The SARS-CoV-2 Transmission Riddle - Part 13 The role of airborne transmission

Controversy on airborne transmission is nothing new

The term airborne is confusing. In its current use, it appears to include a range of particles, from rather large droplets to a fine mist of aerosol. Large droplets (droplet nuclei) are generated while breathing or, more likely, coughing or shouting, whereas an aerosol is generated with instrumental procedures in and out of hospitals. 

Air, the simple air that we breathe, has also been indicated as a possible medium of transport of infectious particles. The possibility that air may be infectious has historically been a bone of contention for reasons that are more to do with social science and politics than epidemiology. 

Malaria literally means bad air in Italian, and it was thought that malarial areas were such because of the presence of swamps which produce poisonous gases causing fever, so-called miasmata.

But malaria (like influenza) were terms generally used to indicate fevers and not specific ailments.

The joker in the pack was the presence of breeding grounds for anopheles mosquito…