Airborne COVID-19 can spread more than 6-feet, US officials warn
The United States of America health officials have finally acknowledged that coronavirus is airborne and can travel more than six-feet. This is contained in the “Centres for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDCP) Guidelines” updated recently. Part of the guidelines reads: “COVID-19 spreads when an infected person breathes out droplets and very small particles that contain […]
The United States of America health officials have finally acknowledged that coronavirus is airborne and can travel more than six-feet. This is contained in the “Centres for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDCP) Guidelines” updated recently.
Part of the guidelines reads: “COVID-19 spreads when an infected person breathes out droplets and very small particles that contain the virus. These droplets and particles can be breathed in by other people or land on their eyes, noses or mouths.
“People who are closer than six feet from the infected person are most likely to get infected.”
Previously, CDCs warned that COVID-19 spread primarily through close contact, coughs and sneezes, not through what is known as “airborne transmission”.
Viruses that are airborne are tiny enough to travel farther distances as aerosols, rather than larger droplets.
The agency’s advice also continues to move away from warning about the risk of contracting the virus from surfaces, though the new guidance does acknowledge their potential to become contaminated.
“CDC has now caught up to the latest scientific evidence, and they’ve gotten rid of some old problematic terms and thinking about how transmission occurs,” Virginia Tech aerosol expert, Linsey Marr, told the New York Times.
Experts clarified that the risk of aerosol spread of COVID-19 was still very low outdoors because ample space and wind tended to quickly carry away and disperse particles of the virus.
That means that one is less likely to come into contact with any viral particles, and if one does, the concentration is less likely to be enough to infect one because the risk of contracting the virus increases with the volume one encounters.
But if you are indoors, especially in a poorly ventilated room, the virus is liable to linger in the air and remain a threat – a danger the CDC has finally acknowledged. Mail Online