Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2: The world should face the reality

2020/04/10 by Lídia Morawska, Junji Cao · 1 voice · 9 citations
Medicine · Mathematics · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Infection Control and Ventilation #COVID-19 epidemiological studies #COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts

paper · doi:10.1016/j.envint.2020.105730

openalex publication_date 2020/04/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

Hand washing and maintaining social distance are the main measures recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) to avoid contracting COVID-19. Unfortunately, these measured do not prevent infection by inhalation of small droplets exhaled by an infected person that can travel distance of meters or tens of meters in the air and carry their viral content. Science explains the mechanisms of such transport and there is evidence that this is a significant route of infection in indoor environments. Despite this, no countries or authorities consider airborne spread of COVID-19 in their regulations to prevent infections transmission indoors. It is therefore extremely important, that the national authorities acknowledge the reality that the virus spreads through air, and recommend that adequate control measures be implemented to prevent further spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, in particularly removal of the virus-laden droplets from indoor air by ventilation.

Citations

• Size distribution and sites of origin of droplets expelled from the human respiratory tract during expiratory activities
• A Novel Coronavirus from Patients with Pneumonia in China, 2019
• Structural basis for the recognition of SARS-CoV-2 by full-length human ACE2
• Aerosol and Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2 as Compared with SARS-CoV-1
• An investigation of transmission control measures during the first 50 days of the COVID-19 epidemic in China
• Turbulent Gas Clouds and Respiratory Pathogen Emissions

Cited by

• How can airborne transmission of COVID-19 indoors be minimised?
• Dismantling myths on the airborne transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2)
• Persistence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 in Aerosol Suspensions
• Practical Indicators for Risk of Airborne Transmission in Shared Indoor Environments and Their Application to COVID-19 Outbreaks
• Ventilation strategies to reduce airborne transmission of viruses in classrooms: A systematic review of scientific literature
• SARS-CoV-2: a systematic review of indoor air sampling for virus detection
• Effectiveness of portable air filtration on reducing indoor aerosol transmission: preclinical observational trials
• Comparing aerosol concentrations and particle size distributions generated by singing, speaking and breathing
• Combining Phi6 as a surrogate virus and computational large‐eddy simulations to study airborne transmission of SARS‐CoV‐2 in a restaurant
• Entretenimiento: Battlestations: Midway

Discussions

• 2020 June - Env Int Morawska, Lidia, and Junji Cao. ‘Airborne Transmission of SARS-CoV-2: The World Should Face the Reality’. Environ. Int. 139 (June 2020): 105730. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.20 [bsky, 0 points, 1 comments]