Nothing new under the sun. Covid community transmission comes from Covid infected people in close quarters with others.
No matter how big an airplane cabin is perceived, it is a very confined space. As others have noted, just the process of arriving at the airport terminal finally progressing into one’s seat, is a plethora of Covid rich opportunity.
Covid-19 is an inconvenient truth that a significant portion of the US population seems unwilling to accept. That attitude makes it ripe for US leadership to make promises they cannot keep offering all sorts of statements ranging from it is really not that serious to blanket lockdowns to assuage a largely Covid ignorant and Covid tired public.
At some point, with 100,000+ daily infections, regardless of improved therapeutics, hospitals are already reaching capacity, and the death count is still over 1,000+ people a day and climbing. Add to these community spread numbers three of the most cherished and family intense, close quartered public holidays ( Times Square on New Year’s Eve for example) within 6 weeks of each other, the country with only 5% of the global population but over 20% of the global infections already will be dealing with numbers almost unimaginable.
Ireland is taking action based on the infection of 59 people on who arrived on an airliner with only 17% of the seats filled. Meanwhile Texas alone has over 1 million infections with no end in sight.
Our two opposing political parties have proven to be equally inept, willingly ignorant regarding the most basic three requirements to, at the very least, control the community spread. Until a vaccine is available both in efficacy and sufficient numbers for the US population, we are potentially passing into an economic apocalypse plus a death rate that could make the Great Depression look like a minor bump in the road. Add to this perfect storm of US division, a debated election.
So far the sum total is a numb US public looking for numbers to suggest 240k deaths is a small percentage of the total population making it justifiable to continue to live life as if all this carnage is simply made up.
Airplanes played more than a significant role in global transmission of this virus. So has restaurants, bars, rallies of all kinds, factories, stadium events, care/nursing homes, etc…any venue that allows or demands people to be in close quarters. No amount of debates about aircraft HVAC systems demonstrates anything other than increase community spread when a few people or a large number of people are stuck in a confined cabin space, Covid spreads.
Flying commercially is risky, taking public transportation of any kind is risky, eating out is risky, having a drink at the local gin mill is risky, going to Walmart is risky. Just about everything is risky if it involves being indoors in close proximity to another human being.
There are only two outcomes. Once you contract it, either you live or you die. So far, 10 months into the pandemic, of all those who have contracted Covid and have progressed to an outcome, 4% have died . 96% have lived. That percentage has not changed much for over the last six months.
Should be an interesting holiday season to say the least. Investing in funeral homes, headstones, and burial plots might be the best “stock” tip for 2021.