Coronavirus Disease 2019 and Airborne Transmission

Coronavirus Disease 2019 and Airborne Transmission: Science Rejected, Lives Lost. Can Society Do Better?

Morawska, Lidia (Queensland University of Technology)
Bahnfleth, William (The Pennsylvania State University)
Bluyssen, P.M. (TU Delft Environmental & Climate Design)
Boerstra, Atze (REHVA)
Buonanno, Giorgio (University of Cassino and Southern Lazio)
Dancer, Stephanie J. (Edinburgh Napier University)
Floto, Andres (University of Cambridge)
Franchimon, Francesco (Franchimon ICM)
Hogeling, Jaap (ISSO)

2023

This is an account that should be heard of an important struggle: the struggle of a large group of experts who came together at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to warn the world about the risk of airborne transmission and the consequences of ignoring it. We alerted the World Health Organization about the potential significance of the airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and the urgent need to control it, but our concerns were dismissed. Here we describe how this happened and the consequences. We hope that by reporting this story we can raise awareness of the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and the need to be open to new evidence, and to prevent it from happening again. Acknowledgement of an issue, and the emergence of new evidence related to it, is the first necessary step towards finding effective mitigation solutions.

airborne transmission
airborne infection spread
coronavirus
COVID-19
SARS-CoV-2 virus

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:9eb4eae9-717a-4494-a58d-24377f89f22a

https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciad068

1058-4838

Clinical Infectious Diseases, 76 (10), 1854-1859

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2023 Lidia Morawska, William Bahnfleth, P.M. Bluyssen, Atze Boerstra, Giorgio Buonanno, Stephanie J. Dancer, Andres Floto, Francesco Franchimon, Jaap Hogeling, More Authors