Treating Patients With COVID-19 As An Airborne Virus
Treating Patients With COVID-19 As An Airborne Virus
Mounting evidence suggests that the Coronavirus is airborne, but we've received no guidance on it. On July 4th, 2020 a group of 239 scientists in 32 countries, wrote an open letter to the World Health Organization, insisting that its rapid spread can only be explained by being airborne. The WHO maintains that the research is still inconclusive, and that the coronavirus is primarily spread by large respiratory droplets that after getting expelled by people that are infected, through coughing and sneezing, they fall quickly to the ground.
On July 7th, the World Health Organization stated that it would review the evidence of airborne transmission and update its advice. An article in the MIT Technology Review argues that if the Coronavirus is airborne, we might be fighting it the wrong way.
Guidance for airborne diseases is as follows;
Patients who may have infection with this novel coronavirus should wear a surgical mask and be placed in an airborne infection isolation room. If an airborne infection isolation room is not available, the patient should be placed in a private room with the door closed. Health care providers should use standard, contact and airborne precautions and use eye protection. Please see “ [Update and Interim Guidance on Outbreak of 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) i(https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00426.asp).