CDC middle-seat report did not account for face coverings, layers of protection

A new CDC report concluding that blocking middle seats on aircraft could reduce coronavirus transmission did not consider safety measures such as mandatory face coverings, prompting ventilation expert Joseph Allen of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to say he is perplexed by the analysis excluding masking’s impact because it’s “the single most effective measure at reducing emissions of respiratory aerosols.” A spokesperson for Airlines for America said, “Multiple scientific studies confirm that the layers of protection significantly reduce risk, and research continues to demonstrate that the risk of transmission onboard aircraft is very low.” Importantly, the report, which was grounded in pre-pandemic data, did not assess transmission but rather exposure to a surrogate virus, not Covid-19.