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HOW RISKY IS A TRAIN JOURNEY? Preliminary research by @RSSB_rail suggests chance of getting COVID-19 from a train journey is around 1 in 11,000. That's without factoring in face coverings. More detail in this BBC News clip: https://play.buto.tv/4jWPl
This is supported by German research that couldn't trace any infections back to any train journey in Germany or Austria. https://www.railmagazine.com/news/network/1-in-11-000-chance-of-contracting-covid-19-on-trains
Surprisingly, they found air-conditioned trains better than non-air-con, as air flow is vertical, not along the car. Aircraft recycle a large % of air to avoid heating it, trains bring in a much higher % of fresh air. Eurostar say the air in their cars refreshes every 15 mins.
Meanwhile, research on China's high-speed trains found that people who sat close to an infected person (within 5 seats or 3 rows), had an average chance of contracting it of just 0.32%, tho' this varied depending how far away & how long they travelled... https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/07/train-transmission.page
...remembering of course that in much of western Europe the chance of the person sitting next to you having coronavirus is of the order of magnitude of between 1 in 2000 and 1 in 1,500 - though it will of course vary...
Interestingly, the same study found that people who sat in a seat which had been previously occupied by an infected person had a 0.075% chance of contracting it, in other words over 99.92% of not getting it.
So yes, it's early days with limited chance for big studies so far, hold the 'whataboutery' replies please... But it's starting to look as if a train ride is unlikely to be anything like as risky as some might fear.
