Four years after the coronavirus broke out, the World Health Organization has confirmed what was widely believed—the coronavirus spreads through the air, Fast Company reports.
The confirmation comes after years of debate and some experts warning there was an overemphasis on measures like handwashing to stop the virus at the beginning of the pandemic, rather than focusing on ventilation.
The WHO and around 500 experts also agreed for the first time what it means for a disease to spread through the air.
The Geneva-based U.N. health agency released a technical document on the topic on Thursday. The document is the first step towards working out how to better prevent this kind of transmission, both for existing diseases like measles and for future pandemic threats, according to the organization.
Almost 500 experts contributed to the document’s findings, including physicists, public health professionals, and engineers, many of whom disagreed bitterly over the topic in the past.
