Epidemiologist: Choose a nonstop flight if you must fly, but better to comply with CDC advice and not journey

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — Is just one airline safer than a further to fly in the COVID-19 era?

We wondered, for the reason that Delta is the only airline at Harrisburg International Airport that blocks most middle seats on its flights (via March 30 as of now, despite the fact that it has prolonged the practice several situations) it only assigns a center seat if, for example, three people today in a relatives are touring alongside one another.

All issues staying equal, an empty center as a substitute of a stranger immediately next to you — if you’re seated in a window seat, for illustration — should really be far better than practically nothing. But all matters are not often equivalent in the airline marketplace. Unique airways fly to diverse cities. What if you have to pick out between a connecting flight on center-seat-blocking Delta and a nonstop flight on other airlines — for case in point, a nonstop flight to Chicago on American or United, which fly there right from HIA, or a connecting itinerary there on Delta, which doesn’t? A nonstop flight on a likely total plane, or two flights on fewer total airplanes — but an added airport to go as a result of, additional visits to general public restrooms and so forth?

“What vacationers want to do is the two lower the duration and the depth of their publicity,” said Dr. Debra Furr-Holden, an epidemiologist and affiliate dean for community overall health integration at Michigan Point out College. “So you want to do anything you can to lower the volume of time that you have to shell out on a plane and in an airport.”

Translation: choose the nonstop flight. A center seat is not accurate six-foot social length, she mentioned (seats on most airways about 18 inches wide). Furr-Holden agreed to response the question at all only reluctantly, saying the improved information is to basically stay away from nonessential journey, as the CDC and Pennsylvania well being officers are advising.