To understand the Coronavirus better, are currently being carried out non-stop investigations. Now, scientists have published a study, which deals with the ways in which people with the pathogen to infect. Accordingly, it is possible that the Coronavirus in the Form of floating to stay in the air. However, the results are treated with caution.
Since the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus to the end of the year, the science has, above all, a question: How exactly the Virus is transmitted – and also a Transmission via the air is possible? A study in the prestigious magazine "The New England Journal of Medicine" (NEJM) has fueled the debate again this week.
In it, the authors come to the "disturbing result, that the Transmission of the Virus SARS-CoV-2 by Aerosol", so, in the Form of suspended particles, is quite possible. But experts advise from over-hasty conclusions: according to them, the study is not to infer that the Virus infects people, by staying in the air when a Sick person coughs.
Virus have survived, according to the study three hours as the suspended particles in the air
Sure is, up to now, that SARS-CoV-2 is mainly transmitted via the respiratory tract – if a Patient when coughing ejects, for example, droplets Saliva, and body contact. Therefore, the health authorities advise to keep at least a meters distance.
In their NEJM study, the researchers demonstrated that the Virus can survive for three hours as the suspended particles in the air. For this, they sprayed the Virus with a type of atomizer in the air. Colleagues pointed out, however, that the Experiment has to do with the reality little. Must be a Sick cough or sneeze, "the droplets fall in comparison to an Aerosol rather quickly Boden", because they are heavier than the particles of a spray, said Paul Hunter of the UK’s University of East Anglia.
And also a virologist Christian Drosten said last week in the NDR Podcast: "The Virus is in the air for a short period of time. It will coughs and stands as a coarse to medium-large tröpfiges Aerosol in the air. And the falls relatively quickly to the ground. This is not so, that a Virus is as a cloud in the air for hours, and also in the neighboring room."
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Whether or not you get infected depends on the amount of the virus
In the NEJM-study, in addition to the Transmission of the Coronavirus of the air and to contamination by surface contact. After contact with contaminated surfaces, the risk that one takes with the Hand over the face, and this is the way to get infected is.
For up to three days, the pathogen was in the study on plastic or stainless steel surfaces to demonstrate, on a piece of cardboard up to 24 hours. If you get infected but actually, hanging from the "Amount of Viren" from, explain the researchers. "Our advice is therefore always as a precaution, regularly hands thoroughly to waschen", the British expert Hunter says.
Drosten sees the results of the investigation, however, critical. The "Tagesschau" quotes him with the words: "If you look at the data in this paper, it is not clear how much Virus was applied in which Form the test surfaces. There is simply only, because the Virus was given to the surface. But there is a big difference, whether this Virus is in a large or in a small liquid droplet, or a drop that has almost no volume."
Study confirms need for protective equipment for medical personnel
Overall, Transmission of the Virus neither surfaces can be excluded even on the air currently completely. "We are not able to wipe the idea completely aside, is that the Virus is in the position a certain distance in the air zurückzulegen", the renowned American immunologist Anthony Fauci said on Thursday the U.S. television channel NBC.
Should confirm the hypothesis that the Virus can survive in the air, would this also change the previous advice on the most suitable protection measures radically – for example, the current assumption that it makes little sense not to wear in everyday life, breathing protection masks, when one is sick. For the virologists Etienne Simon-Lorière from the Pasteur Institute, the study confirms, in any case, but a necessity for all Doctors and nurses, the Corona-patients in the hospital to treat: "Always good to schützen".
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