The States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that the COVID also spreads through aerosol transmission.
Updating the guidance on Friday, meaning that the pathogen can even transmit through inhalation of a very fine particle mist. The particles exhaled by an infected person can remain suspended in the air and proliferate the virus in healthy bodies.
It now explicitly states that airborne virus can be inhaled even from more than six feet apart, from infected individuals. Although, many researchers and public health officials have long factored in such transmissions. However, the updated guideline is a change from the agency’s previous position. It said previously that most infections were through close contact and surface transmissions.
Although the guidance maintains that the principal mode of infection is through exposure to respiratory fluids carrying the infectious virus. It says the virus can also be transmitted in poorly ventilated or crowded indoors. Because aerosols remain suspended in the air or travel farther than a meter.
Some experts had worried that the CDC had underplayed such airborne aerosol transmission. As the transmission would make not just social distancing and personal distancing imperative. The guidance endorses the advice that masking and distancing, additionally ventilation, is vital even in a closed family situation.
The fine differentiation between aerosol/ fine mist and droplets might seem like pettifogging to some. However, experts say it could still lead to essential guidelines. For instance, it may be better to be outdoors with social distancing. Rather than to be social distancing indoors, even with family members in a poorly ventilated spaces. The new guidelines raise questions mark on the three feet distancing in classrooms. The US has used the measure to reopen the schools, but the new search findings suggest revising it.
Recommendations unchanged
In an open letter in Jul 239, scientists urged the World Health Organization or recognised the potential of airborne spread. A meat plant research suggested that the virus can travel up to 26 feet under certain conditions.
It is unusual for the CDC to alert the media to changes in its guidelines. With updates frequently issued to the agency’s website with little commotion.
