Originally Posted by BrianDromey

OP - What do you think you might catch from a used sock?



It nice to have a clean environment and I don't especially want to sit in someone else's crumbs. That said, Im not sure what you might catch from a surface? There have been essentially zero confirmed cases of fomite transmission of COVID-19. I say zero, the most accurate number I could find was "a few" out of 382 million confirmed global cases. I'm not necessarily critical of the initial messaging, like many other novel viral illnesses the mode of transmission and of infectivity are unknowns during the early days but the messaging has to be reviewed as our knowledge improves. The FACE and SAPCE parts for the slogans were good - the hands less so. Viral illness in general, such as Norovirus and other GI disturbances were drastically reduced in those winters, so it might have been effective overall in protecting the NHS, but not necessarily from COVID-19.

Now, on a plane I take the view that a few crumbs aren't great but highly unlikely to cause my immune system to activate a response. On the other hand Im not going to sit in a wet seat for an hour or more. It could be water or urine, it will be uncomfortable and could irritate or cause skin breakdown, damage my personal electronics or clothes. That said, if someone did cause a seat to be wet on a LHR-JNB (for example) and the crew did not know, or the cleaning team missed it, it could well be dry by boarding given the long turns and local temperatures. Once the seat dries, I would never know and any bacteria or viral pathogens would likely be dehydrated or non infective anymore.

Lets not even think what could be on the seats of a taxi/uber, especially on a Sunday morning with a strong smell of fabric cleaner. Ignorance truly is bliss.