Is coronavirus exclusively airborne? This is a question many doctors and researchers wonder and for which many studies have been carried out, leading to very different results. And the CDC will not say otherwise as – as our peers from LCI recall – the American public health authority has updated their recommendations including airborne spread of the virus as the main mode of transmission, before changing their mind three days later. A perhaps exaggerated prudence as for the progress of the clinical trials on the matter, like this quite recent Chinese study.
Airborne transmission many researchers seem to acknowledge, like virologist, CNRS research head at the University of Paris-Saclay and head of the virology department from the Cell Including Biology Institute Yves Gaudin. Interviewed this Wednesday September 23 by LCI on the CDC’s turnaround, the scientist explains: “many of them have shone a light early on this mode of transmission via micro droplets suspended in the air at a time it becomes truly obvious”, speaking about “an accumulation of data in accordance with this”.
He goes on: “if we look at the main modes of contamination, the famous clusters, retrospectively, we realize the airborne transmission is responsible”. A respiratory disease working like any other respiratory disease: “we are facing a respiratory disease, and we know these diseases are obviously airborne on the condition that the pathogen is included”. What about the contamination by hand? This mode of transmission is less important, respiratory diseases being “by definition often linked to high airborne contamination” Yves Gaudin explains. Hence the importance of face covers in crowded places.
