Could passengers in a bus get infected by a single COVID carrier?
The answer, according to scientists, is yes.
This is because new developments have revealed that the COVID 19 virus is also transmissible by air.
“From airborne to droplet, and now back to airbone… unsaon na man lang tong healthcare personnel who were not protected when they said COVID-19 spreads via droplets?,” lamented Dulce Flores-Chandiramani from Tanjay, a registered nurse in New York City.
On her Facebook wall, Chandiramani posted a letter from the New York State Nurses Association informing her that their group was calling on the US government to “restore the previously-established airborne infection control protocols and standards” in the use of the N95 respirators and other personal protective equipment.
Closed-circuit TV cameras in China have helped scientists study how at least one person who was tested positive with the coronavirus disease eventually infected 13 others on two bus rides that he took as early as January.
In their findings published March 5 in the peer-reviewed Practical Preventive Medicine journal — which has since been retracted by the journal editors — scientists at the Hunan Provincial Centre for Diseases Control & Prevention found that the virus on the bus contaminated passengers as far as six rows away, or close to 15 feet, from where the COVID-positive person was seated.
The distance is four times farther than the recommended ‘safe distance’ from a COVID-19 patient.
The scientists said one bus passenger still got infected, even though he rode the bus about 30 minutes after the COVID-positive person had already disembarked.
The bus passengers who were wearing a face mask that time were not infected.
The researchers concluded that in warmer temperatures (about 37°C) without proper disinfection, COVID-19 can remain for two to three days on the surface of glass, plastic, fabric, paper or metal.
They said the confined space in an air-conditioned bus was a “perfect environment” for the coronavirus to spread.
The researchers suggested strict sanitation of public transport, cleaning buses or trains or taxicabs at least twice a day.
The publication of this study, however — which suggested that COVID could spread farther through fine droplets lingering in the air for at least 30 minutes in a confined area — has been retracted by the journal editors five days later. No reason was given for the retraction.
On March 16, the World Health Organization announced it was considering “airborne precautions” for health workers after another study revealed that COVID-19 can “survive in the air”, and that it can “go airborne, staying suspended in air depending on heat and humidity”.
“The virus is transmitted through droplets, or little bits of liquid, mostly through sneezing or coughing,” the head of the WHO Emerging Diseases & Zoonosis unit said in a virtual press conference. “It means… these particles can stay in the air a little bit longer.”