Scientists urge WHO to acknowledge virus may spread in the air

LONDON — More than 200 scientists have asked the World Health Organization and others to acknowledge that the coronavirus may spread in the air. This is a change that could change some of the current measures being taken to stop the pandemic.

In a letter published this week in the Australian Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases, two scientists from Australia and the United States said the study said: “The virus is a small liquid that is small enough to be released into the breath, talk, and float in the air. Beyond the rational suspicion of coughing with drops.” “That is, people with certain indoor conditions may be at greater risk of infection than previously thought.

WHO has long maintained that COVID-19 diffuses through larger respiratory droplets. Often when people cough or sneeze, they fall to the ground. It dismissed the possibility of airborne transmission, except for certain high-risk medical procedures, such as when the patient first fitted the respiratory system.

The UN Health Agency said in a statement Monday that it was aware of this article and is considering it with technical experts.

WHO has been criticized over the last few weeks or months because of its apparent disparity with the scientific community. For months, the organization refused to recommend wearing masks, partly due to supply concerns, and continued to describe COVID-19 infections in asymptomatic people as “rare.”

This letter has been approved by 239 scientists in various fields. The question of whether COVID-19 is in the air is “increased in importance,” as many countries have suspended restrictive lockdown measures.

The authors, citing previous work, suggested that bacteria closely related to the new virus were spread by airborne transmission. They said “there are all reasons to expect” that the coronavirus behaves similarly. They also cited a study of choir practice in Washington and a poorly ventilated restaurant in Guangzhou, China. Each of them caused a possible infection by airborne droplets.

“We are concerned that the lack of awareness of the risk of airborne transmission of COVID-19 and the lack of clear recommendations for control measures against airborne viruses will have serious consequences,” scientists write. It was “People may think that they are fully protected by adhering to current recommendations, but they actually require additional aerial intervention.”

Scientists around the world are working hard to understand new viruses. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it’s believed to jump from person to person, primarily through close contact, but “We’re still learning about how the virus spreads.”

Martin McKee, a European public health professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who has nothing to do with the letter, said the scientists’ argument was “fully rational.”

“Part of the problem is that everyone at WHO was working on the flu paradigm, despite the fact that we knew there were many differences between the flu and coronaviruses,” he said. Said.

With the recent reopening of British pubs, restaurants and salons, McKee said the potential for airborne coronavirus infections would require more stringent indoor interventions, including more masking and continued physical separation. May be.

“There is accumulating evidence of super-diffusion events taking place in indoor spaces with large numbers of people in limited spaces,” he said. “Many of these are exactly what the government wants to open now.”

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The Associated Press Health Sciences Department is supported by the Science Education Department of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. AP is solely responsible for all content.