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

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

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.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Morawska, Lidia, Bahnfleth, William, Bluyssen, Philomena M., Boerstra, Atze, Buonanno, Giorgio, Dancer, Stephanie J., Floto, Andres, Franchimon, Francesco, Haworth, Charles, Hogeling, Jaap, Isaxon, Christina, Jimenez, Jose L., Kurnitski, Jarek, Li, Yuguo, Loomans, Marcel, Marks, Guy, Marr, Linsey C., Mazzarella, Livio, Melikov, Arsen Krikor, Miller, Shelly, Milton, Donald K., Nazaroff, William, Nielsen, Peter V., Noakes, Catherine, Peccia, Jordan, Querol, Xavier, Sekhar, Chandra, Seppänen, Olli, Tanabe, Shin-Ichi, Tellier, Raymond, Wai, Tham Kwok, Wargocki, Pawel, Wierzbicka, Aneta
Other Authors: 0000-0002-9105-4017
Format: artículo biblioteca
Language:English
Published: Oxford University Press 2023-05-24
Subjects:Coronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 virus, Airborne infection spread, Airborne transmission, http://metadata.un.org/sdg/3, Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages,
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/310716
https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85160206684
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Summary: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.

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