Coronavirus Disease 2019 and Airborne Transmission: Science Rejected, Lives Lost. Can Society Do Better?

Lidia Morawska; William Bahnfleth; Philomena M Bluyssen; Atze Boerstra; Giorgio Buonanno; Stephanie J Dancer; Andres Floto; Francesco Franchimon; Charles Haworth; Jaap Hogeling; Christina Isaxon; Jose L Jimenez; Jarek Kurnitski; Yuguo Li; Marcel Loomans; Guy Marks; Linsey C Marr; Livio Mazzarella; Arsen Krikor Melikov; Shelly Miller; Donald K Milton; William Nazaroff; Peter V Nielsen; Catherine Noakes; Jordan Peccia; Xavier Querol; Chandra Sekhar; Olli Seppänen; Shin-Ichi Tanabe; Raymond Tellier; Tham Kwok Wai; Pawel Wargocki; Aneta Wierzbicka

doi:10.1093/cid/ciad068

Coronavirus Disease 2019 and Airborne Transmission: Science Rejected, Lives Lost. Can Society Do Better?

Clin Infect Dis. 2023 May 24;76(10):1854-1859. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciad068.

Authors

Lidia Morawska¹, William Bahnfleth², Philomena M Bluyssen³, Atze Boerstra⁴, Giorgio Buonanno⁵, Stephanie J Dancer⁶, Andres Floto⁷, Francesco Franchimon⁸, Charles Haworth⁹, Jaap Hogeling¹⁰, Christina Isaxon¹¹, Jose L Jimenez¹², Jarek Kurnitski¹³, Yuguo Li¹⁴, Marcel Loomans¹⁵, Guy Marks¹⁶, Linsey C Marr¹⁷, Livio Mazzarella¹⁸, Arsen Krikor Melikov¹⁹, Shelly Miller²⁰, Donald K Milton²¹, William Nazaroff²², Peter V Nielsen²³, Catherine Noakes²⁴, Jordan Peccia²⁵, Xavier Querol²⁶, Chandra Sekhar²⁷, Olli Seppänen²⁸, Shin-Ichi Tanabe²⁹, Raymond Tellier³⁰, Tham Kwok Wai²⁷, Pawel Wargocki¹⁹, Aneta Wierzbicka³¹

Affiliations

¹ International Laboratory for Air Quality and Heath, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
² Department of Architectural Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, USA.
³ Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands.
⁴ REHVA (Federation of European Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning Associations), BBA Binnenmilieu, The Hague, The Netherlands.
⁵ Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Cassino, Italy.
⁶ Edinburgh Napier University and NHS Lanarkshire Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom.
⁷ Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
⁸ Franchimon ICM Berkel, South Holland, The Netherlands.
⁹ Cambridge Centre for Lung Infection, Royal Papworth Hospital and Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
¹⁰ International Standards at ISSO, ISSO International Project, Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands.
¹¹ Ergonomics and Aerosol Technology Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
¹² Department of Chemistry, and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
¹³ REHVA Technology and Research Committee, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia.
¹⁴ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hong Kong University, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, China.
¹⁵ Department of the Built Environment, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
¹⁶ Centre for Air Quality Research and Evaluation (CAR), University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia.
¹⁷ Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA.
¹⁸ AiCARR, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy.
¹⁹ DTU Sustain, Department of Environmental and Resource Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark.
²⁰ Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
²¹ Environmental Health, School of Public Health, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA.
²² Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA.
²³ Faculty of Engineering and Science, Department of Civil Engineering, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark.
²⁴ School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom.
²⁵ Environmental Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
²⁶ Department of Geosciences, Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research, Spanish National Research Council, Barcelona, Spain.
²⁷ Department of the Built Environment, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
²⁸ Aalto University, Espoo, Finland.
²⁹ Department of Architecture, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.
³⁰ Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
³¹ Ergonomics and Aerosol Technology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

Abstract

This is an account that should be heard of an important struggle: the struggle of a large group of experts who came together at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to warn the world about the risk of airborne transmission and the consequences of ignoring it. We alerted the World Health Organization about the potential significance of the airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and the urgent need to control it, but our concerns were dismissed. Here we describe how this happened and the consequences. We hope that by reporting this story we can raise awareness of the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and the need to be open to new evidence, and to prevent it from happening again. Acknowledgement of an issue, and the emergence of new evidence related to it, is the first necessary step towards finding effective mitigation solutions.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2 virus; airborne infection spread; airborne transmission; coronavirus.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

COVID-19*
Humans
Pandemics / prevention & control
SARS-CoV-2
Societies
World Health Organization

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding