Covid risk in planes & restaurants can't be compared: MIT scientist refutes Harvard study

After a study claimed that eating out or buying groceries can be more dangerous than air travel amid the pandemic, some scientists argued that such a comparison is not possible without knowing if a person is following all the COVID-19 safety protocols or not. The research conducted by scientists from Harvard's T H Chan School of Public Health in the US said that the ventilation system installed in the planes is made up of High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters which can help filter more than 99 per cent of the particles that can cause Coronavirus. But, on the contrary, researchers including  Arnold I Barnett from MIT in the US said at times HEPA filters may not function as properly as the report suggested. 

Covid-19 Study: Risk in planes & restaurants can't be compared 

While suggesting that HEPA filters do not always function to their full capacity, Barnett who is a professor at MIT said, 'HEPA filters are very good, but not as effected as US airlines suggest. They are not foolproof and there are numerous examples of transmission despite these filters.' The COVID-19 transmission probability depends on a contagious passenger's emissions of the virus while breathing, speaking, coughing and sneezing, he added.  

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Barett also said movement of droplets and aerosols can also affect the possibility of contracting the virus. Agreeing to this, Abraar Karan from the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School expressed his concern about the risk of virus transmission in airplanes. He said, 'For those considering flying, the reality is that while planes have great ventilation systems, we don't have a good idea of how many COVID-19 cases were actually infected on the flight itself.'

While speaking about the comparison of the risk of contracting Coronavirus in planes and restaurants, Justin Yang from Harvard School of Public Health said, 'such an evaluation cannot be made in a simple way'. He also added that one can actually not compare the two situations because the risk of getting infected by COVID-19 depends on multiple factors. 

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Justin Yang said, "It ultimately depends on the distance you maintain from an infected person. The closer you are to someone with the virus, the more chances you may be of getting infected. Risk in aeroplanes is not as significant as people think because of the airflow patterns, enhanced cleaning and mask-wearing."

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While responding to Yang's explanation, Barnett concurred and said 'one can compare the risk scenarios by if knowing all the safety precautions including social distancing and mask-wearing are enforced properly in the respective settings.' He also highlighted that when people remove their masks at the restaurant for consuming foods in the restaurants and this increased their chances of getting infected by the virus. Stating an example of a person who is travelling in a plane, Barett said, 'removing of mask increases transmission risk by 33 per cent.'

Barrett and his team said that despite the fact that the death risk for domestic air passengers who contract COVID-19 infection may be low in the US but it has still caused many deaths of people who were not passengers. 'These indirect victims of infections incurred during flights (i.e. of tertiary infections) could well outnumber the direct victims,' he added. 

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(With PTI inputs)