Germs on a Plane

Who knew that Dr. Julie Gerberding, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is a germ phobe like the rest of us? (Or at least she knows too much about the transmission of microorganisms, just like the rest of us!) In a funny piece from CNN’s senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, Gerberding describes how she tried to evade airborne pathogens on a transcontinental flight while sitting next to a woman who was “coughing up a lung” and displaying some suspicious flu-like symptoms. It mostly comes down to luck of the draw – where you sit on an airplane, and your proximity to a sick person, can dictate whether you will be exposed to infectious microbes. Cohen quotes Dr. Rhonda Medows, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Health, as remarking that whenever you are out in public, you can catch a germ from anyone within about six feet of you, as that's how far some germs can travel. To read this article, CLICK HERE.