You may be able to spread coronavirus just by breathing, new report finds

[Javaman]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/you-may-be-able-spread-coronavirus-just-breathing-new-report-finds

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has given a boost to an unsettling idea: that the novel coronavirus can spread through the air—not just through the large droplets emitted in a cough or sneeze. Though current studies aren’t conclusive, “the results of available studies are consistent with aerosolization of virus from normal breathing,” Harvey Fineberg, who heads a standing committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats, wrote in a 1 April letter to Kelvin Droegemeier, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Thus far, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other health agencies have insisted the primary route of transmission for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is through the larger respiratory droplets, up to 1 millimeter across, that people expel when they cough and sneeze. Gravity grounds these droplets within 1 or 2 meters, although they deposit the virus on surfaces, from which people can pick it up and infect themselves by touching their mouth, nose, or eyes. But if the coronavirus can be suspended in the ultrafine mist that we produce when we exhale, protection becomes more difficult, strengthening the argument that all people should wear masks in public to reduce unwitting transmission of the virus from asymptomatic carriers.


The debate began when researchers reported earlier this year in The New England Journal of Medicine that SARS-CoV-2 can float in aerosol droplets—less than 5 microns across—for up to 3 hours, and remain infectious. In their review, Fineberg and his NAS colleagues pointed to other studies, including a recent one by Joshua Santarpia and colleagues at the University of Nebraska Medical Center that found widespread evidence of viral RNA in isolation rooms of patients being treated for COVID-19. Viral RNA turned up on hard to reach surfaces, as well as in air samplers more than 2 meters from the patients. The presence of the RNA indicates virus can spread via aerosols, Santarpia and his colleagues concluded, although they did not find infectious viral particles.

more at link...

[JenniferJuniper]

1. I thought this was already pretty well known?

There should have been a mask recommendation many weeks ago.

[SheltieLover]

2. I'm not a med professional

But this has been my presumption from the get go.

There were some large choirs who had several members test positive, lending credence to this concept.

TY for posting this!

[FreeState]

4. Here's the Choir information for those interested

Scary stuff.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-29/coronavirus-choir-outbreak

Sixty singers showed up. A greeter offered hand sanitizer at the door, and members refrained from the usual hugs and handshakes.

“It seemed like a normal rehearsal, except that choirs are huggy places,” Burdick recalled. “We were making music and trying to keep a certain distance between each other.”

After 2½ hours, the singers parted ways at 9 p.m.

Nearly three weeks later, 45 have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or ill with the symptoms, at least three have been hospitalized, and two are dead.

The outbreak has stunned county health officials, who have concluded that the virus was almost certainly transmitted through the air from one or more people without symptoms.

[customerserviceguy]

5. Same here

I'm sure medical experts were basing assumptions on other viruses of this class, and the spread of this disease shows those were probably erroneous assumptions.

[AlexSFCA]

3. that's the reason why it is so contagious

and it can be suspended in the air for 20 minutes in the absence of good ventilation. Countries that implemented facial masks early on are most successful. CDC decided to take approach: wait for science first and then consider, instead of let’s be on a safe side while waiting for science. You don’t need much resources to deal with pandemic - Hong Kong and Taiwan have a tiny fraction of our resources and yet are most successful in preventing covid-19 spread.