It is no longer a surprise that coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is airborne.
In May 2021, the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC) recognized that the COVID-19 is airborne. This means that it is highly transmissible through the air.
To explain this further, the University of the Philippines (UP) Manila, on Thursday, Feb. 3, held a webinar entitled COVID-19 is Airborne: Understanding and Implementing the Paradigm Shift.
During the webinar, Dr. Jose-Luis Jimenez, Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, explained that the virus that causes COVID-19, also known as the SARS-CoV-2, is transmitted in various ways.
Modes of transmission
According to Jimenez, there are three identified ways to transmit COVID-19.
“One is through surfaces... the other two ways are basically through little balls of saliva or respiratory fluid which travel through the air. We divide them into two types: the big ones and the small ones. In this particular transmission, the big ones are the droplets and the small ones are the aerosols.
Jimenez added that “droplets” can infect other people through an impact on the eyes, nostrils, and mouth. However, it cannot be inhaled. Meanwhile, the “aerosols” float in the air and can infect another individual through inhalation.
Furthermore, touching surfaces is the “least transmissible” mode, said Jimenez.
“Touching surfaces is a minor pathway at best. As of today, there are zero proven cases of surface transmission despite cameras and genomics,” he added.
What should we do?
Amid the general public’s confusion during the pandemic, Jimenez clarified that doing things, especially outdoors, can still be safe.
“If we only do one thing, the safest way that we can do things is outdoors. When we do things outdoors with distance, the probability is very low,” he said.
The statement came after concerns on whether it is already safe to go to public pools and beaches came.
“A swimming pool, if it’s not very crowded, I don’t think it is a high risk,” Jimenez said.
Meanwhile, according to Jimenez, sharing things with an infected individual may possess a greater risk of transmission, but touching things like a doorknob, table, and any surface remain at low risk.
“If you open a door, touch a light switch, or you touched a table, and then you touched your eye – that I think has a low probability. But if you really, really try I think you could get infected through surfaces,” Jimenez said.
Despite all of these, he said that it is “not impossible” to have a super spreader event outdoors. While there are still no recorded cases of a super spreader event that took place outside, he reiterated that the public should not be complacent amid the viral transmission. Instead, he advised everyone to “weigh the situation” and continue to adhere to the public health standards.