Researchers demonstrated how viruses can spread.
Published: Thu 30 Jan 2020, 12:36 PM
Updated: Thu 30 Jan 2020, 2:51 PM
As coronavirus scare intensifies, travellers across the world remain terrified of flying, considering airports can be a vulnerable spot to contract the infection.
Researchers studied how the movement and seating of an infected person in a plane affected other passengers. And came up with the conclusion that the window seat is the safest place to sit on a plane to avoid catching coronavirus.
Experts from Emory University derived the conclusion after studying passengers' behaviour on flights lasting between three and five hours. They found that 38 per cent of passengers left their seats once while 24 per cent more than once, but passengers by the window barely left their seat at all. This reduced the number of contacts with other passengers from 64 for those sitting in the aisle to just 12 for window seat holders, reported Daily Mail.
Researchers also demonstrated the movement of passengers around an aircraft to show how viruses can spread. They found that passengers in aisle seats are much more likely to come into contact with infected passengers as well as cabin crew.
They backed the conclusion by pointing out that people don't just sit down during flights, they visit the bathroom, stretch their legs and touch overhead lockers.
"Suppose you're seated in an aisle seat or a middle seat and I walk by to go to the lavatory. We're going to be in close contact, meaning we'll be within a meter. So if I'm infected, I could transmit to you...Ours was the first study to quantify this," Howard Weiss, study author told National Geographic.
As coronavirus scare intensifies, travellers across the world remain terrified of flying, considering airports can be a vulnerable spot to contract the infection.
Researchers studied how the movement and seating of an infected person in a plane affected other passengers. And came up with the conclusion that the window seat is the safest place to sit on a plane to avoid catching coronavirus.
Experts from Emory University derived the conclusion after studying passengers' behaviour on flights lasting between three and five hours. They found that 38 per cent of passengers left their seats once while 24 per cent more than once, but passengers by the window barely left their seat at all. This reduced the number of contacts with other passengers from 64 for those sitting in the aisle to just 12 for window seat holders, reported Daily Mail.
Researchers also demonstrated the movement of passengers around an aircraft to show how viruses can spread. They found that passengers in aisle seats are much more likely to come into contact with infected passengers as well as cabin crew.
They backed the conclusion by pointing out that people don't just sit down during flights, they visit the bathroom, stretch their legs and touch overhead lockers. "Suppose you're seated in an aisle seat or a middle seat and I walk by to go to the lavatory. We're going to be in close contact, meaning we'll be within a meter. So if I'm infected, I could transmit to you...Ours was the first study to quantify this," Howard Weiss, study author told National Geographic.
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