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CDC Asserts Novel Coronavirus Can Be Spread Via Airborne Transmission
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its COVID-19 website on October 5 with information acknowledging that the novel coronavirus can be spread via tiny droplets (aerosols) when individuals are more than 6 feet apart, especially in poorly ventilated enclosed spaces. The CDC asserts that large, respiratory droplets remain the most common mode of transmission.
The CDC website updated information regarding airborne transmission includes the following information:
“Some infections can be spread by exposure to virus in small droplets and particles that can linger in the air for minutes to hours. These viruses may be able to infect people who are further than 6 feet away from the person who is infected or after that person has left the space.
“This kind of spread is referred to as airborne transmission and is an important way that infections like tuberculosis, measles, and chicken pox are spread. There is evidence that under certain conditions, people with COVID-19 seem to have infected others who were more than 6 feet away. These transmissions occurred within enclosed spaces that had inadequate ventilation. Sometimes the infected person was breathing heavily, for example while singing or exercising. Under these circumstances, scientists believe that the amount of infectious smaller droplet and particles produced by the people with COVID-19 became concentrated enough to spread the virus to other people. The people who were infected were in the same space during the same time or shortly after the person with COVID-19 had left.”
