They can go up to 16 feet, new report says
Schools are slowly reopening, and as students are going back, the concerns of both parents and school authorities are growing as there are chances of the coronavirus spreading much easily, especially in buildings with poor ventilation.
John Lednicky, who is studying viruses in the University of Florida spoke about the matter to CBS News. After hearing about all the controversy on whether the SARS-CoV-2 has any airborne routes to spread, he and his team found out that there are indeed aerial routes that help in spreading. The virus can go up to 16 feet from an infected patient with the help of tiny droplets called aerosols.
A Fortunate Discovery
Linsey Marr, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Virginia Tech who studies how viruses travel through the air also addressed this issue. Marr explained that we are dealing with a virus that can travel even through these very tiny droplets that travels much farther through air and can remain in the air for minutes or even hours at a time.
This is an important discovery since to this day, we have been practicing the mandatory 6 feet distance between people in public areas. However, aerosols can be formed by simply talking, and can travel faster, so standing without proper masks can result in getting infected, even if you consider yourself safe by standing 6 feet away. In a classroom simulation, it was shown that the spread of the virus can be significantly cut down if a ventilation source is placed near a teacher.
Marr said that once the aerosol factor has been acknowledged, we can take up new steps to prevent further chances of getting infected.
(Cover: hbr.org)