The World Health Organization and approx. 500 experts have recently agreed for the first time what it means for a disease to spread through the air. The Geneva-based U.N. health agency recently released a document on this topic. It said it was the first step towards working out how to better prevent this kind of transmission, both for existing diseases such as measles and for future pandemic threats.
Almost 500 experts – including physicists, public health professionals, and engineers – contributed to the definition, many of whom disagreed fiercely over this topic in the past. During the early days of COVID in 2020, about 200 aerosol scientists publicly complained that the WHO had failed to warn people of the risk that the virus could spread through the air. They stated that lack of information led to excessive emphasis on measures like handwashing to stop the virus, rather than focusing on ventilation. Not until July 2020, did the agency report there was “evidence emerging” of airborne spread.
Chief scientist Jeremy Farrar recently stated in an interview that the new definition was about more than COVID. He explained that getting the definition agreed among experts from all disciplines would start discussions about issues such as ventilation in many different settings, from hospitals to schools and workplaces etc.
