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

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

doi:10.1093/cid/ciad068

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

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

^*Corresponding author for this work

Environmental & Climate Design

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Abstract

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.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1854-1859
Number of pages	6
Journal	Clinical Infectious Diseases
Volume	76
Issue number	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciad068
Publication status	Published - 2023

Keywords

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

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10.1093/cid/ciad068

ciad068Final published version, 360 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

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AU - Boerstra, Atze

AU - Buonanno, Giorgio

AU - Dancer, Stephanie J.

AU - Floto, Andres

AU - Franchimon, Francesco

AU - Hogeling, Jaap

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

Abstract

Keywords

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