COVID-19 is airborne, but only in a limited environment - WHO

WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) chief scientist, Dr Soumya Swaminathan said COVID-19 can survive and be transmitted through air, but in a very limited environment.

What does it mean?

WHO's chief scientist Dr Swaminathan spoke in an exclusive interview on India Today to comment on the new evidence found by 230 scientists from 32 countries across the globe suggesting that COVID-19 is airborne.

When asked about WHO’s stand on the subject, Dr Swaminathan said the virus can survive in the air and transmit, but in a very limited environment.

According to her, the droplets that come out of our mouths are of different sizes. While the larger droplets can fall to the ground within 1-2 meters, there are smaller droplets, less than 5 microns in size that are called aerosols that can stay a bit longer in the air and be moved around by gusts of wind, hence why it can be called as airborne transmission

Does it matter?

WHO still maintains that COVID-19 is primarily transmitted from person-to-person through small droplets, and that it is only in a limited environment that there could be an airborne transmission.

This form of airborne transmission is very different from airborne transmission from viruses such as measles that spread primarily in the air.

“If it was truly airborne like measles, in the sense that it was everywhere, all of us would have been infected by now," Dr Swaminathan said while stressing the importance of creating a distinction between the two types of airborne transmissions.

With regards to the tiny droplets presumably containing the virus, she said since they are very small, they could remain in the air for 10-15 minutes after coming out from someone's mouth.

"If you happen to enter that space and breathe that air, you may get infected because the tiny droplets containing the virus are still in the air.”

Since the majority of the transmission occur from droplets, most COVID-19 cases can be prevented via social distancing and other means, she added. - Agency