Jose L Jimenez, Linsey C Marr, Katherine Randall, Edward Thomas Ewing, Zeynep Tufekci, Trish Greenhalgh, Raymond Tellier, Julian W Tang, Yuguo Li, Lidia Morawska, Jonathan Mesiano-Crookston, David Fisman, Orla Hegarty, Stephanie J Dancer, Philomena M Bluyssen, Giorgio Buonanno, Marcel G L C Loomans, William P Bahnfleth, Maosheng Yao, Chandra Sekhar, Pawel Wargocki, Arsen K Melikov, Kimberly A Prather
The question of whether SARS-CoV-2 is mainly transmitted by droplets or aerosols has been highly controversial. We sought to explain this controversy through a historical analysis of transmission research in other diseases. For most of human history, the dominant paradigm was that many diseases were carried by the air, often over long distances and in a phantasmagorical way. This miasmatic paradigm was challenged in the mid to late 19th century with the rise of germ theory, and as diseases such as cholera, puerperal fever, and malaria were found to actually transmit in other ways...
August 2022: Indoor Air