakes or Germs on a Plane ? Which is best?
Discussion
My friend flew over from the USA to the UK to visit various people and their flight is back early next week.
Talking about the journey my acquaintance said that they would be using a disinfection wipe to clean down the arm rests and other hard surfaces and also will be putting vaseline up their nose to stop cold germs.
Being a bit of a science buff, when not frightening people on the FDR part of the forum with my cooking, I decided to see how bad planes were for getting ill. What are the stats?
It appears that there aren't too many stats on the matter. The big event, or ground zero for a Ryan Air type Day of the Dead happened way back in 1979
https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/110/...
And that was an usual case where they all sat together for 3 hours without air con running.
Poking around I discovered how a glaring example of how the press doesn't correctly represent the findings of scientific reports and instead sensationalises them.
Read this
https://www.businessinsider.com/getting-sick-on-an...
It's the sensible internet journal my friend would read who does Linked in for bedtime reading.
Yet when you compare it to the report mentioned
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/14/3623#ref-16
the report is about advancing the modelling computation in relation to passengers and crew moving about the cockpit compared to previous studies where passengers were just sat still for the flight.
The only physical measurement they took was in the 10 flights taking 229 samples off hard surfaces and found
ZERO
pathogens even though they took the flights mainly in the influenza season.
Yet the news story started off in it's headlines
"There are still plenty of other ways to catch someone's flu, cough, or cold while you're traveling"
Like what exactly ?
and ending with
"So there's just no sure way to know what kinds of germs might await on your next flight."
Personally I like the good germs I eat everyday in my overpriced yoghurt.
It's no wonder people are sticking Vaseline up their nose. It can't hurt can it?
I wish I could have suggested two high altitude leeches, damn ....
Talking about the journey my acquaintance said that they would be using a disinfection wipe to clean down the arm rests and other hard surfaces and also will be putting vaseline up their nose to stop cold germs.
Being a bit of a science buff, when not frightening people on the FDR part of the forum with my cooking, I decided to see how bad planes were for getting ill. What are the stats?
It appears that there aren't too many stats on the matter. The big event, or ground zero for a Ryan Air type Day of the Dead happened way back in 1979
https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/110/...
And that was an usual case where they all sat together for 3 hours without air con running.
Poking around I discovered how a glaring example of how the press doesn't correctly represent the findings of scientific reports and instead sensationalises them.
Read this
https://www.businessinsider.com/getting-sick-on-an...
It's the sensible internet journal my friend would read who does Linked in for bedtime reading.
Yet when you compare it to the report mentioned
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/14/3623#ref-16
the report is about advancing the modelling computation in relation to passengers and crew moving about the cockpit compared to previous studies where passengers were just sat still for the flight.
The only physical measurement they took was in the 10 flights taking 229 samples off hard surfaces and found
ZERO
pathogens even though they took the flights mainly in the influenza season.
Yet the news story started off in it's headlines
"There are still plenty of other ways to catch someone's flu, cough, or cold while you're traveling"
Like what exactly ?
and ending with
"So there's just no sure way to know what kinds of germs might await on your next flight."
Personally I like the good germs I eat everyday in my overpriced yoghurt.
It's no wonder people are sticking Vaseline up their nose. It can't hurt can it?
I wish I could have suggested two high altitude leeches, damn ....
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