COVID-19 protocols

Air travel requires spending time around large numbers of people, such as in security lines and communal gathering areas of airport terminals. Although many viruses do not spread easily on flights because of how air is circulated and filtered, social distancing is difficult on crowded flights. Sitting within 6 feet of others, sometimes for hours, could increase risk of contracting COVID-19.

Before vaccines are proven effective and become widely available, government, organizations, and individuals can implement strategies to reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection and the resulting COVID-19 disease. Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) include social distancing/physical distancing/ border closures, school closures, isolation of symptomatic individuals and their contacts and large-scale lockdown of populations. Most of these strategies involve behavior change. Evidence from prior pandemics, such as the 1918 influenza pandemic, suggest that behavior change is a necessary component of responding to the currentCOVID-19 pandemic.

Before vaccines are proven effective and become widely available, government, organizations, and individuals can implement strategies to reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection and the resulting COVID-19 disease. Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) include social distancing/physical distancing/ border closures, school closures, isolation of symptomatic individuals and their contacts and large-scale lockdown of populations. Most of these strategies involve behavior change. Evidence from prior pandemics, such as the 1918 influenza pandemic, suggest that behavior change is a necessary component of responding to the current pandemic.

Engineering-based interventions, such as additions or modifications to HV/AC systems, implementation of dust suppression measures, and other solutions can be effective at limiting the spread of infectious respiratory diseases. Because they do not require behavior change on the part of individuals or oversight and enforcement measures by organizations.

Dust suppression has been proven effective at reducing the number of airborne organisms. During World War I, sailors aboard U.S. Navy ships applied oil to floors and wool blankets to reduce the amount of dust in the air. Later studies indicate that the practice reduced airborne organisms by 75% to 90%. However, studies conducted on soldiers between 1944 and 1945 and on sailors between 1945 and 1946 failed to document a beneficial effect from oiling blankets and floors during outbreaks of acute respiratory disease.