Leaving the middle seats unoccupied in the main cabin of an airliner could cut nearly in half the risk of contracting COVID-19 during a flight, acording to a study that cautions that the conclusion is based on a “rough approximation of the risks … with an emphasis on the word ‘rough.’”1
The study estimated that the risk of contracting the virus from a nearby passenger during a flight in early July was one in 7,700 if all middle seats were empty, compared with one in 4,300 with the seats occupied.
“These estimates imply COVID-19 mortality risks to uninfected air travelers are considerably higher than those associated with plane crashes but probably less than one in 500,000,” said a report on the study by Arnold Barnett, a professor of management science and statistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.
The report appeared as an “unrefereed preprint” ─ that is, not yet subject to peer review and therefore…
