Higher infection risk in cars
"Travelling in a car with a person infected with the flu can mean your chance of getting sick is up to 99.9%." Image: STEFANOLUNARDI/iStockphoto Travelling in a car with a person infected with the flu can mean your chance of getting sick is up to 99.9%, a study from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) shows.Professor Lidia Morawska, director of QUT's International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health, said the risk of transmitting influenza over a 90-minute car trip with someone ill could be higher than travelling on a Boeing 747 for 17 hours with an infected person.The study, which compared 1989 and 2005 models of passenger cars, estimated the risk ranged from 59% to 99.9% for a 90-minute car trip when air was recirculated in newer, more air-tight vehicles."This area hadn't been studied before and the results have implications for preventing in-car transmission of other illnesses spread by airborne particles," Professor Morawska...