told by NHS to quarantine on return to uk?

hannah021

Hi

Does anyone know how the NHS track and trace works with respect to determining who should quarantine on return, if someone on a flight tested positive? Do they ask everyone on that flight to quarantine (because air obviously circulates) or specifically those who were in close proximity?

British Airways didnt hesitate to cramp ppl together. I thought the middle seat is left free unless you are in a group!

thanks

Yahoo_Mail

The air doesn't circulate that much on a plane, it's not like it's being blown from the front of the plane all the way to the back and then sucked up to be blown back from the front again.  Realistically it will probably be one or two rows in front and behind you where it can permeate.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771435

silvercar

there are data points where this has happened. There was a flight into Cardiff (I think from Zante, but happy to be corrected) where there were a number of cases on board and the whole flight was asked to isolate.
there have been other flights where a single case or household group tested positive and the 1 or 2 rows around the infectious person were required to quarantine.

air circulates around the rows on a plane, not up and down the plane, even then it is filtered. 

bradders1983

hannah021 said:

Hi

Does anyone know how the NHS track and trace works with respect to determining who should quarantine on return, if someone on a flight tested positive? Do they ask everyone on that flight to quarantine (because air obviously circulates) or specifically those who were in close proximity?

British Airways didnt hesitate to cramp ppl together. I thought the middle seat is left free unless you are in a group!

thanks

Nope. If they can sell every seat, they sell every seat. This is well documented by now.

macman

It would be pointless leaving the middle seat free, because even if you sit in the window or aisle seat, you are well within a 2m range of all the other surrounding window and aisle seats.
To achieve 2m social distancing on a plane with 3+3 seating, you'd need to leave 8 out of every 9 seats unoccupied, and no airline is going to do that. 

epm-84

macman said:

It would be pointless leaving the middle seat free, because even if you sit in the window or aisle seat, you are well within a 2m range of all the other surrounding window and aisle seats.
To achieve 2m social distancing on a plane with 3+3 seating, you'd need to leave 8 out of every 9 seats unoccupied, and no airline is going to do that. 

You seem to be presuming everyone on board is from a different household, there's no point keeping people from the same household 2m apart and in the case of parents with young children trying to do that will almost certainly lead to complaints. 

epm-84

bradders1983 said:

hannah021 said:

Hi

Does anyone know how the NHS track and trace works with respect to determining who should quarantine on return, if someone on a flight tested positive? Do they ask everyone on that flight to quarantine (because air obviously circulates) or specifically those who were in close proximity?

British Airways didnt hesitate to cramp ppl together. I thought the middle seat is left free unless you are in a group!

thanks

Nope. If they can sell every seat, they sell every seat. This is well documented by now.

Correct. I think it was the Easyjet CEO who was first to say the middle seats would be kept empty where possible but that was when the FCO started lifting travel advice against all non-essential travel and he knew for the first few weeks most flights would operate at well below their maximum capacity.  It was well reported that the policy of not attempting to sell middle seats would not be viable for airlines.  Obviously if your travelled to the Greek islands in school half term, when most other destinations in Europe have been ruled out, you should have expected 95-100% of seats to be occupied.

epm-84

silvercar said:

there are data points where this has happened. There was a flight into Cardiff (I think from Zante, but happy to be corrected) where there were a number of cases on board and the whole flight was asked to isolate.
there have been other flights where a single case or household group tested positive and the 1 or 2 rows around the infectious person were required to quarantine.

air circulates around the rows on a plane, not up and down the plane, even then it is filtered. 

Yes. It was 7 cases from 3 different parties reported initially and then the following day it was reported there were 16 cases.

There was also one case on a Zante to Glasgow flight, BBC News reported that 14 other people on the flight were told to self-isolate due to being close contacts of that person.

It was what lead to the different rules for Greece depending whether you live in Wales, England or Scotland.  Scotland went for a mandatory 14 day quarantine on all arrivals from Greece, Wales immediately imposed restrictions on certain islands while England imposed restrictions on different islands.  However, it was likely it was the attitudes of British people going to certain islands that caused the problem, rather than any of the islands having a high infection rate.

macman

epm-84 said:

macman said:

It would be pointless leaving the middle seat free, because even if you sit in the window or aisle seat, you are well within a 2m range of all the other surrounding window and aisle seats.
To achieve 2m social distancing on a plane with 3+3 seating, you'd need to leave 8 out of every 9 seats unoccupied, and no airline is going to do that. 

You seem to be presuming everyone on board is from a different household, there's no point keeping people from the same household 2m apart and in the case of parents with young children trying to do that will almost certainly lead to complaints. 

Fair point, but even with just the middle seats out, you won't accommodate every separate household at 2m distance. You'd need to separate each household by 2 empty rows, and an aisle and empty aisle seats, as the seat pitch is too close. 
Take just one sixth of capacity out of typical budget airline load factors (90% or higher) and it makes every flight uneconomical. All the costs remain the same, with the exception of some slight fuel savings and some reduction in ground handling charges. But these are marginal: all the fixed costs remain the same.

hannah021

macman said:

It would be pointless leaving the middle seat free, because even if you sit in the window or aisle seat, you are well within a 2m range of all the other surrounding window and aisle seats.
To achieve 2m social distancing on a plane with 3+3 seating, you'd need to leave 8 out of every 9 seats unoccupied, and no airline is going to do that. 

it isnt quite like that, i sat on the window seat, and the guy next to me kept his gaze on the window breathing towards me with his thin blue mask that hardly offers much!! i ended up closing the window so he stops looking towards me. The flight was a short journey, i wonder how those with long hours journeys manage, especially if food is served!!

Yahoo_Mail

hannah021 said:

macman said:

It would be pointless leaving the middle seat free, because even if you sit in the window or aisle seat, you are well within a 2m range of all the other surrounding window and aisle seats.
To achieve 2m social distancing on a plane with 3+3 seating, you'd need to leave 8 out of every 9 seats unoccupied, and no airline is going to do that. 

it isnt quite like that, i sat on the window seat, and the guy next to me kept his gaze on the window breathing towards me with his thin blue mask that hardly offers much!! i ended up closing the window so he stops looking towards me. The flight was a short journey, i wonder how those with long hours journeys manage, especially if food is served!!

Given that those masks usually tend to "bow" out at the sides, just level with the mouth, you were probably better off with him facing you than facing forward.  Not that there's much chance of you catching it on a plane anyway.