![]() ![]() ![]() Researchers also identified potential airborne spread in a restaurant in China, among three families who sat at neighboring tables. Researchers have hypothesized that loud singing for a long time may have produced a high, continuous stream of aerosols and caused the vast outbreak. But the 2.5-hour practice resulted in an outbreak of 52 confirmed or strongly suspected cases of COVID-19, as well as two deaths. When 61 singers attended a choir practice in Washington state at the start of the pandemic, a single person was infected with COVID-19. Several epidemiological studies have demonstrated the potential for COVID-19 aerosols to infect others indoors. Outdoors, however, the virus can disperse more easily. When an infected individual emits aerosols, they are more likely to spread disease in poorly ventilated, indoor spaces. The important thing, experts told MedPage Today, is that public health measures adapt to meet the data about how the virus spreads, ensuring interventions are effective. While surface transmission has been deemed less important, it's still difficult to discern just how much of spread is truly driven by long-distance (aerosol) versus closer-contact (droplet) transmission. As "close-contact" refers to a distance between people - and not a process of transmission - Huffman told MedPage Today that the previous guidance was unclear, because it did not distinguish that inhalation can occur at both short and long distances. "One of the most important aspects of the recent CDC updates is that they finally remove the ambiguous, 'close-contact' terminology, which just confused the whole discussion," said Alex Huffman, PhD, an expert in aerosols and bioaerosols at the University of Denver. Following a similar change made recently by the World Health Organization (WHO), the CDC guidance acknowledges three primary routes of SARS-CoV-2 transmission: inhalation into the lungs, deposition of droplets onto the face, or touching infected surfaces, also known as fomites.Įxperts have welcomed this modification, as many have been calling for such an acknowledgement for months. ![]()
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