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Can You Catch COVID-19 in the Air?
Coronavirus stays airborne and viable for minutes or hours after someone coughs, sneezes or just talks, evidence suggests
One big question that has vexed health officials since coronavirus first hopped from animals to humans back in December is how exactly it is transmitted between people. It was never in much doubt that like other viruses, this one could land on a hard surface or the hand of an infected person, in a cough or sneeze, and be picked up by the hand of another person, via a handshake or the turn of a doorknob, then transmitted to the face where it sneaks in through the eyes, nose or mouth.
What’s been far less clear is whether this coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2, gets airborne and stays suspended in the air long enough, while remaining viable, for someone else to get it in their eyes or inhale it and thus be infected.
The answer seems to be yes, yes, yes and probably. If it does, that would help explain why COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, is so highly transmissible.
3 hours in the air
Key evidence emerged March 17, when researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that the coronavirus can remain viable not just in droplets that tend to…
