The Chinese regime’s top health authority has confirmed that the novel coronavirus can be spread through the air under limited circumstances, adding a new route of transmission for the disease.
The coronavirus can be passed via aerosol transmission—that is, exposure to tiny droplets in the air containing the virus—if a person is exposed, over a long period of time, to high concentrations of aerosols carrying the virus in a relatively closed environment, according to updated guidelines published by China’s National Health Commission (NHC) on Feb. 19.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), measles, and H5N1 avian influenza are also capable of spreading through aerosols, which can stay in the air for a certain period of time.
Wang Guiqiang, the head of the Chinese society of infectious diseases, in a Feb. 20 press conference by China’s cabinet-like State Council noted that aerosol transmission was confined to those limited conditions set out in the guideline, adding that the virus was not transmissible through the air in normal circumstances.
Previously, the NHC provided only two main transmission routes for the virus—respiratory droplets and close contact with the infected—and said there was no evidence it could be spread through aerosol.
The CDC did not return a query from The Epoch Times as to whether it would update its advisory to incorporate this new information.
Researchers have also raised concerns that the virus could be spread through fecal contamination, given that the virus has been found in stool samples from patients.