The recent claims by the troubled aviation sector to convince the travellers that it’s safe to fly have been questioned by the scientist whose research they referred to.
IATA’s medical advisor Dr. David Powel, recently said that there were only 44 identified cases of in-flight transmissions out of 1.2 billion travellers, based on the studies by Dr David Freedman, a U.S. infectious diseases specialist, and Dr Annelies Wilder-Smith of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Dr. Freedman said that he took the issue with IATA’s risk calculation as it had no direct relation to the unknown real number of infections.
“They wanted me at that press conference to present the stuff, but honestly I objected to the title they had put on it,” he added
“It was bad math. 1.2 billion passengers during 2020 is not a fair denominator because hardly anybody was tested. How do you know how many people really got infected?” he said. “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
IATA maintains that its calculation is a “relevant and credible”.
“We’ve not claimed it’s a definitive and absolute number.” said an IATA Spokesperson.
