Chennai: A new assessment published in The Lancet journal has said there is consistent, strong evidence to prove that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, behind the Covid-19 pandemic, is predominantly transmitted through the air.
The analysis by six experts from the UK, the US and Canada says public health measures that fail to treat the virus as predominantly airborne leave people unprotected and allow the virus to spread.
Although some studies in the past have suggested that Covid-19 may spread through air, overall scientific literature on the subject has been inconclusive.
During 2020 July, over 200 scientists from 32 nations wrote to the WHO, saying there is evidence that the coronavirus is airborne, and even smaller particles can infect people.
Jose-Luis Jimenez, from the University of Colorado Boulder in the US, said, “The evidence supporting airborne transmission is overwhelming, and evidence supporting large droplet transmission is almost non-existent.”
Jimenez added: “It is urgent that the World Health Organization and other public health agencies adapt their description of transmission to the scientific evidence so that the focus of mitigation is put on reducing airborne transmission.”
Led by researchers at the University of Oxford in the UK, the team reviewed published research and identified 10 lines of evidence to support the predominance of the airborne route.