Coronavirus
MIT Experts Warn That 6-Foot Social Distancing Doesn’t Protect Against All Viral Air Particles
When it comes to being indoors, the six feet rule of social distancing misses the bigger point of how coronavirus spreads, according to two Massachusetts Institute of Technology experts.
While staying six feet apart can help prevent the spread of large droplets of saliva or mucus that carry coronavirus and other germs, that distance does nothing to protect people from tiny airborne particles of virus called aerosols, MIT engineer Martin Bazant and mathematician John Bush write in a report published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Coronavirus is an airborne virus and even the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said an overreliance on cleaning surfaces may lead people to neglect the bigger danger — breathing in contaminated air.
