A new study published on Friday in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a journal of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has found the virus can travel up to 13 feet (four meters) — twice the distance current guidelines say people should leave between themselves in public. The study is based on the preliminary results of the investigation by Chinese researchers.
They add to a growing debate on how the disease is transmitted, with the scientists themselves cautioning that the small quantities of virus they found at this distance are not necessarily infectious.
The researchers, led by a team at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences in Beijing, tested surface and air samples from an intensive care unit and a general Covid-19 ward at Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan. They housed a total of 24 patients between February 19 and March 2.
The virus was found to be most heavily concentrated on the floors of the wards, ‘perhaps because of gravity and airflow causing most virus droplets to float to the ground’.
Other places where the virus was found to be concentrated was on frequently touched surfaces like computer mouse, trashcans, bed rails, and doorknobs.
The research says, ‘Furthermore, half of the samples from the soles of the ICU medical staff shoes tested positive. Therefore, the soles of medical staff shoes might function as carriers’.
So far, we only know that coronavirus is transported only through droplets that are coughed or sneezed out — either directly, or on objects. There have been some reports which hint of airborne transmission. In airborne transmission, disease spreads in the much smaller particles from exhaled air, known as aerosols.
The World Health Organization has so far downplayed the risk
In a scientific brief posted to its website on 27 March, the World Health Organization said that there is not sufficient evidence to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 is airborne, except in a handful of medical contexts, such as when intubating an infected patient.
US health authorities have adopted a more cautious line and urged people to cover their faces when out in public in case the virus can be transmitted through normal breathing and speaking.
