Covid Is Airborne, Scientists Say. Now Authorities Think So, Too

Scientists are calling for ventilation systems to be overhauled like public water supplies were in the 1800s after fetid pipes were found to harbor cholera.

A quiet revolution has permeated global health circles. Authorities have come to accept what many researchers have argued for over a year: The coronavirus can spread through the air. “This cloud which stays around in the air, it may contain the virus.”What are the risks of #Covid19's aerosol transmission? Professor Lidia Morawska @QUT explains. More @business: https://t.co/wAREqDZ4capic.twitter.com/zIB0k1m8GC That new acceptance, by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, comes with concrete implications: Scientists are calling for ventilation systems to be overhauled like public water supplies were in the 1800s after fetid pipes were found to harbor cholera. Cleaner indoor air won't just fight the pandemic, it will minimize the risk of catching flu and other respiratory infections that cost the U.S. more than $50 billion a year, researchers said in a study in the journal Science on Friday. Avoiding these germs and their associated sickness and productivity losses would, therefore, offset the cost of upgrading ventilation and filtration in buildings. "We are used to the fact that we have clean water coming from our taps," said Lidia Morawska, a distinguished professor in the school of earth and atmospheric sciences at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, who led the study. Likewise, "we should expect clean, pollutant- and pathogen-free air" from indoor spaces, she said over Zoom.