US CDC: SARS-CoV-2 can spread through the air for at least 2 metres

Editor : Lu Yongxin / Publisher : NTD / https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2020/10/06/a102957072.html / Translation, editing : Gan Yung Chyan, KUCINTA SETIA

Image : The picture shows a US CDC official testifying at a House Subcommittee hearing on the CCP virus crisis in Washington, DC on 31 July 2020. (Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images)

As covid spreads around the world, the US CDC acknowledged on 5 October that public health experts have generally raised concerns about the potential for the virus to spread through the air. exist. According to the issued guidelines, there is evidence that in a confined space with poor ventilation, infected persons may transmit the disease to people who are more than 2 metres apart.

The CDC constantly warns that the virus will be transmitted through small droplets that are emitted into the air. Most of these droplets will eventually land on the ground. This is where the norm to maintain a social distance of 2 meters comes from.

The CDC published a similar warning on its official website a few weeks ago, triggering debates on the way the virus spreads, but the CDC subsequently removed the warning.

On 5 October, the CDC stated that there is evidence that in a confined space with poor ventilation, infected patients may transmit the disease to people who are more than 2 meters apart.

The CDC pointed out that scientists believe that under the above circumstances, covid patients produce smaller droplets and particles with the virus, namely aerosols, which will become concentrated enough to spread the virus.

Aerosol particles can be suspended in the air like mist, stay for a few seconds to several hours, spread more than 2 metres, and can accumulate in poorly ventilated indoor air to form a super spreading environment.

Although the CDC emphasized that close contact infection is more common than airborne infection, a group of American scientists pointed out in an open letter in the journal Science on the 5th that aerosols suspended in the air may be an important way for the spread of COVID-19. The researchers also said, “The fact is that airborne transmission is the main route of infection in the case of close and long-term contact.”