Covid Predominantly Spreads Through Air: Lancet Study
The six experts from the UK, USA and Canada pointed out that public health measures that fail to treat the virus as predominantly airborne leave people unprotected and allow the virus to spread.
Researchers have concluded that there is “consistent” and “strong evidence” to prove the Sars-CoV-2 virus – which causes the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) – is primarily transmitted through air and that this reasoning should alter countries’ mitigation response to the pandemic that has ravaged the world.
In the early days of the pandemic, it was believed that the virus is largely transmitted when large droplets, which are exhaled by those infected, settle on surfaces and contaminate them. Months after the first outbreak was reported in China’s Wuhan, around 200 scientists from 32 nations last July wrote to the World Health Organization, saying there is evidence that the coronavirus is airborne.
The six experts from the UK, USA and Canada, including Jose-Luis Jimenez, chemist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and University of Colorado Boulder, pointed out that public health measures that fail to treat the virus as predominantly airborne leave people unprotected and allow the virus to spread.
The scientists said that transmission rates of SARS-CoV-2 are much higher indoors than outdoors, and transmission is greatly reduced by indoor ventilation. The team highlighted research estimating that silent (asymptomatic or presymptomatic) transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from people who are not coughing or sneezing accounts for at least 40% of all transmission.
This silent transmission is a key way covid-19 has spread around the world, “supporting a predominantly airborne mode of transmission,” the review said. The researchers also cited work demonstrating long-range transmission of the virus between people in adjacent rooms in hotels; people who were never in each other’s presence.
Wearing masks whenever indoors, attention to mask quality and fit, and higher-grade PPE for healthcare and other staff when working in contact with potentially infectious people are some of the other control measures, according to the researchers.
