The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has doubled the risk of infection on flights, said a top medical adviser to the world’s airlines on Wednesday, 22 December.
David Powell, physician and medical adviser to the International Air Transport Association, which represents over 30 airlines, said in an interview with Bloomberg that the new strain is highly transmissible and raises the risk of infection for passengers by two to threefold.
The now-dominant strain accounts for 70 percent of all new cases in the United States (US) alone. The revelations foreshadow an exponential increase in COVID-19 cases as millions of people return home during the holiday season.
Powell said that hospital-grade air filters on modern passenger jets lower the risk of getting the infections as compared to crowded spaces on ground such as malls.
The medical adviser added that business class may be safer than more densely packed economy cabins. However, passengers flying during the pandemic should not be lax in taking precautions while taking to the air and maintain social distancing protocols. He advised passengers to avoid face-to-face contact and surfaces that are frequently touched, and that people should avoid eating meals unmasked at the same time in flights.
He said, “Whatever the risk was with Delta, we would have to assume the risk would be two to three times greater with omicron, just as we’ve seen in other environments. Whatever that low risk -- we don’t know what it is -- on the airplane, it must be increased by a similar amount.”
Powell said that vaccination and booster shots are the greatest protection against the coronavirus. He added, “The protection that you give yourself from an extra mask or a different type of mask, or not flying at all, frankly, is probably less than the benefit you would get from just being fully boosted.”
(With inputs from Bloomberg.)
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