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John Madden refused air travel long before the coronavirus pandemic came along.
“I’m not afraid of flying, I just fear I’m going to die,” the legendary football coach, now 84 years old, explained in an interview decades ago. “I think I’m vulnerable.”
This animated graphic surely won’t change his mind about his vulnerability.
The visual, produced by Purdue University, shows how easily tiny droplets can spread throughout the cabin after a single cough — a troubling thought even before the coronavirus.
In that scenario, it is doubtful this Italian manufacturer’s seat design would do any good:
The good news, according to the Washington Post, is that researchers are making progress in ways to limit the spread of potential viruses inside airplane cabins, including the use of ultraviolet light to kill the germs, though they probably won’t help in the current pandemic.
“It’s come a little too soon for us,” Columbia University’s David Brenner told the Post. “If it had come at this time next year, we’d be in a good position to fight it.”
But it was the GIF, not the research advances, that lit up the internet:
Meanwhile, wafting viruses be damned, passengers are heading back to the airports. Slowly.
After a steady diet of record lows this month, TSA saw a jump of almost 50% to 128,875 screenings, including workers and crew members, on Sunday from the April low point two weeks prior — a signal that travelers are returning after weeks of quarantine across the U.S. and abroad.
Of course, that figure is still down about 95% from its peak.
