American researchers have published a study on the risk of exposure to coronaviruses from aircraft. This decreases rapidly if the seats are left empty so that passengers can have room in the cabin.

Keeping passengers in airplanes significantly reduces the risk of exposure to the Kovid-19. This is, in essence, the conclusion of a study conducted by researchers from the United States for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kansas State University, and published on Wednesday April 14, 2021. Leaving an empty seat between two passengers should be a particularly effective measure, he says.

To arrive at this conclusion, American scientists relied on an earlier study conducted in 2017 that looked at how the virus spreads in the cabin of an airplane.

By this work, they placed the spread of aerosols emitted by passengers infected with Kovid-19 inside an aircraft. Researchers then studied the risks of exposure to coronaviruses for different passengers of the device according to cabin filling rate and spacing between passengers.

Strong reduction in risk exposure

American scientists thus envision a scenario in which many people infected with coronovirus sit next to each other in different rows of three seats.

They first placed the risks of exposure to Kovid-19 in a configuration where all seats were occupied: passengers infected with coronovirus were placed at the end of, or in the middle of, the line.

Subsequently, the researchers studied these exposure risks in the same configuration, with the middle seat of the row unpublished.

According to these models, leaving the middle space empty can reduce these exposure risks from 23% to 57%, depending on the configuration used in which the aircraft is full and all seats are busy. Depends on the models.

Risk is very low for all passengers to unmask

One reason for this trend is that in this scenario, no one is sitting directly next to the infected person. “Exposure to virus is always better,” A mechanical engineer at Kansas State University in the American daily and one of the study’s lead authors, summarizes Byron Jones the new York Times . This is true everywhere: in planes, in cinema, in restaurants… ”

American scientists asserted that this study poses risks of exposure to Kovid-19, not pollution. It should also be noted that this work is based on figures that do not take into account the wearing of a mask, which is mandatory when traveling by plane.

the study “Shows that it is possible to reduce the risk of exposure even without a mask, which is effective” Notes interviewed by Robert Glutter, an emergency physician from New York, United States of America, United states today . This means that these risks will be lessened by the use of the mask by all and by spreading it to passengers, he insists.

A study conducted by US Army scientists and published in October 2020 suggests that the risk of contamination in an aircraft where all passengers wear masks at all times is very low.