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Transmission Risk of Airborne Viruses Can Be Quantified
The dynamics of how aerosols travel from one person to another, under different circumstances, and what they mean for COVID-19 transmission risk
March 3, 2021
In the 1995 movie Outbreak, Dustin Hoffman s character realizes, with appropriately dramatic horror, that an infectious virus is airborne because it s found to be spreading through hospital vents.
The issue of whether our real-life pandemic virus, SARS-CoV-2, is airborne is predictably more complex. The current body of evidence suggests that COVID-19 primarily spreads through respiratory droplets the small, liquid particles you sneeze or cough, that travel some distance, and fall to the floor. But consensus is mounting that, under the right circumstances, smaller floating particles called aerosols can carry the virus over longer distances and remain suspended in air for longer periods. Scientists are still determining SARS-CoV-2 s favorite way to travel.
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Credit: Mj Riches
In the 1995 movie Outbreak, Dustin Hoffman s character realizes, with appropriately dramatic horror, that an infectious virus is airborne because it s found to be spreading through hospital vents.
The issue of whether our real-life pandemic virus, SARS-CoV-2, is airborne is predictably more complex. The current body of evidence suggests that COVID-19 primarily spreads through respiratory droplets - the small, liquid particles you sneeze or cough, that travel some distance, and fall to the floor. But consensus is mounting that, under the right circumstances, smaller floating particles called aerosols can carry the virus over longer distances and remain suspended in air for longer periods. Scientists are still determining SARS-CoV-2 s favorite way to travel.