Scientists convinced about coronavirus floating in air as aerosol

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

More than 200 scientists from around the world have challenged the official point of view of regarding the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) as the pandemic has rocked the whole world by having killed over half a million people. 

The scientists have contended the observations of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has continued to list only a couple of reasons of the transmission of the deadly virus. 

While the two organizations have maintained that inhaling respiratory droplets from an infected person in immediate vicinity or touching a contaminated surface and then eyes, nose or mouth were the two reasons of the contagious disease finding its way into others but the scientists have reckoned that there was growing evidence another way of its transmission. 

These scientists appear convinced on the basis multiple studies which demonstrated that particles known as aerosols, microscopic versions of standard respiratory droplets, can hang in the air for long periods and float dozens of feet, making poorly ventilated rooms, buses and other confined spaces dangerous, even when people stay six feet from one another. 

“We are 100% sure about this,” Lidia Morawska, a professor of atmospheric sciences and environmental engineering at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, asserted. She made the case in an open letter to the WHO accusing the United Nations agency of failing to issue appropriate warnings about the risk. 

A total of 239 researchers from 32 countries have reportedly signed the letter, which was expected to be published next week in a scientific journal. 

In interviews, the experts have pointed out that aerosol transmission appeared to be the only way to explain several super-spreading events like the infection of diners at a restaurant in China who sat at separate tables and of choir members in Washington who took precautions during a rehearsal. 

The WHO officials were reported to have acknowledged that the virus could be transmitted through aerosols but, according to them, it occured only during medical procedures such as intubation that can spew large quantities of the microscopic particles.